I lived about an hour north of Paulding in Hanthingy until I was 22 and I still go back to the U.P. every summer for 3 months. I’ve been to the Paulding Light several times and have never seen anything or experienced anything unexplainable, paranormal, or out of the ordinary. I believe that what I’ve seen is nothing more than car headlights and here’s why:
Look at a detailed map of the area. The observation spot off Robbins Pond Road faces due north. Cars traveling due south on highway US-45 have their headlights pointed directly at the observation spot for several miles before the highway bends east just after Paulding. If I’m looking due north and I know that there are some cars traveling directly towards me, my common sense tells me that the lights I’m seeing are probably the headlights of those cars.
The video on this website that is labeled "Actual Footage of the
Light" can be misleading. It looks small for the first 2-3 seconds and then suddenly the Light gets really big. I’ve emailed Robert Wiegert who shot the film, and he told me he zoomed in on the Light which “magnified it 500%”. Only the first 2-3 seconds of this video is what the Light looks like to the naked eye.
I’ve never actually seen this myself, but people have told me that the Light is not always white. Remember that you’re looking at the headlights from much further away than when you usually observe car headlights. When you look at a light source from very far away, it looks a little different. Take stars for example: stars twinkle and some even seem to have shades of blue or some other color since the light is traveling such a great distance before it reaches your eyes. If you were closer to a star (or the car), it would just be a big, white, blinding light. And by the way, if you see a red Paulding Light, don’t you think it might be taillights of a car that’s traveling north on US-45? Since the car lights are so far away, fog, rain, or haze can change their appearance. If you were to go there every night for a year, I’m sure the Light would take on a variety of appearances on different nights just due to the normal changes in atmospheric conditions.
Some people get excited because they say the Light moved. Well yeah, cars tend to do that.
If you’ve been there before you know that the Light appears and disappears. One night I was there with two buddies until dawn and every time the Light appeared we timed how long it was visible. Every appearance lasted around 80 seconds give or take about 5 seconds. Wouldn’t cars traveling south on US-45 (say, between 50 and 70 mph) each be visible for approximately the same amount of time? You can try this yourself. If you try it, I’m not promising you that on the particular night you choose every car will be visible for an average of 80 seconds. In different weather conditions or different times of year (due to leaves on the trees or snow on the ground) I figure your average time could be longer or shorter. But I do reckon that all the Light appearances you observe on a single night will be visible for about the same amount of time.
Another reason people claim to see crazy stuff at the Light is because (in case you haven’t noticed) it’s a hell of a party spot. I’ve been there before where over half the people present are drinking and/or smoking weed. Sure, I’ve seen and experienced some weird things in my life too but I had enough sense to know it was the alcohol and/or drugs in my system and not ghosts, the grim reaper, leprechauns, magic fairies, or anything else like that.
Finally, one last reason I think you hear stories about the Paulding Light is simply this: the human desire to witness the incredible. I’ve been looking at the Light and the person next to me says “did you see that? It just turned green and then moved left to right!” And I didn’t know what the hell they were talking about. I never took my eyes off the Light and I didn’t see anything like that. When people are in the mood to see UFOs, the Loch Ness Monster, Big Foot, etc., they are more likely to think they are seeing something when they really aren’t. They aren’t necessary crazy or lying, just highly suggestible. If you go out into the middle of the woods at night, you’d be amazed at how easy it is to convince yourself you’re seeing or hearing things that aren’t really there. Have you ever been camping and you’re walking around in the dark and you think you see a skunk or whatever and it turns out just to be a rock? It’s the human imagination at work and it happens to all of us.
Now I’d like to comment on a couple of posts that are on this message board. Someone named Jeff in his post titled “I went to see the Light” talks about the lady with pictures. I know who you’re talking about and I’ve seen her pictures too. She claims to have been visiting the Light a couple times a week for about 10 years and if that’s true then she’s probably put in more hours there than the rest of us combined. The interesting thing about that lady is that every time I’ve seen her there, she has agreed with me that we were looking at car headlights. But she insisted that there is a “real” Paulding Light that is separate and independent of the car headlights and that it very rarely appears. I asked her how many times she has witnessed this “real” Paulding Light and she said less than a dozen. Less than a dozen appearances in 10 years! I am wondering if every couple of years or so the weather conditions and the time of year are just perfect and it makes the car headlights look a lot larger than usual, and this is what she calls the “real” Light. Kind of like if you were to play darts with a blindfold on a couple of nights a week for 10 years – every few months you would hit the bulls-eye just out of luck. Anyways, her pictures don’t impress me. She showed me about a dozen photos and all they look like to me is car headlights on a foggy night, car headlights in the rain, car headlights on a hazy night, etc. No big deal. If these pictures are the best evidence someone can come up with after 10 years, isn’t that the best evidence of all that nothing weird is happening?
Someone named Rick under the discussion titled “the Paulding Light Mystery” claims that “the government” has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to “keep people away from the Light”. For crying out loud. If they really wanted people away from the Light, wouldn’t they just come up with a lame excuse to close the road to the observation spot and put up a fence? They would say they’re doing it because the place has become too much of an underage drinking spot or something like that. It seems like all these bogus stories about UFOs or whatever always include hogwash about “the government” hiding the truth. It’s talk like this that lead people to believe that we never landed on the moon and other such nonsense and it’s really stupid. This is reality, not an X-files episode, so cut the crap.
Let the Paulding Light be what it is: a fun party spot. No more, no less. All you folks who say you’ve seen monsters or ghosts or that the Light came within 10 feet of you, bring your video camera next time and get some footage! Nothing personal but I’m not going to believe it until I experience it for myself or see some proof.
By the way, Jarvi’s bar in Paulding has some huge fish on the wall and has the best juke box in the UP. It’s a fun place to hang out for a little while before you venture on to the Light. See you there next summer!
