Posted on March 21st, 2012 at 12:20 PM by Alaskankare

I watched an episode of SyFy’s Fact or Faked last night on the Paulding Lights of Michigan and thought they did a descent job of investigating, and agreed with their conclusion that it was unexplained. However, I was depressed to see that students at Michigan Tech also researched the lights shortly after the episode aired in 2010. The big difference? MIT thought to bring a telescope to look at the light. Thus, they found it was indeed headlights. MIT was able to prove this by using the telescope to identify a sign along the stretch of highway for this specific spot where the headlights could be seen. Although Fact or Faked, had also ran a vehicle up and down the highway with no results, obviously they must have been in the wrong stretch of road. The further information that the light was sometimes multiple lights, changed colors from red to white, or flashed blue and red, should have been HUGE clues that they were vehicle lights. This info was never relayed on the tv episode, only that it was a “light” that pulsated and never moved, or at least that was the impression the show gave.

It is sad to find out that a mystery light, that I had even heard about, is indeed something as mundane as vehicle lights from a highway.

Locally, we have a hill near town that snowmachiners follow a trail on. Once in a while you can see the headlights from the snowmachine. When it is dark out, you can’t see the hill and only this mysterious light that doesn’t appear to move. Maybe I should start a folk story about an old gold miner killed tragically trying to signal for rescue. The point being, lights at night, are hard determine what they are from and the likelihood that they are supernatural or alien ships is nill. More than likely, they are manmade phenomenon that we mistake for something else because the human mind craves sensationalism.