The Gurdon Light in Arkansas

A mysterious light about the size of a basketball hovers above the railroad tracks just north of Gurdon, Arkansas. Appearing along a four-mile stretch of track that runs through a swamp and a cemetery, constantly changing color, the light has been the object of speculation for decades.

Could it be reflected car headlights?

Dr. Charles Leming, professor of physics at Henderson State University and an acknowledged authority on the Gurdon light, thinks it might be. "All sorces of light have their own characteristics of the spectrum," says Leming.

Using a spectrograph, Dr. Leming had photographs made of both the light and car headlights. When the Gurdon light photos were compared with those of the headlights, they were the same.

Mike Clingan, a graduate of the University of South Carolina and a former Henderson student who worked with Dr. Leming, has a different opinion.

"The nearest interstate to the tracks is about four miles away, and a large hill stands in between the tracks and the interstate," says Clingan. "If the light was caused by passing headlights, it would have to be refracted up and over the hill to be visible on the other side.

Additionally, states a 1980 Arkansas Gazette article, "Clingan has attempted to guage the length of time it would take a car to cross the horizon point at a 45 degree angle (the angle of the interstate to the tracks) at 55 miles an hour. Moving at 80 feet per second, he explained, 'the lights would be visible much longer than the second it takes for the Gurdon light to appear and disappear.' He also has walked close enough to the highway to hear the sounds of specific specific trucks - and insists the sounds never coordinated with the appearances of the light."

Observes the Arkadelphia Daily Siftings Herald" "...the Gurdon light has been seen all the way back to the '30s, long before the interstate was even built."

"There's no documented proof that the light first began appearing in the '30s," says Dr. Leming. "But highway headlights don't necessarily explain the phenomenon." He admits he's stumped.