Paulding Lights - Watersmeet, Michigan

Since at least the 1960s, visitors to the forest around Watersmeet and Paulding in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula have reported encountering a strange red light. It is said to rise up like an ember, grow in size and intensity, and then disburse in a haze. This phenomenon is repeated almost nightly, week after week. The Paulding Light became so well known that Ripley’s Believe it or Not offered a cash reward to anyone who could determine its origins. Unlike other spook lights, this one has been recorded on film by the local media. Its first reported sighting was by a group of teenagers in 1966. They claimed the light shone so brightly that it lit up the interior of their car. Ten years later, Elmer Lent and Harold Nowak had a more dramatic encounter. They saw not one, but two lights that alternated colors between red and green. The smaller light appeared to move around the other. Some researchers concluded the Paulding Light is nothing more than car headlights reflecting off the unique terrain, but most locals strongly disagree.