It’s not unusual to hear people talk about their paranormal experiences. In fact, almost everyone has a story about something unexplainable happening to them. Whether you believe in them or not, ghost stories are a tried and tested way to scare yourself and others.
Hearing a story of the unexplainable from your own loved one is perhaps even scarier than experiencing it first hand. Our school’s assistant softball coach and teacher, Chelsea Turner, would agree with that. When her dad had a strange experience with his boss in their new home, it was hard to come up with a logical explanation as to what had actually happened. Her dad was moving from their family home in Texas to take up a new job position in Oklahoma. The old family home they were planning on moving too, had a lot of backstory, originally owned by three families before them. At one time it was used as a physician’s office before they had hospitals, where many sickly patients passed away
Since her dad stayed with the same company when he moved, his boss from Texas had come to stay with him in this house during a work trip.
“My dad had his boss come and stay up. They were driving to work one day, and his boss was like ‘Well, I didn’t know that you had dogs.’ And my dad just kind of looked at him and his boss continued talking ‘I was petting these two greyhound dogs and like they were really cute and and I just assumed that you had to had let them outside this morning since I didn’t see them then.’ And my dad was like, ‘We don’t have any dogs. Like, even in Texas, we didn’t have any dogs. We just had a cat,’ And he said that his boss’s face just went, ghost white,” Turner said
It’s hard to imagine how his boss felt after discovering that the two very alive dogs he was playing with in the house were in fact, not what they seemed.
Creepy, right? To add to the eeriness of this situation. Turner and her family had friends come over to the house and they claimed to hear the clicking of paws, and what sounded like dogs.
If this past story didn’t hit close enough to home, this one will. Just a little over an hour away from Springfield, is a much talked about phenomenon, known as the Joplin Spook Light.
“So l grew up in the Joplin area. I’m from Carl Junction, Missouri, and growing up, we’d always heard stories about the Spook Light just south of Joplin. Originally it was known as the Hornet Spook Light because there used to be a town in that area called, Hornet,” Joel Blackburn, our school’s pottery teacher stated.
According to Joplin Missouri’s website, joplinmo.org, the so-called ‘Hornet Spooklight’ has a lot of history. In fact, it has been sighted for over a century. On the border of Missouri and Oklahoma, this light is usually seen eastward, in Hornet, Missouri. Some claim that it was seen by Native Americans on the Trail of Tears, but the first official report of it was in 1881. The best time to see this light, according to locals, is between ten o’clock and midnight. And this is something that our very own Coach Blackburn has done.
“When I was younger, I’d always heard about the Spook Light, and so we went out there. I went out with my parents, and we were driving along, and back then it was still just a gravel road. They’ve since paved it over to try to stop traffic. But we were driving down the road, and I saw the light appear,” Blackburn said
What Blackburn is about to describe, is much like what is frequently reported by people. On the top of a hill, Blackburn and his family saw a light appear on a plateau between the hill they were on, and a different hill.
“So we stopped, and what it looked like was about the size of a basketball. On either side of the gravel road there were like these little ditches. And basically what it would do is it would hover from one side of the road to the other. And it almost looked like it had a little bit of a bob to it when it would hover,” Blackburn said.
Blackburn described the light moving from one ditch to the other, back and forth.
“And so we sat there, and we just watched it, and as it were, bob from one side of the ditch to the other, and it would change color. It would go from like a green, to a blue, to an orange, it almost looked like it would swell a little bit going on,” Blackburn said.
In an article titled ‘Route 66’s glowing mystery orb’ published by the BBC describing this light, it mentions how it’s not uncommon for people to report it changing colors.
“Well, it kind of worked its way from one ditch to the next a couple times, and then it just stopped in the middle of the road. It froze in color. It froze its movement, and it just stopped, like everything just came to a halt, you know. The next thing I know, it shot off into the woods as quickly as it possibly could. So it was like, you know, in their woods on either side, so you could see it tuck in behind the trees and just shoot off in the woods and disappear,” Blackburn said.
There are many different rumors on what this light is that originated through folklore.
“But, yeah, literally, just kind of went slow, almost like it looked like somebody walked, you know, like a lantern. I mean, I know that’s part of the, you know, the myth and the folklore is how it appears,” Blackburn said.
According to Joplin’s website, The folklore Blackburn mentioned was the legend of a miner whose cabin was attacked by Native Americans while he was away. When he returned, he found his wife and children missing. He is said to continue looking for them along the old road, searching with his lantern. Although Blackburn later mentions that it didn’t necessarily look like a lantern, there are many other stories behind this strange phenomena.
Many students at our school have ghost stories of their own. Such as senior Kassidy Moore. A few years ago, she experienced something that she still remembers to this day. Staying in an older house in our town, Moore was attempting to get some sleep.
“It was past midnight and everyone in my house was sleeping. No lights were on. It was completely silent except for the A/C,” Moore said.
Then Moore claims that something unexplainable happened. “I woke up randomly, and I was trying to go back to sleep. But suddenly I felt someone sit on my bed. Not only did I feel the extra weight on my bed, I also heard my bed creak,” Moore said.
What Moore experienced is something that has been reported consistently for centuries. Although it could be explained away as sleep paralysis, the fact that Moore was awake before this occurrence is spooky.
“I was really confused since no one else should have been in my room, so I was too scared to turn around. But after about six minutes, I peeked over my shoulder and no one was there,” Moore said.
Not just Moore’s house is haunted, in fact, Springfield is full of ghost stories. According to an article titled Haunted Places of Southwest and Branson MO, written for The Ozark Traveller, there are a plethora of hauntings. Such as at the Landers Theatre, where many ghosts reportedly roam. Such as a 1920’s janitor, a baby that was accidentally dropped off of a balcony, and a tall blonde woman from the Edwardian period.
At the Pythian Castle, ghost sightings were so common that they now offer ghost tours there. Something unique about Springfield, though, is the reportedly haunted schools. Such as Drury university, where a part of the campus was rumored to be built on an old Native American burial ground, and saw bloodshed during the Civil War. According to students, there is a little girl in a pink dress that haunts a dormitory, and piano’s play themselves in the Music hall. Missouri State University has many unexplainable hauntings as well, such as a ghost that they call the “Dorm Mom.”
Even Central High School has been rumored to be haunted, because of it being built on top of caves that were rumored to be used during the underground railroad. Although there are no reports of our school being haunted, keep your eyes peeled this spooky season for anything strange, because it could just be one of the many ghosts that haunt our town. Only three stories from our school’s teachers and students were featured in this, but there are many others in our halls that have a story of the unexplainable, and perhaps even you do.
