Example of how legends and “paranormal� beliefs

[Zzyzx]

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Example of how legends and “paranormal� beliefs originate and persist – even after shown to be adequately explained without anything out of the ordinary.

A mysterious white light in the upper peninsula of Michigan has left hundreds of locals confounded and filled paranormal hunters with awe for half a century. The Paulding Light is a phenomenon near the Wisconsin border that has fascinated hundreds of people since it was first observed in the 1960s and has been considered a mystery for half a century

A group of high school boys first reported the light to a local sheriff in 1966 and ever since it has created lore in northern Michigan.

Some ghost hunters believe the spirit of a rail road break man who died trying to stop an oncoming train swings the light while others suggest it's the ghost of a grandparent searching for a missing child.

Jason Lannet, the 43-year-old owner of the Paulding General Store, has watched visitors come and go to see the light for themselves.

'I've seen it where there's 50 cars there, both sides of the road and all the way back. I get a million people that come looking for directions because they're lost,' Lannet said.

So many people have come to see the light that the U.S. Forest Service erected a sign (pictured) so people would know they were in the best spot to observe it

Some ghost hunters believe the spirit of a rail road break man who died trying to stop an oncoming train swings the light while others suggest it's the ghost of a grandparent searching for a missing child

Despite the wonder surrounding the light, a group of engineers took it upon themselves to get to the bottom of the mystery.

In 2010, Jeremy Bos, who was a grad student at Michigan Tech at the time, decided to find the origin of the light for himself. A dozen students headed out to the spot and using a spectrograph and a telescope, determined the light was coming from cars on a highway that ran near where the light shone.

Locals were not pleased and while some disagreed others accused him of ruining their fun.

Despite this, people still flock to the area to see the Paulding Light shine.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... iasts.html

When people do not understand what they see or experience they often imagine all sorts of strange "explanations".

[OnceConvinced]

It really does seem as though humans have it hardwired into them to want to believe nonsense. They want to believe in something more than just the natural. This story is a perfect example of how religion works. People either want so much for it to be true or just don't want to believe it's wrong.

[benchwarmer]

[Replying to post 1 by Zzyzx]

Locals were not pleased and while some disagreed others accused him of ruining their fun.

I'm purely speculating, but I bet a lot of the displeasure over explaining the phenomenon was the expected loss in revenue for the town from the tourists.

Don't mess with someone's cash cow and expect to be praised.

[Zzyzx]

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Don't mess with someone's cash cow and expect to be praised.

"Follow the money" or "Learn who benefits" seem to answer many questions.