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Not sure if it's been discussed before, but what stories can members relate about Will o the wisp? is it a British phenomenon or is it world wide?
St.Clair said:What would be the ignition though?
Mulder: Swamp gas?
Scully: It's a natural phenomenon in which phosphine and methane rising from decaying organic matter ignite, creating globes of blue flame.
Mulder: Happens to me when I eat Dodger Dogs. How can a dozen witnesses including a squad of police vehicles in three counties become hysterical over swamp gas?
Presently it grew altogether dark: the air itself seemed black and heavy to breathe. When light apperared Sam rubbed his eyes: he thought his head was going queer. He first saw one with the corner of his left eye, a wisp of pale sheen that faded away; but others appeared soon after: some like dimly shining smoke, some like misty flames flickering slowly above unseen candles; here and there they twisted like ghostly sheets unfurled by hidden hands. But neither of his companions spoke a word.
At last Sam could bear it no longer. "What's all this, Gollum?' he said in a whisper. "These lights? They're all round us now. Are we trapped? Who are they?'
Gollum looked up. A dark water was before him, and he was crawling on the ground, this way and that, doubtful of the way. 'Yes, they are all round us,' he whispered. 'The tricksy lights. Candles of corpses, yes, yes. Don't you heed them! Don't look! Don't follow them![']
In February 1909, for example, newspaper accounts told of the excitement generated in Stockton, Pennsylvania, over the "appearance at night of an arrow of flame, which hovers over the spot on the mountain where the dismembered body of a woman was found in a barrel two years ago.... The light appears every night at about 9 o'clock and hovers over the spot until midnight, but it disappears when anyone approaches the spot to investigate. The superstitious villagers say it is the avenging spirit of the slain woman come back to keep alive the history of the crime so that the murderers may some day be apprehended"
To this account of Mr. Davis, I will subjoin what my worthy friend and neighbour Randal Caldicot, D.D. hath affirmed to me many years since, viz. When any Christian is drowned in the river Dee, there will appear over the water where the corps is, a light, by which means they do find the body: and it is therefore called the Holy Dee. The doctor's father was Mr. Caldicot, of Caldicot in Cheshire, which lies on the river.
many_angled_one said:"It is classically a good sign of shallow graves seeing corpse candles or will o' the wisps above ground as this is said to be due to the body(ies) decomposibng and giving off combustable gases in the process."
jimv1 said:Doesn't it 'officially' account for 35% of UFO sightings?
lancemfoster said:...head-high. It glowed with a gas they called "swamp gas". He caught it in his hand, and then crumbled it, and it stopped glowing.
gncxx said:Is it weird that he didn't burn his hand on it (apart from the other weirdness)?
Mythopoeika said:gncxx said:Is it weird that he didn't burn his hand on it (apart from the other weirdness)?
Good point.
Was it on fire, or was it bioluminescence?