Mystery Lights – Ghost Story

The small community of Belfast, Virginia, is but a very short distance from my home. It is a pleasant farming community, with the gently rolling hills dotted with sheep and cattle. As a child, I spent many summer days on my aunt and uncle’s farm, wading the creek, roaming the hills, and exploring the barn. Given its peaceful beauty, it is not, by any standard, a place one would expect anything of a violent nature to occur.

But…in one noted hollow, the peacefulness of the community was abruptly shattered, when, in the heat of a bitter argument, a man brutally murdered his father-in-law with an axe. He had calmly left the house and made his way to the nearby woodshed, where he picked up the axe, and entered the back yard. His father-in-law had exited the house by the back door, where his son-in-law met him. Striking the man repeatedly with the axe, he was not content until he had completely decapitated the unfortunate older man, there on the back stoop of the farmhouse.

In the years to follow, strange lights were sighted by various persons traveling along the road that passed the farm where the murder had occurred.

Sometime after darkness had fallen in the hollow, a bright ball of light, about the size of a basketball, would appear in the grove of trees that surrounded the then abandoned farm. The light would wind its way through the grove, and slowly approach the roadway. Those unfortunate enough to be passing at the time, would find themselves accosted by the light, which would settle just above, and in front of the hood of the car. It would stay in this position for approximately a mile, and then simply vanish from sight.

Could this be the spirit manifestation of the murdered man? Perhaps. Spirits are known to manifest as glowing orbs and other anomalies. But if this is the case, what can the spirit be seeking? I’m afraid I am not brave enough to pursue the answer.

© Paulette Boyd

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