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Gurdon Ghost Light

Near Gurdon, Arkansas, (about 75 miles south of Little Rock) a headless ghost wanders around, looking for its head . . . anyway, that’s the story. Take the hike on a dark night and you’ll see what many others have seen: a strange wandering light that keeps the legend alive.

But a simple idea by a Mr. Fred Silcock, of Australia, might nail shut the coffin lid on that headless ghost. According to this bird expert, as recorded in his book, The Min Min Light, wandering lights that behave much like hunting barn owls are probably barn owls. It seems that some of these nocturnal birds can glow with an intrinsic bioluminescence; it may be used to catch insects when rodents are scarce.

So the truthfulness of the death of a railroad worker on those tracks years ago—that is irrelevant. The Gurdon Light behaves like a hunting barn owl (Tyto Alba, to be precise), so that is probably what it is.