UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN

For the ufologically-minded, Jim Moseley was without a doubt most associated with his highly entertaining newsletter, Saucer Smear. It was a semi-regular, self-published collection of Moseley’s comments, rants and observations on the UFO research scene. Moseley was someone who, in later years, focused just about all of his time and effort on poking fun at ufologists whenever and wherever he could. He did so in a very witty fashion, too. I should stress, though, that Moseley did have a real, deep interest in the UFO phenomenon itself. And a firm belief in it, too. Right up until the time of his death. Back in 1953 Moseley hit the road – in what really was a definitive Jack Kerouac/Neal Cassady-style – in search of the answers to what was going on in the heavens above. What Moseley found out, as he traveled from New York to California and back again, was a significantly varied and entertaining collection of eccentrics, liars, nut-jobs, and – to Moseley’s relief – genuinely interesting eyewitnesses to strange, aerial craft in the skies of 1950s America. Altogether, Moseley interviewed around one hundred people, on a clunky, big recorder, which was no mean feat. The list of interviewees included George Adamski himself and Frank Scully, of Behind the Flying Saucers infamy.

Moseley’s coast-to-coast trip was funded by a guy named Ken Krippine. He was a somewhat shady, dubious character who had suggested that if he, Moseley, would do all of the research, then Krippine would write a book on Moseley’s UFO findings. The two would then split the profits right down the middle. Sounds good, right? Well, for a while, yes, it sounded verygood. The proposed book, however, did not materialize; at least, not as Moseley and Krippine had originally planned things. No, it wasn’t due to the infernal intervention of the mysterious Men in Black. Rather, it was all due to a distinct lack of interest on the part of just about every publisher that Moseley approached with his well-thumbed and increasingly-creased and crumpled manuscript. Moseley was not one to be daunted, however. Years later – decades, in fact – he put just about all of his old notes and audio-recordings to good use in his hilarious autobiography, Shockingly Close to the Truth, which was written with Karl Pflock.

It was in 1955 that Moseley, in his own words, “had fallen under the influence” of a man named Charles Samwick. The latter was someone who, before retiring from the U.S. Army, worked in the hall-and-mirrors-filled world of counter-intelligence, which included keeping a very close eye on what the Russians were said to be up to inside the United States. Not only that, Moseley was able to determine that Samwick had, in some hazy, unclear fashion, ties to the CIA’s Robertson Panel and had once helped to bust a Soviet spy-ring in Washington, D.C. Samwick and Moseley soon became good buddies, with Moseley somewhat dazzled and disturbed by one particular thing that Samwick had to say. He told Moseley: “The Communist Party has planted an agent in every civilian saucer club in the United States.” Whether this was true, or amounted to hard-to-prove words inspired by the likes of Joseph McCarthy, Moseley was in no position to disagree with his well-informed source. But, he did make Samwick’s revelations the subject of an editorial in his pre-Saucer Smear newsletter, Saucer News. In the June-July 1955 issue Moseley revealed the following to his eager readers, but specifically without revealing Samwick’s name.

Moseley said: “Although it is perhaps unwise to inject a political note into a flying saucer magazine, we feel obliged to point out to our readers certain dangers which, taken together, add up to a possible Communist menace to saucer enthusiasts. First, for several months we have had good reason to believe that Communist agents have been planted in all of America’s leading saucer groups, for information-gathering purposes. This in itself is not a startling fact, but it should serve as a note of caution to saucer researchers who in the course of their studies might unearth information of a technical military nature.

He continued: “Secondly, let us all give some very serious consideration to the many alleged space men being called to the public’s attention – all of whom invariably tell us of the dangers of war and the exploitation of atomic energy. No one desires peace any more than we do, but let us remember too that it is part of the Communist ‘peace line’ to frighten the American people into ceasing our atomic experiments. It is quite possible that some of these ‘space men’ are unwittingly playing into the hands of the Communists. Last but not least, let us not fall into the pitfall of condemning the Government of the United States just because the Air Force refuses to tell us all we would like to know about flying saucers – I have been told that some of the remarks made at the Saucer Convention last March came dangerously close to sedition!

In conclusion, Moseley said: “Even as ardently loyal saucer fans, we all can and should face the fact that there are more important and immediate problems in the world today. Whether the saucers are held to be from Space or Earth, it is quite obvious that they present no immediate threat to the safety of this Country; so there is nothing to worry about. Of course everyone would be happier if ‘officialdom’ would be more generous with its information on saucers, but for the present we can only assume that that there is a good sufficient reason for the continuing scarcity of information from official sources. In making the above remarks, we are not referring to any particular individual or organization in the field of saucer research. We are merely observing that the saucerian field is alarmingly ripe for use in furthering Communist ends. Let each individual among us be on his guard that he does not fall into such a trap.”

Out in a rural, remote area of the U.S. state of Arkansas, at a small town called Gurdon, in Clark County, about 75 miles south of Little Rock and a few miles off Interstate 30, is a deserted stretch of railroad track just outside of town near the Sandy Creek cemetery and paralleled by a dusty, pockmarked dirt road that would not look out of place in some horror movie. If you are to come here to this forgotten place and walk along the tracks to a specific spot just before where the tracks cross State Road 53, you may be treated to quite an outlandish sight. Coming through the gloom ahead you might notice a bobbing white orb of light, sometimes bluish green and at other times a reddish orange, with a very defined and clear shape, which will hover and float along about 3 feet over the railroad tracks before veering off and flickering out. What you are seeing is a persistent phenomenon that has been witnessed by hundreds of people, and what has come to be called the “Gurdon Spook Light” has become entwined with the fabric of the local folklore, and is one of Arkansas’s most well-known paranormal mysteries.

The most persistent tale surrounding the origin of the mystery light is that it is ghostly in nature. The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History holds the tale of a railway foreman named Will McClain, who in December of 1931 was murdered by a worker he had fired named Louis McBride. The disgruntled McBride apparently ruthlessly killed McCain with a pickaxe or spiked maul, after which he placed the body on the tracks for it to be cut in half by a passing train. Police would arrest McBride, find him guilty, and have him executed by electric chair in 1932, and it was not long after this murder that the mysterious light began appearing, hence the idea that it is actually the spirit of McClain, carrying the lantern he had used while working on the tracks.

While the the players and murder are a real part of history, what is not clear is whether this is really a ghost or not. Nevertheless, it is from that point that the light became entrenched in the area’s lore, and would be sighted by numerous people, starting with a conductor who said that he was followed by an orb of light for several miles before it suddenly shot straight up into the air. The light has gone on to be seen very frequently and regularly, to the point that the trail leading out to where the tracks are has become quite well-defined from all of the curiosity seekers who come here to see it. Many of the locals have seen it so often that it is just sort of a part of the landscape, and one local named Robert Nunnally has said of it:

I grew up in Gurdon, and have seen the light many times. It tends to appear as a colored spherical light, hovering in a ghostly or space alien way in mid-air. The legend surrounding the light is that a headless railroad man, victim of a revenge murder, hunts for his head with a lantern. The phenomenon transcends the legend, though, as the experience of seeing the Gurdon Light is both frequent and unusual — a natural roadside attraction of the highest order.

The phenomenon has been covered on a November 1994 episode of Unsolved Mysteries and it has gone on to generate quite a lot of interest and debate over the years. That the light does indeed exist is not really disputed, but what it is depends largely on who you ask. Besides the ghost theory, there is also the idea that what people are seeing is simply headlights off on the nearby I-30, but this explanation is problematic as the phenomenon had been seen since long before the interstate was there. There are also many trees and hills standing between the interstate and the location of the light, and in an article for the Arkansas Gazette a local graduate student researching the light said of this theory:

The nearest interstate to the tracks is about four miles away, and a large hill stands in between the tracks and the interstate. If the light was caused by passing headlights, it would have to be refracted up and over the hill to be visible on the other side.

The Gurdon Spook Light

Swamp gas, which is a highly combustible gas produced be decomposing vegetation, has also been offered as a possibility, but this could not account for the light being seen in very windy conditions, and it fails to explain why it is always such a well-defined orb and why it is only ever seen in this one place. It could also be due to the high concentration of quartz in the area releasing some sort of electrical charge, but how would this explain the shape, movement, and almost intelligent behavior the spook light is said to exhibit, as well as the sheer frequency with which it is seen and its limited area? It has also been offered that it is a mirage, but a physics professor named Dr. Charles Leming thoroughly studied the light without ever finding an answer, and he claimed that through filters the Gurdon Light did not polarize as a mirage would be expected to do. He also found that it produced no electromagnetic current and is always the same size and shape no matter what the atmospheric conditions are. So what could it be? Who knows? One witness has said of the light:

A ball of yellowish light will almost always appear, hovering over the tracks. The light seems to be about the size of a basketball, and around fifty yards away. If you walk toward it, the light will receed away from you or disappear, sometimes reappearing behind you. I myself have seen it, and believe me when I tell you that it is not a hoax, a mirage, or “reflected light”… something very strange is going on in Gurdon. A great “X-files” style road trip destination.

What is going on here? There has been no completely satisfactory consensus on it all, and the only way to really know is to go out there and check it out for yourself. If you do lan on going, please do go in prepared, as it is said that the trestles or the railway are perilous, the terrain is rugged and rocky, and it is completely pitch black and rugged out there. For the time being, the spook light of Gurdon remains a perplexing mystery and regional phenomenon that has so far defied any concrete answers, and it continues to be regularly seen right up to this day. What is it? Is it a ghost, a natural phenomenon, or something else. No one really seems to know, and it continues to bob along out there in the wilds as it has for years and may do for many more.