Haight Township

The Paulding Light

On a cleared corridor beneath a power line near Paulding in Upper Michigan, a single light has been seen at the far end on evenings since 1966: by tradition the lantern of a brakeman crushed by a train. The spot became a tourist site and the Forest Service put up a sign. In 2010 students from Michigan Technological University turned a telescope on the light and saw cars in the eyepiece, running on Highway 45 near Dog Meadow eight kilometres away — headlights, sidelights and brake lights all distinguishable. They then drove a car out there and flashed its lights to order over the radio: the light flashed back. An inversion layer over the corridor lifts the headlight beams above the terrain and compresses them into a single point.