Susan Hough, a seismologist at the USGS, investigates a decades-old legend of a glowing orb seen near Summerville, South Carolina, connecting it to the possibility of earthquake lights. Hough explores the history of the Summerville Light and the phenomenon of earthquake lights, examining potential explanations like gas releases and static electricity. Though circumstantial, the evidence suggests a link between the light and earthquake activity in the region, prompting Hough to consider further research and field work.
Learn why a seismologist wants to go ghost-busting in Summerville, South Carolina, and how earthquake lights could help us pinpoint earthquake activity.Sign up for our email newsletter for the latest science newsSusan Hough, a seismologist at the United States Geological Survey , was scouring archives for information about that struck Charleston, South Carolina, in 1886.
Her search brought her to a bookstore where she encountered“It was the sort of thing you stash in the back of your mind,” Hough says. At first, she didn’t give it much thought. But near Halloween, when the USGS drew a connection between science and the supernatural in themed emails, she recalls, “that got me thinking — what about those actual ghost stories?” The Summerville Light was a glowing orb seen by locals throughout the 1960s on a nearby abandoned railroad. Along these tracks, legend has it, a widow still searches for the remains of her husband, a railroad worker decapitated in an accident. The bobbing light that turns orange, green, and blue, is said to be her lantern. Hough, ever the scientist, has her own explanation. She noticed the old accounts seemed consistent with a phenomenon that, although very much of this world, is hardly less mysterious: earthquake lights.. In the mid 19th century, the Irish engineer Robert Mallet — regarded as the “founder of seismology” — compiled a list of reports dating back to 1606 B.C.E. The descriptions are diverse: luminous balls rolling along the ground or floating above it, aurora-like clouds in the sky, streaks shooting through the air, all in a range of color. Yet despite these accounts, Hough says that as recently as the 80’s, when she was a graduate student, the existence of earthquake lights was still up for debate. “I think most seismologists now accept that they’re real,” she says. “But I don’t think there’s a really mature accepted theory to explain them.”January 2025 in the journal. That region of South Carolina clearly has an active fault, and the sightings occurred near the epicenter of the massive 1886 quake. What’s more, several smaller temblors struck the same area in 1959 and 1960, around the time the light was first observed. There were other clues. Witnesses reported their cars shaking violently when they saw the light, which “just screams earthquake,” as Hough put it. The residents of creaky old buildings in town heard noises upstairs, “which brings to mind shaking that’s right at the threshold of perceptibility.”What Causes Earthquake Lights? The evidence is only circumstantial, of course. The problem with earthquake lights, Hough says, “is you can’t catch them in the act. They’re fleeting, and they’re not captured by any of the instruments we put out.” Plus, the reports from Summerville ran dry decades ago. Still, she thinks there are plausible mechanisms tying the light to earthquakes. One of the most compelling comes from Yuji Enomoto, a Japanese seismologist at Shinshu University. In2024, he proposed that earthquake lights could result from the chemical interactions of gases, like radon and methane, released from underground. It may be that the railroad itself plays a key role — Hough bets all that steel could build up static electricity, providing the spark to ignite certain gases. That could make sense of similar lore spread far and wide across train country. “There is a whole army of ghosts with lanterns wandering railroad tracks looking for severed heads,” she says. “You start to think, OK, is that the set of ingredients?” Not everyone is convinced. John Ebel, a seismologist at Boston University and historian of East Coast earthquakes, is skeptical that what’s going on in Summerville could be caused by imperceptible tremors; in his experience, earthquake lights are typically associated with major seismic events. California’s San Andreas Fault delivers mini quakes around the clock, he notes, and if even a fraction spawned luminous spheres, “we’d be getting reports of earthquake lights every day.” That said, Ebel agrees the logic is there. Even after a century and a half, South Carolina’s coastal plain is still prone to aftershocks from the 1886 quake, so it's reasonable to look for a connection between that seismicity and the lights. He just wants to see solid evidence before drawing any conclusions.Hough’s work so far has pieced together historical records and theoretical research — admittedly more speculative than empirical. To follow the trail further she’d need to do field work, perhaps testing for gas release. But that requires funding. “I imagined writing a proposal to say I basically want to go ghost-busting in Summerville,” she says, laughing. “I kind of balked at that idea.” Whimsical as it seems, Hough hopes her foray into the occult may even prove useful. If the “railroad-ghost” phenomenon turns out to be a reliable sign of shallow fault activity, these stories could help scientists pinpoint potential hazard zones — a notorious challenge in the eastern U.S., where earthquakes are few and far between.For now, at least, the Summerville mystery lives on. Who’s to say there isn’t a spectral widow wandering the tracks by moonlight, searching for her husband’s head? But that, Hough adds, “is outside the purview of seismology.”
EARTHQUAKE LIGHTS SEISMOLOGY SUMMERVILLE SOUTH CAROLINA GHOST STORIES GAS RELEASES
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