Ghostly lights in South Carolina might trace to earthquake activity, new research suggests.
Since the 1950s, people have reported strange balls of light floating down a road along old railroad tracks near Summerville, S.C. These spooky shimmers are known as the Summerville Light. Local lore says a grieving ghost’s lantern is behind the glow.
Geologist Susan Hough now proposes a different explanation.
Hough works for the U.S. Geological Survey in Pasadena, Calif. Quakes can release gases, including radon and methane. Those vapors could ignite from static electricity or sparks from passing trains, she suggests.
Interestingly, Summerville sits far from any tectonic plate boundaries. As such, it might seem an unlikely spot for quakes. But in 1886, damage from a magnitude 7 quake killed 60 people in nearby Charleston. Hundreds of aftershocks shook the region in the decades that followed. That points to the area’s continuing high seismic activity.
The region has plenty of ghost tales, too. The Legend of the Summerville Light may be the most gruesome. A railroad worker’s wife was supposedly waiting for him by the tracks one night. There she got word he had been beheaded in an accident. Since then, the legend goes, she’s returned with a lantern — even after her death — in search of her husband’s head.
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Digging into records and earthquake history
Hough scouted for a less spooky explanation of the phenomenon. To begin, she dug into books, magazines and online sources. She was looking for recorded sightings of the mysterious lights. Then she studied the area’s earthquake history from 1890 to 1960. This included long before the sightings began.
Only a few quakes had been reported over that time. There was a magnitude 3.9 quake in 1907. Another magnitude 4.4 event shook the area in 1959 — around when the sightings began. A couple of smaller quakes followed shortly thereafter, in 1960. There likely also would have been smaller undetected temblors, Hough says. And it’s possible that these jolts might have caused the lights, she says.
Hough also hunted other local paranormal claims. She found reports of cars shaking and the moving of objects and doors. Some people even heard footsteps in upstairs rooms. Subtle quakes might explain all of these, she says.
Hough published her findings in the March issue of Seismological Research Letters.
Many of the reports Hough turned up seem to fit with a shaking that would have rated 2 on the Modified Mercalli Intensity (MMI) scale. Scientists use this scale to rate quakes based on the damage they cause. An MMI of 2 is fairly weak. It would likely be “felt only by a few persons at rest,” Hough says, “especially on upper floors of a building.”
Her proposal that the lights and other strange activity trace to quakes is reasonable, says Yuji Enomoto. He’s an earthquake scientist at Shinshu University in Matsumoto, Japan.
Still, he says, more geologic data are needed to confirm quakes as triggers for the Summerville Light. He’d like data, for instance on the presence of an oxygen-free environment containing organic (carbon-based) matter. This could be “capable of generating methane,” he notes, which can support a flame. Also helpful, he adds, would be a finding of granite-based bedrock “containing radium, which can produce radon.”
Ghost stories elsewhere might also be due to subtle seismic activity, notes Hough. “There’s a bunch of ghosts wandering the rails in different places in the United States,” she says. They too, she says, may be “illuminating shallow active faults.”
Power Words
More About Power Wordsaftershock: One or more smaller earthquakes which often follow a major earthquake.
anaerobic: Occurring in the absence of oxygen. Anaerobic reactions take place in oxygen-free locations.
bedrock: The thick, solid rock layer that underlies the soil and other broken, rocky materials on Earth’s surface.
earthquake: A sudden and sometimes violent shaking of the ground, sometimes causing great destruction, as a result of movements within Earth’s crust or of volcanic action.
electricity: A flow of charge, usually from the movement of negatively charged particles, called electrons.
environment: The sum of all of the things that exist around some organism or the process and the condition those things create. Environment may refer to the weather and ecosystem in which some animal lives, or, perhaps, the temperature andhumidity (or even theplacement of things in the vicinity of an item of interest).
geologic: An adjective that refers tothings that are related to Earth’s physical structure and substance, its history and the processes that act on it. People who work in this field are known as geologists.
ignite: (in chemistry) To engage in the first step in combustion by getting some fuel (such as natural gas or gasoline) to heat enough to start burning.
magnitude: (in geology) A number used to describe the relative size of an earthquake. It runs from 1 to more than 8 and is calculated by the peak ground motion as recorded by seismographs. There are several magnitude scales. One of the more commonly used ones today is known as the moment magnitude. It’s based on the size of a fault (crack in Earth’s crust), how much the fault slips (moves) during a quake, and the energy force that was required to permit that movement. For each increase in magnitude, an earthquake produces 10 times more ground motion and releases about 32 times more energy.
matter: Something that occupies space and has mass. Anything on Earth with matter will have a property described as "weight."
methane: A hydrocarbon with the chemical formula CH4 (meaning there are four hydrogen atoms bound to one carbon atom). It’s a natural constituent of what’s known as natural gas. It’s also emitted by decomposing plant material in wetlands and is belched out by cows and other ruminant livestock.
organic: (in chemistry) An adjective that indicates something is carbon-containing; also a term that relates to the basic chemicals that make up living organisms. (in agriculture) Farm products grown without the use of non-natural and potentially toxic chemicals, such as pesticides.
paranormal: Events or phenomena that fall outside or beyond what is considered normal. Examples include ghosts, zombies, telekinesis and curses.
radon: A radioactive member of the noble gas family. It is naturally given off by some rocks in the soil. When it accumulates in homes or water supplies, it can pose a health hazard.
static: The condition of being unmoving and unchanging. (in physics) An electronic signal that contains no information but does contain random fluctuations in intensity or wavelength.
static electricity: The buildup of excess electric charge on some surface instead of flowing through a material. This charge buildup tends to develop when two things that are not good conductors of electricity rub together. This allows electrons from one of the objects to be picked up and collected by the other.
subtle: Adjective for something that may be important but can be hard to see or describe. For instance, the first cellular changes that signal the start of a cancer may be only subtly different — as in small and hard to distinguish from nearby healthy tissues.
tectonic: Surface activity on a large rocky body (such as a planet or moon) as liquid rock flows up to the surface where it solidifies, then slowly drifts atop molten rock, carrying surface features with it.
temblor: Another term for an earthquake or Earth-shaking tremor.
vapors: Fumes released when a liquid transforms to a gas, usually as a result of heating.
Citations
Journal: S.E. Hough. Haunted Summerville: ghost lights or earthquake lights? Seismological Research Letters. Vol. 26, March 2025, p. 1194.
About Nikk Ogasa
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Nikk Ogasa is a staff writer who focuses on the physical sciences forScience News. He has a master's degree in geology from McGill University, and a master's degree in science communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz.
