Could the Summerville ghost lantern be an earthquake light?

Gather around, and let Susan Hough tell you the tale of the Summerville Light.

Legend has it that the strange orb sometimes seen hovering over the railroad tracks in the remote area around Summerville, South Carolina is a lantern borne by a ghost whose husband lost his head in a train accident.

But Hough, a seismologist at the U.S. Geological Survey, wonders if there might be a less ethereal but no less intriguing possibility: is the source of the Summerville Light a phenomenon known as earthquake lights?

Earthquake lights have been observed around the world, as glowing spheres, sparks, pillars and other shapes, but there is no accepted theory yet among seismologists for a possible mechanism behind their appearance. Some of the proposed mechanisms include ignition of released underground gases like methane or radon, or dialectric discharge from fault movements, as Japanese seismologist Yuji Enomoto detailed in a 2024 review paper.

In her Earthquake Lites column in Seismological Research Letters, Hough explains why Summerville’s combination of shallow faults, railroad tracks and ghost stories might offer an unusual guide for earthquake scientists looking for faults in the eastern United States.

In recent years Hough has worked extensively, with Roger Bilham at the University of Colorado, Boulder, to identify the fault responsible for the famous 1886 Charleston, South Carolina earthquake. Summerville, about 25 miles northwest of Charleston, was part of their study region.

Hough began to wonder about the possible earthy origins of ghost lights after reading a Halloween-week USGS newsletter with links to “spooky science” studies.

“That sparked—so to speak—an idea that had been in the back of my mind, working on Charleston, that I had never really even thought too much about,” said Hough. “What about those ghost stories from Summerville?”

Hough began to comb through accounts of the light found in newspapers and books from local bookstores, along with data on earthquakes in the region. The Summerville Light sightings apparently began in the 1950s and 1960s, within a few kilometers of three magnitude 3.5 to 4.4 earthquakes that took place in 1959 and 1960, she found.

If the Summerville phenomenon is an earthquake light, it might be that the shallow earthquakes in the area could have released a water-soluble gas like radon or methane that was then ignited by a spark of static electricity or rock movement, Hough suggested.

Although the railroad by the Summerville Light was not in service during the time of the ghostly sightings, the steel rails of the abandoned line and nearby scrap heaps could have also generated an igniting spark, she said. “From working in Charleston I know that when old tracks were replaced or repaired, the old tracks weren’t always hauled away. You find piles of old metal along the tracks.”

Gases trapped in water droplets might also help explain why these tales of ghost lights seem to occur on dark and misty nights, she added.

Hough cautioned that this scenario, as well as the proposed mechanism to account for earthquake lights, remains speculative. The hypothesis could potentially be tested, she noted, by using gas detectors to look for escaping gases, or by conducting experiments to look for shallow faults.

But she suggested ghost stories might be a useful if unusual way to hunt for unrecognized seismic zones in regions with low seismic activity. Curiously similar ghost stories are found in other areas, including near Wilmington, North Carolina.

“There’s tons of faults in the eastern United States, but the trick is finding out which ones of them are active,” Hough explained. “Maybe here we have an example of the recipe for the environments that might generate earthquake lights. And maybe the friendly ghosts are illuminating fault zones in the east.”