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SUMMERVILLE — In December 1974, a News and Courier reader wrote to the newspaper's Action Line column with a question.

"Did anyone ever decide what caused the ghost lights at Summerville?"

Answer: "Not that Action Line can find out."

Action Line, which answered a range of reader questions covering everything from spectral sights to how to read an electric meter, is long gone, replaced by Google and other search engines. But the modern-day Post and Courier might finally have an answer to that reader's question — 50 years and one month later. Better late than never.

A new research letter published in the journal Seismological Research Letters proposes that the Summerville Light isn't some ghost from beyond the grave, but a result of the seismic forces at play under the Dorchester County town.

The legend of the Summerville Light dates back at least to the 1950s. Specifics vary, but the most popular telling involves a woman who awaited her husband's return from work each evening along the railroad tracks on what is now Sheep Island Road. They'd walk home together through the dark South Carolina nights.

But one day, the man was beheaded in a train derailment. Now the woman exists in an eternal limbo, awaiting someone who will never arrive. The spooky lights along the track are her lantern, which once guided the couple back home each evening.

Susan Hough, the article's author and a scientist in the U.S. Geological Survey's Earthquake Hazards Program, said there's a down-to-earth explanation for the phenomenon. (Or more accurately, a below-the-earth explanation.)

Running under Summerville there is a fault line, fittingly named the Summerville Fault. After researching the fault for other studies, she noticed a trend. The light sightings tended to coincide with periods of seismic activity in the area. She theorizes that those events might have released gases from the fault line, which then interacted with the static charges from metal along the rail track, creating a light on the horizon.

The quakes, which were too small to be noticed by humans, might explain a significant amount of ghostly activity observed in Summerville at the time.

"Seismology can't really weigh in on whether ghosts are real; that's a whole other kettle of fish," Hough said. "But a lot of the accounts from Summerville just scream earthquake phenomenon, starting with the lights. Then there's other accounts of noises being heard upstairs, doors swinging, people feeling unsettled. They're almost textbook descriptions of shaking that's at the edge of human perceptibility."

The Summerville Light also fits a trope of the ghost that haunts a railroad track, variations of which can be seen in folklore across the world.

"When you start looking around, it turns out there's any number of ghosts wandering around railroad tracks with lanterns looking for severed heads," she said. "There's kind of an epidemic of them."

The trope has a second local example: the Jacksonboro Light. Found in a tiny, unincorporated Colleton County community, that specter shares a lot of similarities with the Summerville Light.

Those lights have also been seen near a railroad, and in an area close to a fault line. Even the stories are similar — although in Jacksonboro it's a preacher who gets hit by a train after using his lantern to search for his lost daughter.

"Why are the ghosts carrying lanterns along railroad tracks?" Hough continued. "It sort of suggests that the railroad tracks are an important ingredient to get the light."

The Summerville Light does have at least one possible connection to a real-world horrific disaster — the great Charleston Earthquake of 1886, which likely was the fault's fault.

Hough, an expert on the 1886 earthquake, noted in a study she co-authored in 2023 that there is no broadly agreed-upon fault line that caused that quake. But her research suggest the Summerville Fault was probably the offender.

The quake is considered one of the worst natural disasters in Charleston's history. Exact death counts vary, but the event claimed the lives of at least 60 people. Around an estimated Magnitude 7, its shockwaves were registered as far away as Wisconsin, according to the USGS.

Cracks and damage caused by the earthquake still can be found in historic structures across the city. Covered in 140 years of plaster and paint, those scars are yet another ghost that haunts the region.

Follow Jonah Chester on Twitter @chester_jonah.

Enduring folklore of “ghost lights” haunting a Lowcountry town in South Carolina may be more fact than myth, a new study suggests.

However, the so-called “Summerville Light” isn’t the work of a ghost, according to Susan E. Hough, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey.

She suspects it’s a real, but little-understood phenomenon known as earthquake lights, which flash, glow or spark when “deep earth gasses” rise and become electrically charged.

“Lore holds that a strange light sometimes seen in a remote area is a lantern carried by the ghost of a woman who once waited hours for her husband to return,” Hough wrote in a Jan. 22 article in the Seismological Society of America.

“I suggest that many if not all of the anecdotal observations can be most readily attributed to natural phenomena, including earthquake lights from earthquakes that were too small to be felt.”

Summerville is about a 25-mile drive northwest of Charleston, and her theory comes at a time when small earthquakes continue in the region. The U.S. Geological Survey reports there have been 158 documented earthquakes around Charleston since Jan. 1, 2000.

Some scientists believe the continued shaking stems from aftershocks of a devastating 6.7- to 7.3-magnitude quake that hit Charleston 139 years ago.

Tales of Summerville’s ghost light or ghost lantern “began to circulate in the 1950s to 1960s,” Hughes said.

“So pervasive was the lore that (Old) Sheep Island Road became known among local residents as Light Road, with a local stretch of road known today as Old Light Road,” she noted.

Hughes theorizes shallow earthquakes in the Summerville area could be releasing “a water-soluble gas like radon or methane that was then ignited by a spark of static electricity or rock movement.”

Abandoned railroad tracks and even scrap metal could have been a catalyst for the sparks, she said.

Earthquake lights were largely ignored by scientists until photo evidence began to show up in the 1960s.

Even now, the USGS says no one is sure what causes the phenomenon, known as EQL.

“Geophysicists differ on the extent to which they think that individual reports of unusual lighting near the time and epicenter of an earthquake actually represent EQL,” the USGS says.

“Some doubt that any of the reports constitute solid evidence for EQL, whereas others think that at least some reports plausibly correspond to EQL. ... Some reports of EQL have turned out to be associated with electricity arcing from the power lines shaking.”

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South Carolina

March 27, 2024 8:16 AM

A new gym, Moe’s Fitness, is coming to 10150 Dorchester Road and owner Britney Mahoney said its uniqueness is in its inclusivity.

“Inclusive means that we’re pretty much welcoming anybody, any fitness level,” Mahoney said. “It’s not a CrossFit gym, it’s not geared toward yoga, it’s not geared toward one thing. It is a gym that is there for everybody, so for any fitness level, male, female, younger, or older, we want to make it an atmosphere where you feel comfortable.”

Mahoney explained the gym’s mission is creating a welcoming and empowered environment where members do not feel overwhelmed or scared but are welcomed and empowered to reach their goals.

The gym will have personal trainers on site and online training options via an app, with trainers creating workout plans for members to complete independently. Additionally, the gym will be open 24/7 to accommodate people’s schedules. Screenings to locate imbalances will be available for those interested in corrective exercises to help with problems such as pain.

“Everybody has different lifestyles, and Moe’s is there for every lifestyle, and we don’t want you to skip your workout,” Mahoney said. “We want you to find the time to do it, and we want to be more like a community place where people feel like they can meet people there. They feel like they’re a part of something. Even if they don’t want to come work out, they can have a cup of coffee, maybe hang out, talk to some people, maybe talk to some staff. We want to make it an environment where it’s not just about the fitness part of it. That’s a bonus, but it’s about coming together with people in the community and a centralized spot and helping out other small businesses around the community.”

Mahoney explained the owners would collaborate with local farms for a monthly farmer’s market to support other small businesses. Additionally, they have partnered with natural energy drink and wellness companies.

“We are a family run gym,” Mahoney said. “We both have over 20 years of experience in the fitness industry, and we moved here from New Jersey, so we’re opening a fitness center. We’ve been here for three years and are excited to be a part of the community and help make them fit at any age.”

A soft opening for Moe’s Fitness is scheduled for President’s Day weekend. Memberships are priced on a sliding scale with special pricing for military members, seniors, individuals and others.

For more information, visit the Moe’s Fitness Facebook page.

In Summerville, South Carolina, a mysterious light has been seen hovering over old railroad tracks. Legend has it, it’s the glow of a lantern lighting the path of a ghost searching for her decapitated husband.

Now, a seismologist has offered a scientific explanation for the floating orb: earthquakes. Susan Hough at the United States Geological Survey (USGS) published her idea in a research article late last month in Seismological Research Letters.

Hough was studying the area’s seismology, scouring old records with references to the “Summerville Light,” while trying to pinpoint the source of the destructive 1886 earthquake in Charleston. Then, she read a Halloween-themed USGS newsletter on spooky science.

“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,” says Hough in a statement from the Seismological Society of America. “What about those ghost stories from Summerville?”

Hough suggests the town’s paranormal legends actually point to earthquakes. She noticed that many of the local “ghost sightings” coincided with periods of seismic activity.

“People said their cars would shak? violently. Well, that’s an earthquake,” Hough says to Science’s Richard Stone. “They heard noises upstairs, whispers. Or doors would swing. Seismic events we may not perceive as earthquakes fit some of these accounts. And glowing orbs that would hang in the air along a former railroad track. Well, that makes you think earthquake lights.”

Earthquake lights are mysterious phenomena that have been observed around the world, but scientists still don’t have a clear idea of what causes them. Some have proposed that seismic activity deforms minerals in the Earth, creating an electrical charge that can lead air molecules to glow. Another theory is that they’re related to the release of gases like radon or methane, which can ignite when they’re exposed to a spark of static electricity. Hough believes the railroad tracks, in particular, are the key to Summerville’s ghosts.

“Historically, when [rail companies] replaced tracks, they didn’t always haul the old track away. So, you’ve got heaps of steel out there. Sparks might be part of the story,” Hough says to Science. “And maybe the railroads are important for another reason. They may naturally follow fault lines that have carved corridors through the landscape.”

That could explain why so many ghost stories—even beyond Summerville—involve lights over railways, she adds. “When you start looking around, it turns out there’s any number of ghosts wandering around railroad tracks with lanterns looking for severed heads,” says Hough to Jonah Chester at the Post and Courier. “There’s kind of an epidemic of them.”

Recognizing this connection could help scientists find seismic zones that have gone unrecognized so far. Following similar ghost stories in other regions could point to areas with a low level of earthquake activity that had only been noticed through earthquake lights, per the statement.

Earthquakes are “an appealing explanation for these ghost stories,” says Will Levandowski, a geophysicist with the consulting company Tetra Tech who was not involved in the study, to Carolyn Wilke at the New York Times.

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Sara Hashemi | READ MORE

Sara Hashemi is a science writer and fact-checker currently based in New York City. Her work has appeared in Sierra, The Body, Maisonneuve magazine and more.

Filed Under: American South, Chemistry, Earth Science, Earthquakes, Geology, Mysteries, New Research, Trains