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At the fringes of those luminous phenomena which range from spook lights to freak lightning, there are some strange accounts for which there is no ready explanation. These involve lights that show a parti­cular interest in human beings – and not always to their benefit.

Take what befell 12-year-old George Campbell and his father, EW Campbell. They were riding along the ‘Eighty-foot Road’, north of the city of Sherman, Texas, on the night of 4 October 1898. Somewhat after nine o’clock that evening, the boy was witness to a startling phenomenon:

He is a bright, intelligent little fellow, who said he didn’t believe in ghosts; that his parents had never scared him with spook stories, and he is one of the best- behaved scholars in the fourth grade at the Franklin school building.