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Jul 24, 20238 min read

Return to the Paulding Light Investigation

This blog post was written by Whitney Dankemeyer.


One evening in 1966, a group of Michigan high schoolers contacted the local sheriff’s department to report a mysterious light near the Ottawa National Forest. Since then, every night at dusk, tourists and local residents have visited this mystifying light merely to see it glow. No one is certain what causes this light to glimmer, though many have tried to debunk it by pointing blame on vehicular lights. While headlights may be visible from a distance, it does not eliminate the otherworldly presence of extraterrestrials or Native American spirits from utilizing the area.

Folks have been investigating the famous Paulding Light in Bruce Crossing since the 1990s. A paranormal group once used “telescopic, spectroscopic, and travel time analysis” for their investigation, believing the head and taillights driving North on Old Highway 45 were the reason for this phenomenon. In 2010, Michigan Tech students brought a telescope to this overlook and hypothesized the same thing: head lights, taillights… and an Adopt-A-Highway sign. The evidence behind it? They presumed an inversion layer allowed the lights to be visible from the highway stretch. They supported their findings with video documentation from numerous visits and stated they had identical experiences each time. They also argued that these lights only started to appear after the highway was built in the 60s, but we agree to disagree. They were first noticed in the 60s, but that doesn’t mean this inexplicable light (or lights, if I may add) didn’t exist prior to being found. They also said you can’t see the light before sundown, but that is also false. My group and I have visited the Paulding Light two summers in a row, and both times have witnessed the light while the sun was still out with binoculars.

A lot of local residents are against Michigan Tech’s opinions of the Paulding Light because of their own experiences with it or their knowledge of the area. Linda Schulz, the owner of the Running Bear Resort in Michigan, is one of the locals who disagrees with the naysayers. She said people can try to debunk it as headlights all they want, but then they are oblivious to and unaware of Native American history. We agree. Native Americans have been talking about strange lights and flying objects for generations before ours. There are beliefs and theories stating aliens needed the land and Native American tribes needed the resources. Ancient alien theorists even believe this is how mankind developed in terms of science and technological advancement. So again, while vehicular lights may be visible from a distance, it doesn’t mean something out of the ordinary isn’t also occurring. 

There are many paranormal stories of the Paulding Light aside from Native American or extraterrestrial theories. Some believe this is the light of a ghost train. Others believe this is a man looking for a child or dog with a lantern. Then there are the few who believe the ghost is just a simple railroad switch man who was holding his lantern when he was crushed between two freight cars. During our first investigation, we met people who heard there had been a house towards the end of the path and a ghost man who haunted the trail. We even received “Robert” and “House” on the iOvilus. These visitors shared that they knew an individual who had been chased up the path by a transparent man in overalls, and they actually called him up to tell us all about it. Where there are aliens and Native American spirits, there is also known to be more paranormal activity. Could the combination of entities be the reason why there are so many stories about what resides here? 

There are locals firm in their beliefs of the Paulding Light because they’ve had experiences where the light had moved towards them. (Now tell me, would a headlight do that?) We don’t believe the source of this light is particularly a ghost man with a lantern chasing you off (despite how much our team wants to believe that), but this is specifically a UFO confronting you because you were trespassing and got too close. When the girls and I last investigated, we didn’t go further than the stop sign after our first experience. While it’s there for other reasons, we believe people should take it a little more seriously after dark. 

Something incredibly important to mention is if you’re in a large group of people, you may not experience more than a blinking light for activity. It was only when we were in smaller groups that the light would split off into two and move in infinity shapes higher in the air. On our most recent investigation, we were fortunate to catch a glimpse of a massive flash in the sky, but we sadly didn’t capture it on camera because of how unexpectedly it appeared. The flash was a quick, bright light like something was leaving the stratosphere… or even this dimension. Aside from that, larger groups of people were present this last time, so the majority of evidence we received was a blinking light that changed colors. If you had binoculars like we did, you’d be able to see that it wasn’t just a blinking light but a UFO rotating and changing colors. The colors on the unidentified object were flashing green, orange, purple, red, and white. From our first investigation:


What we saw in the next few minutes was one of the most remarkable things anyone of us has witnessed in our entire lives. When we put the binoculars to our eyes, the light wasn’t just blinking different colors. There was a UFO in the sky, swaying side-to-side and spinning like a dreidel. The colors on the outside of the spacecraft were spinning with it, which caused the blinking effect from far away. Below it where The Paulding Light was, was another UFO, taking off, causing its bright white glow. Any time the UFOs would take off or come to an official landing, that was when the red glow would appear.

The final and most essential thing you should be aware of are the Native American spirits. Not all of them are positive entities, and some of the spirits in the Ottawa National Forest consist of Skinwalkers and Wendigos. On our first investigation, we encountered a Wendigo on the path a few feet away from our cars. Before other people could put their eyes on it, the entity had taken off into the right side of the woods. During our most recent visit, we encountered another Native American spirit, but we were unsure if this was a Wendigo or Skinwalker this time. We only knew it was there because it had started whistling. The whistling got gradually louder, and we had almost left before the three large groups of families showed up to watch the light. Immediately, the whistling stopped. Another excerpt from our first investigation:


I slowly turned my head over my left shoulder and noticed a large figure facing us in the distance. I made a full 180 degree turn to get a good look at what it was, and it swooped into the forest in the blink of an eye. Suddenly it was just gone. I slowly made my way to Amanda and knelt beside her. Without having to explain what I had seen, she whispered to me, “I see it too.”


Our team arrived at the Paulding Light before sunset on Saturday, July 15, 2023. This was our second trip up to Bruce Crossing, and we wanted to be early to ensure we were one of the first ones there. We wanted to be able to pull the vehicle all the way up to the stop sign because we didn’t want to get out of the vehicle if we didn't have to. After the knee-buckling experience we had last time, it was too much of a risk considering we were alone.

We were right about capturing the mysterious light before sundown because we started recording the activity before it got dark. Nicole and our friend Chloe hopped out of the car to record the light from a closer distance, but Swan and I stayed back in the vehicle. When they got back in the car, we were sharing our video footage with each other when Chloe noticed a whistling. We all paused and listened for a moment. From the same direction I saw a Native American spirit last time, there was a faint whistle coming from the woods. 

Immediately, we all felt a heavy chest vibration. Something or someone was with us. Panicked, I asked a few different times if anyone else wanted to heed the warning and leave. (These negative spirits aren't the ones to provoke, confront, or interact with.) We agreed to wait a little bit longer to see if it got louder before making the final call. Within seconds, we quickly asked ourselves again if we should leave because the whistling not only got louder but felt closer. Just as I was about to put the car in reverse, a bunch of families showed up on UTVs. They must’ve been camping nearby, but as soon as they all arrived, the whistling had stopped.

The feeling in our chests didn’t go away immediately after the family arrived. In fact, we were almost more worried now that little kids were getting off the side-by-sides. We noticed children running around and darting off by themselves while the parents weren’t looking. At one point, there was a little girl who even started to act strange. Because we were sitting in the car, we were able to observe changes in everyone's behavior while sitting there. The little girl walked the entire perimeter of the our car by herself, cocked her head a little to the side, and stared into Chloe’s eyes through the driver’s side passenger window. Her stare was blank, but she quickly snapped out of it when her parents noticed her staring into our vehicle. Could she have been affected by an entity or the land? 

The darker the sky got, the more activity occurred. (This is why some people believe the vehicular lights are the reason for activity, because the lights are easier to see and more likely to reflect off other signs at night.) During our last Paulding Light investigation, the light split into two and floated higher in the air. This investigation, we caught a glimpse of one white light turning into three lights that formed the shape of a triangle before it disappeared. We did not capture this on camera because all four of us witnessed it through the binoculars before it vanished, but we were able to capture the same rotation of colors as our first investigation. Despite all this, there is no way vehicular lights could be responsible for all that occurred.  

We only ended up staying until about 10:30 PM, but this was due to the other families beginning to leave. Now that it was dark and we would be alone again, we didn’t want to risk encountering any more Native American spirits. (There was also the fact that we all still had a three-hour drive home to consider.) We didn't come in contact with anything negative, but we did get interference while recording the woods with the night vision camera as we left. None of us may know exactly what causes the mystical light or what all lurks in the woods after dark, but one thing we do know is certain: we are not alone. 


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Who is Two Halves and Nicole?

Two Halves and Nicole is a midwestern paranormal group who uses history to validate the paranormal on their investigations.

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