The Paulding Light Investigation

This blog post was written by Whitney Dankemeyer, one half of two Halves of a Soul.

Since the 1960s, a mysterious and luminous glow appears late in the Ottawa National Forest, which to this day is still known as The Paulding Light. Legend says that this is the spirit of an elder man, holding a lantern in search of his lost dog, only to have been struck by a train. The lantern’s glow in the dead of the night is him in search of being reunited with his canine yet once again. Other locals and tourists believe this light to be a UFO, but no one has been able to come up with a solid answer. Even a former FBI agent Ben Hanson declared the light was unexplainable on the American TV Series Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files. We as paranormal investigators finally decided it was time for us to make the trek to Bruce Crossing, Michigan, and have a look at this light ourselves. On Saturday July 9, 2022, we did just that; we packed up our gear, met up with our dear friends Amanda and Jacki, and made our way to solve the mystery of The Paulding Light.

When we got to the end of Old US 45, we were initially supposed to follow the GPS straight. It was just before sundown, we knew others were flocking to the overlook, and we trusted the van in front of us would just lead us to our destination. Amanda had switched off the GPS and made a left turn, following this white van heading in the direction of what we assumed was The Paulding Light. Moments later, while chugging down this long, dirt road, we all noticed the vehicle had suddenly disappeared. There was no sight of another vehicle, and there was no dust stirred up indicating the van had turned off at some point. We tried to debunk the situation as the van turned off and we didn’t notice, but we slowly realized the situation was taking a left turn all on its own. We not only passed a cross-roads, but we also went so far straight into these woods that the path was overgrown with grass. With daily visitors at The Paulding Light, we knew we were in the wrong spot and had to retrace our steps back to the main highway, seeing as none of us had service where we were.

When we got back to the highway, we regained service and were able to navigate The Paulding Light. As soon as we stepped out of the vehicle with our gear, we turned on our Ovilus device to see if anyone would communicate. This device has a 2,000+ word bank that spirits can choose words from, and the first two words received on the device were “Robert” and “House.” Puzzled by this, we asked further questions for discussion, but we got nothing. We made a choice to then turn on our EMF Reader (Electromagnetic Field Reader) to see if there was high energy detected in the area. Again, we received nothing. Amanda volunteered to take the EMF Reader and walk down the path a little ways to see if she could get any evidence. Although she didn’t see a spike in the EMF device, she mentioned having a terrible gut feeling where the path took a turn. In fact, she refused to go past it.

It was around this time when the light showed itself in the sky, the sun slowly setting behind it. The light was a deep red, which occasionally made the switch from orange and yellow, sometimes even to white. The light would come and go periodically, never staying too long, but always coming back. During this time, a father and his family pulled up in a vehicle to see the performance in the sky. While we were all standing in a group, the father mentioned having been to this location 30 years back with a couple of friends. He mentioned walking down the path, only to get so far and chased back up to their Explorer by a ghostly man in overalls. To prove his story to be true, he even called one of his friends. He opened the conversation with, “Hey, Eric! I’ve got the kids with me at The Paulding Light. Want to tell them about what happened to us 30 years ago?” to which his friend replied, “Oh, you mean the night with the guy in the overalls?” This not only proved his story and helped support the local legend, but the spot where they were chased up the path coincides with Amanda’s uneasy feeling on her walk. We even took a photo while Amanda made her return. What we found later in the photos was a darker entity wrapping itself around the top half of her body, shortly after she got uncomfortable and started her trek back. We believe this to be an image of the spirit making her feel the way she did, but we’ll let your eyes be the judge of that.

While we were already playing with our equipment, we figured we might as well use the Estes Method next. The Estes Method is operated with the spirit box and a pair of headphones, eliminating the wearer’s ability to hear others asking questions. When we ask the questions, the receiver is listening to the spirit box sweeping through radio frequencies, enabling spirits nearby to communicate through it. Messages come through in the form of single words, full sentences, even screams and laughter. When the receiver hears something come across the headphones, they simply repeat what it is they hear. Most often than not, questions and answers always line up.

The Estes Method began with simultaneously starting an EVP session (voice recording) and Amanda saying “Wait.” The whole point of the Estes Method was to get answers regarding whether or not the man or aliens were responsible for the light in the distance. We proceeded with asking if anyone would like to communicate, and Amanda (who was wearing the headphones for this experiment) responded with “Hold on.” We asked if they were trying to gather themselves, and we got the response “Wait!” again. We waited a few moments before asking another question. When the time felt right, we asked whoever was communicating with us, “Are you what is in control of the light over there?” and Amanda answered, “No.” As soon as we asked our follow-up question of “Can you tell us who is in control of that light over there?” no responses were coming back. Twice it was asked who the source of the light was and no answer was given. One thing we were sure of though was that we were communicating with who we believed to be the older man, and that there was another source responsible for the light in the distance. Could the legends and rumors both be true?

Further into the Estes Method, we asked the spirit if they could turn the light back on for us. Amanda responded with “Wait.” Sierra, one half of @twohalvesofasoul, rephrased the question by asking, “Can you ask the source to turn on the light for us?” Within seconds, Amanda shouted “On my way!” and the light came back as a bright, white glow. This was not only remarkable evidence, but again supported that there was more than just one source present in this location.

Once the light dimmed, we continued to ask questions with the Estes Method to confirm who we were communicating with. However, when we asked the spirit to tell us what they are, Amanda said, “Wait” and a car horn sounded. This startled the family into making the decision to leave, but made us think it would be a good idea to take a break from Estes and just observe the light for a while. While we watched the light come and go, another group of three appeared to witness the sighting of The Paulding Light. A man and his girlfriend were there about a year back, and this year brought their cousin to hopefully give him the same experience they had the last time they were here. They shared their experience with witnessing the light splitting into three separate lights, and we shared the evidence we received on all our devices.

The sky was completely pitch black now, and we had noticed, just moments before, another floating glow just above the famous Paulding Light. Everyone saw it swaying in the sky, moving swiftly left to right. Unable to get ourselves to believe what we were seeing, we asked it to move to the right. Within a few moments, the floating glow swayed over to the right. We then asked it to move to the left, and it did just that. Someone shouted “Do a trick!” and the light made an infinity symbol in the sky. Intelligent. The longer we stared out into the sky at these floating lights (The Paulding Light still disappearing and reappearing), we also noticed there were more than just the red, orange, yellow, and white colors we saw before. Whatever was floating above the other light in the sky was blinking purple and green as well. While capturing this sighting with our eyes and on cameras, we remembered we brought a pair of binoculars.

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.

Sharing our fascination with one another, we took turns passing the binoculars between the seven of us and continued to exchange knowledge over the topic of The Paulding Light. One of the guys in the other group at one time mentioned hearing there was a house located down the path with an older man living in it. This is when we made the connection to the Ovilus at the beginning of the investigation. We received “Robert” and “House” as soon as we opened the line of communication, and we also had proof there was more than one source present at this location. Could this really be the old man in overalls?

Unable to get a full grasp on everything we’ve already seen, we stood around admiring the view off into the distance. While standing there, I (Whitney, the other half of @twohalvesofasoul) 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 (our dear friend and psychic mentor) and knelt beside her. Without having to explain what I had seen, she whispered to me, “I see it too. Don’t worry. I have my wings up.” This was her way of saying she was protecting us at all costs. With that being said, I watched her stand up from her chair and cast a circle around our group. Sierra even stood up, pointing to the direction Amanda and I were just chattering about, and said she got eerie feelings in that direction of the woods. It wasn’t too long anyways before we decided to leave, and when we did, Amanda directed everyone (including the group of three) to walk left up the path to their vehicles as close as they could. Before I could get any words out, Amanda said, “When we get into the car, I’ll explain to you what we saw.”

On the drive back to our car, Amanda explained the mysterious creature we encountered. She said what we saw and felt was a Native American Wendigo spirit. Wendigos are Native Americans who are banished from their tribe and cursed to wander the land. Found in the Great Lake Region, they have an uncontrollable urge to eat human flesh, and lurk in the woods to stalk their prey. When we first arrived and were lured by a ghost car, it definitely wasn’t by accident. And to turn around and make contact with this entity makes the night even more bone-chilling.

Out of everything we have encountered through the night, we have a few theories. There is an old man named Robert who lived in a home near The Paulding Light. It is inconclusive if he was really looking for his dog when he was hit by a train, but he does not like to be disturbed, especially when it comes to passing a certain point on the path. It is best to not wander further than feels comfortable and to respect the old man wanting his distance. If you leave him unbothered, you won’t have to worry about being chased back to your vehicle. We also concluded that the lights are UFOs. Time doesn’t exist in space and we believe this is why they come and go so fast. They could be gone a lot longer than the few moments we wait for them to come back, but when they do, we see the red and white glow of their spacecraft landing and taking off. We believe the aliens use this location due to the many power lines running through the area, as well as being sacred Native land. This makes sense as to why we also encountered a Wendigo, a Native American spirit.

Overall, we are completely amazed. Not only did we get incredible evidence, but we’ve witnessed things we’ve never experienced with the naked eye before. We hope you have enjoyed hearing about our encounter at The Paulding Light. Maybe one day you will make the decision to see these things for yourself. Thanks for reading.