Eerie Light Haunts a Southern Town. It May Come From Under the Earth.

A seismologist thinks natural phenomena could explain the Summerville Light and other mysteries around a South Carolina locale.

Summerville, a town northwest of Charleston, S.C., has its share of ghost stories. One yarn that has stuck around for decades is the tale of the Summerville Light.

In the dead of night, along a dirt road in the nearby pine forest following abandoned railroad tracks, people have observed mysterious lights, bobbing up and down, pulsing with a pale blue, green or orange hue.

Along the tracks, the story goes, a woman waited for her husband, a railroad worker, to return. But he died, losing his head in an accident. Ever devoted, the widow searched for his remains. She continued — even after her own death: The flicker of her lantern was all that remained.

It’s a goose-bumpy explanation of the Summerville Light. The remote road in the story even became known to locals as Light Road, a spot where specter seekers reported glowing orbs and unusual noises in the 1960s.

Susan Hough, a seismologist at the U. S. Geological Survey, thinks this supernatural story can be explained by natural phenomena. While studying the area’s seismology, Dr. Hough scoured historical accounts, old newspaper articles, letters and diaries for mentions of earthquakes. One book she found, “Haunted Summerville,” mentioned a big 1886 quake. Could there be a connection between earthquakes and the area’s ghost stories?

Some reports of the Summerville Light also mentioned that cars violently shook. “Well, to a seismologist, that sort of screams ‘shallow earthquake,’” Dr. Hough said.