PLEASANT VIEW CEMETERY

"I'm just a ghost in this house
I'm shadow upon these walls,
As quietly as a mouse
I haunt these halls."
- Allison Krauss, Ghost in This House

One mysterious graveyard, the Pleasant View Cemetery in Prairie Township, Indiana, continues to mystify local residents. On dark, lonely nights, looking from a knoll just south and east of the graveyard, many people have spotted a luminous light, dancing just above the ground, apparently coming from a simple dark headstone set by itself in the graveyard. It must be a shy apparition, for the glow always seems to fade just as curious people approach. The eerie glow has only been seen at a distance as if it wants to be left alone.

It would be easy think that it was the reflection of passing car headlights bouncing off the smooth, worn stone. Or better yet, the full moon on a cloudless night could reflect its light off the reflective marble surface of some marker. But the Pleasant View lights have been seen on cloudy, overcast nights just as readily as clear ones, and after cars pass by on nearby roads, the glow remains, unaffected by the vehicles passing.

Some researchers wonder if the lights could be caused by some type of magnetic disturbance. Could these tombstone lights be sililar to the baffling Marfa lights from the southwest, another set of glowing orbs seen only from a distance and only at night?

  Other local residents have suggested the lights may be a rare occurrence of 'swamp gas, ' sort of like an Indiana will-o-the-wisp. And although cases of luminous gas have been documented in other parts of Kosciusko County, Prairie Township does not have one case of the bizarre natural phenomena on its books, so the mystery remains.