Gurdon Light

We left Benton and drove an hour to Gurdon, about 5 of us in a minivan, and we arrived at about 11. For about an hour, we searched the WRONG train tracks only to find disappointment and failure, and finally pulled into a Sonic to ask a local (who, like in other accounts, was quite calm and normal in telling us the directions). We found the tracks, and took a small side road I recommend off of highway 53 - it is right next to the tracks. Unfortunately we were in a minivan so the slightly potholed road was a little tough, but it saves you a bit of time and comes right up next to the tracks and conceals your vehicle. (Some drunk guys followed us out there and told us people like to steal things from stopping tourists. No need to tell you, we locked our van BECAUSE of the drunk informants.)

From there we took our time walking, easing the fears of our one female companion who was a bit eased when we flashed our "beating sticks" and our one butterfly knife, our only protection against the drunkards if they were to come back (although they didn't, and I now am glad they stopped, they were helpful). After about an hour and 45 minutes of walking, we had seen a few lights, what we assumed were other people coming towards us, but I never noticed them getting much closer.

Finally, after about 4-5 trestles (watch out for the first, it's a surprise that will break your toe), we saw an insanely bright light. It shined from 2 sources, on and off, not too fast but in a constant pattern. When we looked back, it covered a HUGE area behind us, lit up the woods for 1/2 a mile back, something amazing to me considering 1/2 a mile back I hadn't seen ANY light but the dim yellow from our ghetto flashlights.

After a while we moved forward, and the same event happened several times, but it never got any closer. Then we met some people coming from the other direction. They had seen the exact same thing as us, but we determined there was NO WAY it could have been our flashlights they saw, considering they were too dim, WAY too dim. After that we hung out with them for awhile and talked about what we saw. They saw colored lights behind them in addition to the bright lights in front that we shared. After that, and attempting scaring off other passersby, we headed home. By the way, it was so great, I'm going back next weekend.