Every town has it’s myths, and Crossett, AR has a big one. The Crossett light is an alluring willow of the wisp that appears down an old dirt road in Ashley County Arkansas, causing light traffic to kick up dust in hopes of seeing the ghost light.
Bridget and I decided to head that way and discover all that we could about the ghost light that we have both personally seen.
Our first destination was the Crossett Library, where we found history to begin our search on understanding the mysterious light a little more.
According to the book Tent City: A History of Crossett Arkansas by John W. Buckner, this light is a romantic device to hurry along the long search to find one’s soulmate. It all began with Rose Marie and David (last names unknown) who fell in love and moved into a house beside the old railroad tracks. This railroad was apparently a huge part of their romance, because David quit his great job at the mill to work for the railroad.
Because his house was right off the tracks, he would just jump off the caboose and greet his wife, who, no matter what time or weather, would be waiting for him to jump off the train. Well, one late night, the train was incredibly late and David dropped his lantern and had to jump off blind. He lost his footing and boom, head gone, right in front of Rose Marie.
She screamed and ran to his headless body and held him until people showed up. No one could find his head. The funeral was the next day. He was buried in Unity Cemetery. As for Rose Marie, she began searching non stop for his head. Some say it was carried off by a wolf.
In another History of Crossett book by the same author, he tells us how students from Yale University studied the light, but their study came up inconclusive. Some say it was gas from a swamp nearby. Others claim aliens and their UFOs are to blame.
So, we have no last names, but some googling found the name Lochalas. But death records showed no Rose Marie or David Lochalas. So we went to Unity Cemetery to see for ourselves.
At the cemetery we ran into a guy who claimed he lived close to the light and had seen many weird things. This guy told us some crazy stories about camping near the light. He knew the cemetery and said that he didn’t think he could help, but if we find a legit last name then he will look on the list for us. I guess he’s the keeper. He did say the Lochalas family is all up in this place.
Needless to say, we found no evidence of this couple. But, the cemetery was established by the second oldest church in Crossett, thus, many graves are unreadable and some are only marked by stakes or rubble.
From there we made our way to where the light shows up. Only we did so in the daylight. We flew a drone over the area where the house….some house….station? The location is the old Bouvine Station or something. I’m not to sure. The fact that the light has changed locations has made it difficult to know what is so significant about this area.
We found nothing special. No swamps. No crop circles or anything alien suspicious. Just a bunch of woods and overgrown brush.
Mom Life and Beyond 