Jack-o’-lanterns, will-o’-the-wisps, and ignis fatuus

Making sense of ghost lights

Abstract

For several hundred years, ghost lights have been a common part of our phantasmagorical folk history and stories, appearing in various mundane and spectral forms to mischievously lead unfortunate souls towards their mortal ends. Curiously though, and over the last century, ghost light sightings have practically disappeared throughout Europe and North America, leading many to question, where did all the ghost lights go? While urbanisation has altered many (super)natural habitats, and left them uninhabitable to ghost lights, the term ghost light is itself profoundly misleading, as it is far from a singular (other)worldly entity, and instead represents a variety of magical creatures and secular-material phenomena, including will-o’-the-wisps, jack-o’-lanterns, foxfires, and ignis fatuus etc. Yet, while ghost lights may have been ontologically extirpated from the West, they seem to be thriving in other global regions, while increasingly pervading popular culture via Halloween rituals and common metaphors.