There is an inexplicably mysterious phenomenon in different parts of the planet - wandering night lights, which, like large fireflies, lead those watching them into a stupor, confusing people and out of the way. Mysterious lights outwardly resemble sometimes balls, sometimes cones, similar to a candle flame. Greenish, yellow, blue, ghostly phosphorescent glow are found in swamps, cemeteries, and shallow water bodies. The inhabitants of swampy places have long been afraid to walk near the swamps at night, so as not to see strange lights, considered by the Slavs to be the tricks of Satan, luring people into the swamp. It was the appearance of the lights that gave rise to the horror of everyone to be in the cemetery at night, so it was bypassed by the tenth road so as not to meet the souls of the dead. (The Slavs were sure: the lights in the cemetery are the souls of the dead coming out of the graves.)
Legends and reality
But even today, wandering lights continue to excite the imagination and frighten a person, although many versions of their origin have already been put forward: a cluster of fireflies in one place; spontaneous combustion of gas accumulating in the process of decay of organic matter; more modern assumptions explain them by radioactive fallout.
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Many rumors, beliefs and very real stories are associated with the flickering of strange night lights in different areas and countries. Here is some of them. In 1940, in one of the Australian districts near Alexandria station, a driver driving past a cemetery noticed a luminous ball above him, shaped like a watermelon, which began to approach him. In horror, the man turned around and rushed in the opposite direction, but a suspicious ball glow followed his car for a while.
The same shock was experienced by two police officers who found themselves on an empty highway near Marylinde, who were also for some time accompanied by a shimmering ball emitting yellow light. Light ghosts sometimes appear on the skins of aircraft when they fly in a severe frost or blizzard.
In one of the regions of Kazakhstan, two young geologists who got out of the car at night in search of a road, went to the glowing lights and disappeared. Their bodies were found a few days later; it was found that they died from dehydration under the scorching sun of the Turgai semi-desert. How young, strong guys could find themselves far from roads, in an impassable place - this question tormented everyone for a long time. Many believed that the mysterious lights were to blame, which took the children to disastrous places, from where they could not get out, fell asleep from exhaustion and died in their sleep from overheating. The glowing lights on the Finnish lake Paaselka remain a mystery to this day.
St. Elmo's lights
Since ancient times, the inhabitants of the Finnish villages of Joensuu and Savonllinna have known that flickering lights in the form of luminous balls and ellipses appear from time to time on a nearby lake at a low altitude above the water. They are popularly called "the lights of St. Elmo", who is mistaken for the patron saint of sailors in the Catholic faith, because, according to eyewitnesses, they (the lights), appearing on the masts of ships, more than once saved ships from shipwrecks. According to observations, spots of light mirage appear most often on the lake during a thunderstorm, flashing flashes at a height of 1.5-2 meters from the surface.
How the lake was formed
According to geological data, the oval-shaped lake was formed as a result of one of the volcanic transformations of the earth's crust 229 million years ago, which contributed to the occurrence of magnetic anomalies. Scientists assure that the glow that sometimes appears over the lake is the result of these anomalies precisely in the place of the former volcano crater, flooded by the lake. As proof of its (lake) volcanic origin, scientists cite the fact of the extraordinary depth of the reservoir, reaching 75 meters in some places. Other researchers argue that the appearance of light formations is the result of optical deception, arising from the refraction of rays in a certain focus, like a mirage.
But modern people, ordinary people who want to believe in miracles, interpret the wandering fires in their own way: some believe that they indicate the places of treasures in the lake; others - that the glowing spots are the souls of the drowned, and the third - that the fires lure a person into the depths to drown. In this regard, they talk about cases when three teenagers who risked to swim closer to the lights on a boat did not return, drowning in an insidious lake. No one knows for sure whether this is true or fiction, but a veil of some mystery does not leave the vicinity of Paasselka.
Finland, beckoning to itself with unusually pure nature: transparent lakes, coniferous forests, ski slopes, the home of the Finnish Father Frost - Joulupukki - also attracts with a mysterious lake. Excursions to it take place quite often and there are many who wish: everyone is interested in the mysterious phenomena of amazing ghosts of light.
Recommended reading What to see in Finland.
