A ghost is said to roam this railroad. A scientist has another idea.

A decapitated train conductor is said to prowl a section of railroad in Maco Station, North Carolina, illuminating the tracks with a lantern.

But this ghost is far from the only reported rail sighting in the U.S. “There’s a recurring theme. There are ghosts reported along railroad tracks holding lanterns,” U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Susan Hough told Mashable.

While investigating the 1886 quake in Charleston, South Carolina — a potent 7.0 temblor that collapsed buildings and killed some 60 people — the legendary haunting of the nearby abandoned Summerville rail captured Hough’s attention. As the viral shaking in New York City in 2024 illustrated, earthquakes stoked by shifting faults do rattle the Eastern U.S. from time to time. Perhaps, thought Hough, the Summerville ghost’s lantern is actually a radiant earthquake phenomenon reported globally called “earthquake lights,” commonly described as balls of light or steady glows.

“Maybe these ghosts are showing us where you have shallow, active faults in these [eastern] areas,” said Hough, who recently published a research article on the phenomenon in the journal Seismological Research Letters.

While visiting the Charleston area, Hough dug up old book records from the 1950s and 1960s, which documented residents’ attempts to spy light from the Summerville ghost (the lantern was supposedly carried by an apparition waiting for her husband to return). One such account reported that, during a Summerville ghost outing, their car shook violently.

“To a seismologist, that screams a shallow earthquake,” Hough said.

“There are ghosts reported along railroad tracks holding lanterns.”

Hough suggests that many of these sightings can be explained by quaking activity or earthquake faults. Summerville, after all, is thought to be the epicenter of the 1886 quake, and smaller 3.5 to 4.4 temblors hit there in 1959 and 1960. Even milder quakes, too small to be felt, but able to potentially produce earthquake lights, almost certainly affect the region, too.

Damage on East Bay Street in Charleston from the 1886 earthquake.
Credit: Bettmann / Contributor

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If the supernatural isn’t responsible for the radiance, how might quakes naturally create such brilliant lights?

Hough thinks that most quake experts accept that earthquake lights do occur, though there’s still some skepticism. It’s unclear, however, what causes them — but there are compelling seismic ideas. In the case of the “railroad ghosts,” the process may begin with gases, like methane or radon, escaping to the surface through underground fractures in a shallow fault zone. Once on the surface, the gases can become trapped in water vapor and pool, igniting when they’re exposed to oxygen. Then, the trains come into play. Trains create static electricity on steel tracks; even abandoned lines or heaps of steel rail can create the static spark, ultimately producing the eerie light.

Of course, not every railroad ghost is stoked by fault phenomena, Hough cautions. Sometimes, they’re headlight reflections from nearby highways. But many could be caused by faults. And Hough says this could be tested, for example, by purchasing radon kits and placing them where the lights are, or have been, reportedly seen. Scientists could also look for shallow faults in these areas.

An old illustration of two people ghost-hunting on railroad tracks with a lantern.
Credit: PennyLens / Getty Images

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The Eastern U.S. certainly doesn’t have the robust quaking activity seen on the West Coast — as there are no well-defined faults or major earthquake zones like California’s infamous San Andreas Fault — but it’d behoove us to understand where these shallow faults are, and better grasp their risk.

In 2011, a magnitude 5.8 earthquake hit near Mineral, Virginia, with significant shaking reaching some 80 miles away, to Washington, D.C. The temblor damaged the Washington National Cathedral and Washington Monument. Fortunately, no one was killed.

But what if such a relatively rare quake hit much nearer to the nation’s capital?

“If it was closer, it could have had a serious impact,” Hough said.