An Unexpected Visitor on Bear Mountain
Something unusual happened here on Bear Mountain in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.
I stepped outside onto the front deck this evening, caught up in the beauty of the late-fall sky. The view from our house looks straight down into thick Ozark woods, nothing but trees upon trees, no buildings, no lights, nothing man-made at all. Just beyond the line of pines and oaks, the land drops off sharply from a rocky ledge and then slopes and winds its way down to a creek you can’t see, even on the clearest day.
I snapped several photos, as I often do, hoping to catch the light just right. I’m not the best photographer in the world, but usually half my shots are decent and a few turn out surprisingly good. Later, when I downloaded them to my computer to decide which to keep, something caught my eye.
Two of the pictures, taken just seconds apart, looked entirely different.
In the first, everything was ordinary. Trees, twilight, the familiar woods.
In the second, framed only slightly differently, there was… something. Something glowing. Something that looked unnervingly like a face, perhaps even a male face, with what appeared to be a distinct halo surrounding it.
Now, I must tell you: I’ve never captured anything remotely paranormal on camera in my life. Not for lack of interest, mind you, I grew up hoping to spot a ghost or two. But I’m not a dedicated ghost hunter, and the supernatural rarely makes time for amateurs.
Still, if there is any place likely to produce a mystery or two, it’s Eureka Springs. Folks around here will proudly tell you it’s one of the most haunted towns in the country, and they say it with a kind of mischievous affection. The Crescent Hotel is on the national registry of haunted places, and apparitions are reportedly seen all over these hills. As kids, we looked for them everywhere. We felt cold spots, heard odd creaks, but never saw anything corporeal, not even when I once stayed in the Crescent’s most haunted room for an entire weekend.
But tonight, that may have changed.
The Two Photographs
Look at the first picture, nothing unusual, just the hillside and the woods.
But in the second? If the quality holds on the blog, look in the lower right quadrant. You’ll see it: the glowing shape, the strong hairline, the unmistakable suggestion of a halo. A saint? A spirit? A trick of the light? I honestly don’t know. But it certainly sparked my curiosity.
Here is the picture with the apparition down in the lower left hand corner.
And here is the cropped version. There’s some distortion, I’m no expert in digital editing, but even so, the shape remains.
And that, dear reader, was my first brush with an apparition on Bear Mountain. I’ll be keeping my camera by the door from now on, ready to shoot whenever the mood, and maybe the mystery, strikes again.
Tomorrow I think I’ll go visit a few of the old-timers and ask what they know about these woods. Something tells me Bear Mountain has stories to tell.