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Every year on Memorial Day, Americans honor our fallen war veterans and also our deceased loved ones by decorating cemeteries and grave sites. But some Michigan cemeteries come already decorated -- with mysterious headstones that glow by themselves!

One of the best known graveyards with unexplained night lights is Forest Hill Cemetery just east of Evart on Six Mile Road. People have reported seeing strangely glowing objects there since the late 1800s. The cemetery lies near a place where Italian railroad workers once camped. According to local legend, a father and son from that camp both drowned in the nearby Muskegon River. The father's job had been to light kerosene lanterns at nightfall, and after his death other workers claimed they saw lanterns that appeared lit at a distance but darkened when approached. They whispered that the lights were carried by the ghost of the father searching for his dead son. As the cemetery grew nearby, however, eventually the tombstones took on the glow of the phantom lanterns.

The tombstones also worked - and still work -- the same way as the lanterns. Half a dozen or so tombstones appear to glow from within when viewed from outside the cemetery, but fade when the viewer moves in for a closer look. Jim Crees, editor of the Evart Review, wrote in a July 1, 1988 article that local investigators spent three weeks studying everything from the angle of passing automobile headlights to possible reflections of city lights. Phosphorescent headstone materials were also ruled out. Crees declared the mystery unsolved.

Harrison Cemetery at Schoolcraft also boasts glowing headstones. Strangely, they behave just like the Evart stones and lose their illumination at a distance of about 500 feet. Is this a type of spirit manifestation or some little known effect of Michigan air, soil or landscape that is somehow transferred to the headstones? Whatever the cause, Michigan's glowing tombstones provide a year-round memorial to the unknown.

http://www.absolutemichigan.com/dig/michigan/weird-wednesday-glowing-tombstones/



Having seen this phenomenon elsewhere,I attributed
it to a phosphorescent chemical.But there are many who feel otherwise.They believe that these glowing tombstones are spirits.I have also believed that one someone is buried,the spirit moves on etc...I am curious about what others feel this phenomena might be..Spirits? or something else..

Have they ever pin pointed the origin of the granites or marbles used?
The years in which they were possibly mined?
I am certain that there must be a logical, rational explanation that has been overlooked.

I hate to be boring but certain algae and moss have a florescent glow and they love old tombstones...unless they are cleaned in which case it is restless spirits.

Im thinking that the tombstones,depending on when they were cut,might have been made of radioactive material,or maybe it could be a chemical.They state that the glow diminishes upon approach,so that detail has me stumped somewhat.

It was late when I posted and I was tired and frustrated. That the "swamp gas" type stories go back before the cemetery existed indicates an environmental cause. It could be a bacteria or insect. Is it always the same headstones or are they random?

That it is something which has been reported in locations nationwide depending on the locations similarity to the one in Mich could be environmental coupled with something in the stones themselves.

Im in Fallenstars Camp for once, along with mineral flaking embedded in the newer model tombstones

Yes,Im pretty sure it has to do with something along anyone of those lines.Either way,Im not sold on the fact it is spirits,but rather something naturally occuring.

Well some granite is slightly radioactive maybe it's that the reason you can't see it up close would be from the fact that you see the stone it self further back the stone would be in the dark and the glow would be more prominent. Just a thought.