A debilitating drought drastically depleted the water of a massive lake in China and, in turn, revealed a sizeable series of puzzling patterns that some have likened to crop circles. The curious shapes (seen in the video above) were reportedly spotted in the exposed bed of Dongting Lake, which is located in the province of Hunan. Videos of the curious formations soon spread like wildfire on Chinese social media with many people offering some rather fantastic explanations for the odd patterns. As one might imagine, due to their resemblance to crop circles, many suggested that aliens may have been behind the strange shapes, while one particularly imaginative individual simply declared “don’t touch it. It’s the door to a secret underground chamber.”

In response to the speculation, an official from the group that manages the lake suggested that the patterns are probably the remnants of a type of fishing trap, known as an ‘ai wei,’ wherein small walls are used to capture the creatures as water levels rise and then fall due to a river that connects to the lake. However, not everyone is convinced of that explanation as one local resident expressed some skepticism due to the sheer size of the shapes, noting that “each block is as big as standard football fields.” Whether the patterns were made by humans or aliens, that they could be seen at all is cause for concern among many since the site is the country’s second largest freshwater lake and the drought has caused it to lose a staggering 70 percent of its water.

Video below.

An intriguing video from Argentina shows the moment when a hospital security guard claims to have greeted a visitor that he later learned was seemingly the ghost of a patient who had died earlier that night. The remarkable incident reportedly occurred last Saturday at the Finochietto Sanatorium in the city of Buenos Aires. At around three in the morning, the guard says that he was at the hospital’s front desk when an elderly woman entered through the automatic doors and explained that she had left something behind in her room. He subsequently took down her information and directed her into the building to retrieve the forgotten item. When the woman did not return a few hours later, he called the floor where she was headed and received an stunning response.

The security guard was informed that no such woman had visited the floor that night, which understandably piqued his curiosity. Going back to his paperwork from when she entered the building, he told them the name of the woman and that she had stayed in room 915. In what was likely an Earth-shattering experience for the man, the staff on the floor told him that person was a patient who had died three hours before he had encountered her in the front lobby. While this would normally be a fantastic tale worthy of an evening around the campfire, what makes the guard’s account particularly compelling is that his exchange with the woman was actually filmed by the hospital’s security camera.

In the bewildering video, seen above, the security guard stands up from the desk as the doors to the building open and, although no one can be seen entering, he grabs his clipboard and walks forward as if to speak to someone. For several seconds, the man appears to carry on a conversation which culminates with him ushering the invisible individual into the building and offering them a wheelchair, which they apparently declined. Since appearing online over the weekend, the confounding footage has gone viral on social media in Argentina with many wondering if the security guard’s eerie account is genuine.

In response to the furor surrounding the video, a skeptical official at the hospital indicated that they are investigating the matter and offered one particularly curious note about that night. He explained that a check of the security footage showed multiple instances wherein the possibly faulty automatic doors were seemingly triggered by nothing in particular. It was only in the one instance wherein the guard claims to have spoken to the woman that he responded as if someone had entered the building. That said, it has also been suggested that the video and accompanying tale might be an elaborate hoax orchestrated by the guard.

A floating orange ball over the famed US route has puzzled travellers for more than 100 years. And while most agree that the Hornet Spook Light exists, few agree on what causes it.

On a four-mile rural road eerily nicknamed the Devil’s Promenade, just off the old Route 66 in the north-east corner of Oklahoma, a paranormal mystery has puzzled spirit seekers for more than 100 years. The Hornet Spook Light – a mysterious, basketball-sized glowing orb named for the former town of Hornet – has been appearing in the night sky here since 1881. No-one knows what this peculiar, smouldering ball of light signifies, where it comes from or what it’s composed of. Even the Army Corps of Engineers have concluded that it’s a “mysterious light of unknown origin”.

It moves, spinning and bobbing up and down, like a lantern held by a dancing ghost, and is usually spotted from inside the Oklahoma border looking to the west.

As Route 66 historian Cheryl Eichar Jett, author of Route 66 in Kansas and founder of the annual Miles of Possibility Route 66 Conference, explained, “The Mother Road’s historical path through Joplin, Galena, Baxter Springs and then south to Quapaw, overlaps the Hornet Spook Light’s fame in the corners of Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma, where those three states’ borders meet. And so, the legends and lore of the eerie light have become inextricably tied to the equally legendary highway.”

Drawn by the mystery like so many other Route 66 aficionados, I parked my car along the empty road in the still of a moonless night. I waited for over an hour in the darkness, and though the Spook Light never bounced in the distance, the lore I’d read magnified my expectation so much that a pair of passing headlights spooked me, if only for a second.

Local resident Vance Randolph documented his encounter with the phenomenon in his 1947 tome Ozark Magic and Folklore. “I have seen this light myself, on three occasions,” he wrote. “It first appeared about the size of an egg but varied until sometimes it looked as big as a washtub. I saw only a single glow, but other witnesses have seen it split into two, three or four smaller lights. The thing looked yellowish to me, but some observers describe it as red, green, blue, or even purple in colour. One man swore that it passed so close to him that he could plainly feel the heat, and a woman saw it burst like a bubble, scattering sparks in all directions.”

The Hornet Spook Light, photographed in 1970 by area photographer Ed Craig, remains a mystery (Credit: Ed Craig Collection at Dobson Museum and Home Archive)

Dean “Crazylegs” Walker hails from Baxter Springs, Kansas, and was the inspiration behind the character of Tow-Mater in the Route 66-themed Cars film franchise. He volunteers at the Kansas Route 66 Visitors’ Center and recalls seeing the Spook Light at Devil’s Promenade on several occasions, starting with a first sighting at age eight. “My dad, mom and my uncle often took my cousins and me out to try to find the Hornet Spook Light,” he said. “Once, it even floated right through the front windshield of our car! My cousins and I crouched in the backseat, hiding from the light, until – poof! – it disappeared. We were all so spooked that no-one said a word ’til we got back to our home.”

Grace Goodeagle, an elder member of the Quapaw Nation, which is based in Quapaw, has a similar story: “One night, when I was about 10, my uncle drove my siblings and me to the Devil’s Promenade. Moments later, a glowing light appeared in the distance, deep in the woods. We weren’t afraid of it, though.”

Spook Light chasers and fans have published booklets about the phenomenon, including this 1955 guide (Credit: Courtesy Joplin Historical & Mineral Museum)

While locals agree that the Hornet Spook Light indeed exists, few agree on what causes it. 

In Vance’s book, he offered some theories of his era: some believed it to be the ghost of a murdered Osage chief; others said it was “the spirit of a Quapaw maiden who drowned herself in the river when her warrior was killed in battle”.

Goodeagle disputes those tall tales. “We must remember that our peoples are not native to this area,” she said. “The Quapaw peoples were forcibly removed from our ancestral home in the Mississippi valley beginning in 1830, after the enactment of the Indian Removal Act. The legends pointing towards ‘Indian spirits’ haunting this area are just that, legends. Our Nation believes in spirits, good and bad, but our family felt that the lights were simply due to nature, and not good or bad spirits, playing around with us.”

The first documented investigation into the Hornet Spook Light was undertaken by AB MacDonald, a reporter for the Kansas City Star, in January 1936. MacDonald judged that the mysterious lights were the headlights of cars driving east on Route 66.

Writer Robert Gannon concluded the same in a 1965 article in Popular Mechanics after conducting a test: he flashed his headlights on the adjacent highway at a specific time. His assistant, stationed on Devil’s Promenade, reported that the Hornet Spook Light appeared simultaneously.

“I doubt it was car headlights,” countered Goodeagle. “I won’t ever forget the experience. The light I saw bounced around and slowly approached my uncle’s truck. It simply did not appear to be automobile headlights from a distance in any way.”

“Some locals think the lights are caused by swamp gas,” she added. But Andrew George, associate professor of biology at Pittsburg State University in Kansas, disagrees. “The landscape around the Hornet Spook Light is unlikely to produce luminescent gasses, which are thought to cause similar phenomena elsewhere,” he explained.

“The legends of the eerie light have become inextricably tied to the equally legendary highway,” said historian Cheryl Eichar Jett (Credit: Oklahoma Historical Society)

Though he has not tested it himself, George backs the headlights idea. “The Hornet Spook Light is almost certainly caused by vehicle headlights on the larger roads a few miles to the west,” he said. “The unusual appearance and movement of the light probably result from changes in air densities above the Spring River and the surrounding forests and fields. The light is refracted as it passes through the warmer and cooler air.”

Walker, like many locals, is not buying it. “No, it’s not car headlights,” he said. “It’s just too far from the turnpike. There is just no way.”

A bizarre video from New Zealand shows the moment when a burning bus inexplicably drives across a road on its own and some suspect that the mystifying maneuver may have been the work of a ghost. The very strange incident reportedly took place last month in the community of Raumati Beach as witness Craig Meek was in the area visiting his family. Troubled by the smell of gasoline, the man ventured outside and was stunned to see that a bus parked along the side of the road had burst into flames. While watching the fiery scene, Meek spoke to the owner of the burning vehicle, who expressed concern that it could explode and cause untold damage to the neighborhood, which is when something truly weird unfolded before their eyes.

Seemingly in response to the owner’s fears, the light of the bus suddenly went out and then it started on its own. With its horn blaring, the burning vehicle then proceeded to drive drove across the road to a less precarious spot where the fire was unlikely to threaten any residences. According to Meek, the odd turn of events occurred at the “perfect time” as the flames from the vehicle had begun to burn a nearby hedge. Had the fiery bus not moved to the other side of the street, he believes, the resulting inferno would have “definitely taken out the house” next to where the blaze had begun and, quite possible, spread to even more homes.

Musing that the situation was “surreal” and “paranormal,” Meek revealed a rather odd insight which suggests that there may have actually been a supernatural explanation for the eerie event.During their conversation, the owner of the bus wistfully recalled how he and his late wife had many adventures in the vehicle over the years. Chillingly, he also indicated that the woman had actually passed away in the bus itself. This spooky detail was seemingly acknowledged by the owner when the peculiar trip across the road occurred as he wondered aloud “if it’s my wife taking it away,” since she wanted to spare their neighbor’s home from the flames.

Meek subsequently shared his video of the peculiar event on social media and some viewers offered a prosaic explanation for what could have happened. They theorize that the fire caused a short circuit in the vehicle’s starter, which led to it ‘coming to life’ and lurching across the street. However, Meek is not entirely convinced of that scenario, noting that “it’s the timing that’s bizarre,” since the bus moved just moments before the blaze would have erupted and taken out the neighboring home.