Moody's Light

Anita Moore, who lived next to the old Moody property, remembered hearing about Moody’s Light as a teenager in the 1940s. The light, also called the Francesville Light, is reported along a rural road in the Francesville and Rensselaer area of Pulaski County.

The phenomenon centers on a single mysterious light drifting over flat farmland and cornfields at night. Witnesses often describe it as lantern-like, and according to multiple accounts gathered by the Rensselaer Republican, it “often changes from bright yellow to a blood red pigment, twinkles a bit and disappears.” It appears to float and bob across the fields, sometimes vanishing only to reappear. Some observers report the light moving toward their vehicle before disappearing entirely.

The most widely told origin story is grim. According to a recurring version of the legend, a farmer named Moody came home one evening to find his wife and daughters brutally murdered; in grief he hanged himself from a nearby tree. The floating light, witnesses said, was his ghost wandering the fields with a lantern, eternally searching for the killer. A variant claims Moody returned to a burning house with his family trapped inside. Another folklore version tells of two brothers in a horse-drawn buggy, one of whom was decapitated; the survivor roams endlessly through cornfield rows holding a lantern, looking for his brother’s head.

These dramatic origin tales do not align with documented local history. Moore told the Rensselaer Republican that Granville “Van” Moody, the last Moody living nearby, had no wife or children. He quit farming in the 1930s and moved into an apartment in Francesville, where he later died; years later, local children accidentally burned down the vacant farmhouse. “I have seen the light that comes toward you,” Moore said. “I just always knew it was 49.” As she put it, “The people that believe Moody’s Light to be paranormal are the people that don’t understand the lay of the land.”

The SouthLake Chapter of the Indiana Ghost Trackers examined the phenomenon during an investigation covered by the Rensselaer Republican. Part of the team recreated the light from State Road 49 while the rest watched from Meridian Road, and chapter director Chris Hensel said, “In my opinion this myth has been debunked.” The investigators concluded the light is most plausibly distant car headlights from State Road 49, lined up with the dead-straight rural roads.

Multiple folklore variants survive in internet archives and regional collections, including the decapitated brothers story appearing on several sites, but these have no tie to documented events. The Rensselaer Republican’s account of Van Moody’s life contradicts every gruesome narrative attached to the legend.

The light chasers still come. Moore said the extra traffic at this time of year “is usually kept under control by the Sheriff,” but called it a nuisance for her neighbors, who have complained about visitors knocking on doors at all hours of the night and getting stuck in the field or in a ditch.