A famous West Texas 'ghost light' seen on a dirt road by Mount Hope Cemetery near Anson, where flashing your headlights three times is said to summon a bobbing white light tied to a pioneer-mother legend.
CR 542 / dirt road off 17th Street near Mount Hope Cemetery, Anson, TX 79501
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free to view from the public dirt road; respect the adjacent cemetery and private farmland.
Access
Limited Access
Unpaved farm road; flat but rough and dusty. Best experienced from a vehicle.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1900 · One of Texas's most famous 'ghost light' phenomena · Featured on the television series Unsolved Mysteries · Associated with historic Mount Hope (Anson) Cemetery
Anson is the seat of Jones County, roughly 20 miles north of Abilene in West Texas. On the outskirts of town, a dirt farm road runs alongside Mount Hope Cemetery (also called Anson Cemetery), and it is here that the so-called Anson Lights have been reported for generations.
The phenomenon is one of Texas's best-known 'spook lights,' on par with the Marfa Lights and the Bragg Road light in the Big Thicket. Visitors drive out the dirt road, position their vehicle facing the main road, turn off the engine, and flash their headlights three times. After a short wait, observers report a single white light that appears far down the road and seems to drift, sway, or grow as if approaching, then vanishes as they drive toward it.
The Anson Lights gained wide attention when the case was featured on the television series Unsolved Mysteries, drawing residents from Anson and nearby Abilene as well as out-of-town visitors. The legend and the viewing ritual have been documented by Texas Monthly, Texas Hill Country, and numerous regional outlets.
The most common natural explanation, noted since at least the early 1960s, is that a stretch of nearby U.S. Highway 277 lines up with the dirt road; distant car headlights on that highway can appear as a single approaching light when viewed down the cemetery road. Even so, the light's behavior and timing have kept it firmly in the realm of local legend.
Sources
The enduring legend behind the Anson Lights tells of a pioneer woman who lived near the town in the nineteenth century. She sent her sons out to gather firewood, telling them to flash their lantern three times if they ran into trouble. When she saw the three flashes she rushed out, but arrived too late; the boys had been killed. Her restless spirit is said to wander the area with a lantern, still searching for her children (Texas Hill Country; Texas Monthly).
This origin story is why the viewing ritual mirrors the legend: drivers flash their headlights three times, echoing the doomed sons' distress signal, to summon the mother's light. Witnesses describe a small white glow, easily mistaken for a flashlight or distant lantern, that appears far down the road and seems to drift closer before fading.
Skeptics, beginning with a local resident in the early 1960s, attribute the effect to headlights on a stretch of U.S. Highway 277 that aligns with the cemetery road. The competing explanations are part of why the Anson Lights remain a popular and frequently retold West Texas mystery rather than a settled case.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
Drive out the dirt road past Mount Hope Cemetery, turn to face the main road, kill the engine, and flash your headlights three times. Watchers report a white light that appears far down the road and seems to approach.
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