<>#8'LIGHTEN OUR DARKNESS'@7 What were the mysterious lights that accompanied Mary Jones's 1905 Welsh ministry? We will now look at the bizarre tale of religious fervour and its 'UFO' connection - and considers comtemporary allegations that the lights were hoaxes.@5 MOST OF THE EYEWITNESS REPORTS we have of Mary Jones of Egryn, the 'Merionethshire Seeress' as she became known, come from local and national newspapers, and articles in the Occult Review. The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) produced a long and detailed report in its Proceedings for 1905, but conducted its investigation by postal questionaire. However, it is hard to see what the most experienced psychical researcher, more accustomed to seances and hauntings, would have made of the following account, from the correspondent of the Daily Mirror. He tells of the journey back from a revival meeting: In the first carriage were Mrs. Jones and three ladies; in my own with me, the 'Daily Mirror' photographer, a keen-witted, hard-headed Londoner. The weirdness of that drive in semi- darkness at breakneck speed by river and mountain round deadly corners and down precipitous hills, I shall never forget. For three miles (5 kilometres) we had driven in silence, and I had given up hope. It was close on midnight, and we were nearing Barmouth when suddenly, without the faintest warning, a soft shimmering radiance flooded the road at our feet. Immediately it spread around us, and every stick and stone within twenty yards (18 metres) was visable, as if under the influence of the softest lime-light. It seemed as though some large body between earth and sky had suddenly opened and emitted a flood of light from within itself. It was a little suggestive of the bursting of a firework bomb - and yet wonderfully different. Quickly as I look up, the light was even then fading away from the sky overhead. I seemed to see an oval mass of grey, half-open, disclosing within a kernel of white light. As I looked, it closed, and everything was once again in darkness. #5Who knew anything about UFOs in 1905?@5 The same team also witnessed another form of the phenomenon - one also described by Beriah Evans, and the Dyffryn police constable. It seems that each night in the early part of 1905 there was a regular gathering of intrigued observers along the road by the chapel, all hoping for the lights to appear. The Daily Mirror reporter saw: A bar of light quite four feet (1 metre) wide, and of the most brilliant blue. It blazed out at me from the roadway, a few yards from the chapel. For half a moment it lay across the road, and then extended itself up the wall on either side. It did not rise above the walls. As I stared, fascinated, a kind of quivering radiance flashed with lightning speed from one end of the bar to the other, and the whole thing disappeared. Meanwhile, the reporter from the Daily Mail, having walked several miles from Barmouth station saw: A ball of fire above the roof of the @5chapel. It came from nowhere, and sprang into existence instantaneously. It had a steady, intense, yellow brilliance, and did not move. It seemed to me to be at twice the height of the chapel, say fifty feet (15 metres). Suddenly it disappeared, having lasted about a minute and a half....The minutes crept by, then two lights flashed out, one on each side of the chapel. They seemed about 100 yards (90 metres) apart, and about 100 feet (30 metres) above the roof of the chapel. They shone out brilliantly and steadily for a space of 30 seconds. Then they both began to flicker while one could count ten. Then they became steady again. In the distance they looked like large and brilliant motor-car lights. Many reports such as these could be quoted. But are there any real clues as to the nature of the phenomena described as 'stars' and 'lights'? How can we begin to track down their source? Were there real, physical lights, or were they illusions experienced by the followers of Mary Jones through the power of suggestion, when she told them that she could see lights? Were they seen only when she was present? Did they occur only in one small area? And if so, could an explanation lie in the fact that there is marshland near the chapel - might the lights have been marsh gas spontaneously igniting? If the phenomena had in fact occured only around the Egryn chapel, a number of possible explanations for what were seen and reported could have been found. For example, hoaxers carrying lanterns on the hills behind the chapel would certainly have been high on the list of possibilities. So too would misapprehension of the @5lights of the chapel itself, or those of the scattered farmhouses in the district, or of the distant St Tudwal lighthouse. Few of the conventional sources of light encountered by UFO investigators in the 1980s would have occured then: car lights were rare, train lights unmistakable - due to the accompanying steam engine noise - and aeroplanes (particularly flying at night) almost unheared of. However, the problem in analysing the Welsh lights are not easily resolved. While the appearance of the stars and lights and, later, of the extraordinary phenomena, do seem to have been related to the presence of Mary Jones, there appears to have been no geographical limit to where they could be seen. The Barmouth Advertiser of 20 April 1905 reported: This week Mrs. Mary Jones of Egryn, the 'Merionethshire Seeress' is conducting revival meetings in the Wrexham district. Some of the women present at the afternoon meeting on Monday declare that they saw a light hovering over the head of Mrs. Jones while she was speaking and praying. At the evening meeting, as she delivered a very powerful address, and offered a most earnest prayer, the 'lights' were seen by a large number of people in the chapel. The first was a flash like lightning while she delivered the first part of her address; a second flash appeared when she began in her address to describe the 'lights' in the Egryn district, and a third flash was seen when she was praying. She said in the course of her address that the 'lights' had appeared wherever she had visited, with two exceptions, and @5now she knew that she had not been divinely guided to go to those places where the lights did not follow her. The visit of Mrs. Jones, followed by the lights, has created quite a sensation in the district. Wrexham (in what is now Clwyd) is on the other side of Wales from Egryn. On 23 July 1905, about three weeks after Mrs Jones had held a mission nearby, a group of young people returning from a prayer meeting at Ynysybwl, near Pontypridd, Glamorgan, had a remarkable experience. They told local reporters: 'There appeared in the heavens a very large and bright ball of fire. It had two brilliant arms which protruded towards the earth. Between these arms appeared lights resembling a cluster of stars, quivering with varying brightness. It lasted for ten minutes....' A doctor from Tylorstown recounted for the SPR enquiry an incident that occured on 27 May 1905: About 10 p.m. on Saturday night I was coming home with my wife, when she drew my attention to a bright light over the Libanus Chapel, towards the side of the mountain. It appeared as a ball of fire about the size of a cheese-plate; it was perfectly fixed. As soon as I saw it I marked its position, in order to be sure that it could not be some one with a light on the road which passes over the mountain, but its position was far enough away from the road. Meanwhile, in April 1905, three clergymen from the Llangollen area gave the Barmouth Advertiser the results of their own investigations. The three had watched the part of the Dee Valley where Mary Jones claimed @5lights had appeared over the homes of those who were 'spiritually troubled'. They saw 'two large balls of fire rise from the earth and suddenly burst luridly. On the third occasion...a simular light travelling towards Vroncysyllte.' All were satisfied that, 'Some mysterious phenomenon had appeared in their midst simultaneously with the visit of the seeress.' Together with the many other calm and responsible reports from witnesses all over Wales, it makes a solid case for a genuine mystery. Hoax, misapprehension, illusion, or natural explanations seem particularly unlikely here. Newspapers have hinted that there was a UFO connection, and the links between the revival phenomena and other well-established paranormal events seem clear enough. The following piece from the Occult Review hints at the scope of what is involved: The bedroom of an exceptionally intelligent young woman in the neighbourhood has been visited three times in succession by a man dressed in black, whose appearance corresponds with that of the 'Devil' seen by Mrs. Jones. This figure has delivered a message to the girl, which, however, she is forbidden to relate. In Bryncrug, a similar apparition was seen simultaneously from different standpoints. A local professional man, startled, uttered an involuntary prayer. Immediately, one of Mrs. Jones's mysterious 'lights' appeared above, a white ray darting from it which pierced the figure, which there upon vanished. An apparition, appearing first as a man, @5then transforming itself into a large black dog, was seen at Abergynolwyn, a mining centre not far distant. end.