<>#8A FADING STAR@5 While mysterious lights flashed and hovered around Mary Jones, other strange events were reported in the Egryn area. Coincidence? Or were all the phenomena projections from Mrs Jones?@3 THE LIGHTS ASSOCIATED with Mary Jones in 1905 were not the first to be seen in the north-western part of Wales. The Barmouth Advertiser found this account in a geography of Wales published in about 1800: 'Tis creditably reported that in the year 1692 a fiery exhalation was seen to cross the sea, and set fire to the ricks of hay, corn and barns near Harlech, and to infect the grass, but was not michievous to men, though they were in the midst of it. It proceeded in the night from the same place for some months, commonly on Saturdays or Sundays. The only remedy to extinguish or drive it away was to sound horns or trumpets, or to discharge guns. The Reverend Fryer, who conducted the enquiry for the Society for Phychical Research (SPR), found similar - though less dramatic - reports of blue or white lights in 1869, 1875 and 1877, at points along the Cambrian coast. Perhaps if the contemporary investigations into the lights had been more thorough, we might now be able to say what really happened in 1905. The investigations that did take place were far from adequate, though the problems that the phenomena presented were many. How do you catch, or measure, or analyse a flying light? As it is, we can only consider how trustworthy the witnesses were, and look for common features in their reports. The Daily Mail sent a Mr Redwood, the son of a famous scientist, to investigate. He set up some sort of 'instruments capable of being influenced by any extraordinary electrical condition of the atmosphere', about a mile (1.6 kilometres) from the Egryn chapel. Unfortunately, despite several hours' waiting in heavy rain, he recorded no positive results save for a sudden onslaught by two other observers, who, believing the light from his lantern to be miraculous, rushed up and took a photograph of it. But a local man had warned him before his experiment: 'Ah, you won't see the light tonight, for Mrs Mary Jones has gone away.' Of the British newspapers, only the Manchester Guardian seems to have sent someone to talk to the actual witnesses to find out what was really happening. The article, credited to 'A visitor', appeared on 14 February 1905 and was entitled 'Fire without and within'. After a discussion of the place of the lights in the current religious revival, it concluded: While everybody speaks of Mrs. Jones with great respect, a good many of her neighbours smile when the lights are mentioned. They have not seen them, though they are always sweeping the heavens with their eyes. One man saw two arc-like lights one night which were neither stars nor lamp- lights but may, he thinks, have been produced in some oblique way be the rays of the moon. 'I have often seen @3Mrs. Jones driving to Revival meetings;, said the same man, 'but I have never seen any lights attending her....' A woman who thoroughly believes in the lights says she saw a large star one evening as she was going into Chapel. 'Nearly as big as the moon - well, not quite so big - and a bluish colour.' It had disappeared when she came out of the chapel two hours later.... Taking the existence of the 'lights' to be admitted - and there seems to be abundant evidence - it may be hoped that some competent enquiry will be directed as to their cause....As against the physical character of the 'lights', they are said at the same time to be visable to some and invisible to others. Certainly, local feelings about the lights did seem to be mixed, and some who had at first been enthusiastic about the phenomena later saw them as a liability, and an embarrassment bringing ridicule upon local people. The Cambrian News, published in Aberystwyth, came to be of this opinion. On 24 February 1905, after reporting lights at Tre'rddol, it commented: When a person sees flashing lights he may take it for granted that he has jim-jams. Jim-jams are really dangerous, and when he hears knockings as well he is in a fair way to find himself locked up in a padded room.... Over the next few weeks it continued with its criticism, crowning its efforts in verse: If these things you see and hear @3Sometimes distant, sometimes near Don't you seek to reconcile 'em, They'll do that in the Asylum! It must be admitted that on 10 January 1905 The Times had reported: 'Ten patients suffering from religious mania are already in the Joint Counties Asylum at Denbigh. One or two show signs of improvement, but the general condition of the others is stated to be very bad.' Paranormal events are always being reported, regardless of revivals, evangelists, or enquiring journalists. Generally, only a small proportion of those people who have such experiences make them public, and it must be assumed that in 1905 a higher proportion than usual were persuaded, due to press interest and revival enthusiasm, to do so. Many other accounts of unusual events did reach investigators. The SPR enquiry discovered a clergyman who heard a choir of voices singing a previously undocumented Welsh hymn in the middle of a deserted hillside. Various men in Mountgomeryshire heard bells in a church service, the sound of singing along an empty road, and an unexplained thunderclap. A minister from Maesteg told of how a young parishioner suddenly 'knew', while praying in church, of the death of his absent farther. An unnamed woman, probably in early 1905, is rumoured to have seen a column of fire below which appeared the Egryn chapel, apparently in mid-flight; it later turned into an 'eye', split into two parts, fell, and re-formed into what appeared to be the shape of a man. A similar experience was had by 'an aged Welsh bard of some repute', who @3had been unable 'to forgo the temptations of the tavern'. He found himself in a 'strange land', being threatened by 'ravening beasts'. Rescued by a mysterious figure from this predicament, he said: 'I realised I had seen my Saviour.' He gave up drinking, took up missionary work during the revival, and 'influenced for good many of his old boon companions'. Though the visions of the converts happened in the same country as the lights, amid the same religious fervour (and were reported in the same magazines and newspapers), they are probably entirely different phenomena, although no one today can be sure. There are many problems to be overcome in attempting any assessment of the lights associated with Mary Jones. It is now many years since the phenomena occurred. Though there are many cases, most are undated, and those reported to the SPR are often anonymous; it is difficult to assess their worth. We know little of weather conditions and other vital factors at the times the lights were seen. Faced with possible explanations as varied as sightings of Venus, of St Elmo's fire, or marsh gass, ball lightning, phosphorescence, fireflies, and the lights of St Tudwal's lighthouse, it is impossible to investigate further. Any of these might or might not have caused any particular incident. A holiday the author took at Tal-y-Bont (a village near Egryn) revealed few local memories of either Mrs Jones or her phenomena. Local explanations related to 'men carrying lanterns in the fields' and 'moon light shining on broken glass'. @3The key to any objective assessment of the phenomena lies in the independent testimony from journalists and clergymen. This does seem strong enough to support the view that genuinely paranormal events did take place. Most of them took the form of varying shapes of bright white or coloured light, behaving in an entirely mysterious manner. That the lights were seen, and that they were seen to move in an apparently purposeful manners, appears certain. As the Guardian said of them, 'There seems to be abundant evidence.' So, if the lights, with their paranormal behaviour, did occur, or were seen to occur, how and why did they do so? Where did they come from, what directed their behaviour, and where did they go? There are no firm answers to these questions, but perhaps the best clue lies in what the lights, by their appearance and behaviour, achieved. That was, simply, Mrs Jones's own ambitions: to be the ['accepted medium for the spreading of the Revival in Merionethshire', and to run a successful mission in her own local chapel. The lights were the means of her fame, and the basis of the remarkable extent of her missionary work. She believed her faith created the lights and this gave her the power to convert. But if the evidence does argue for the physical, though paranormal, reality of the lights, then there seem to be only two possible explanations. Either God was demonstrating his power to convert sinners - or some equally extraordinary, but more natural, @3factor was responsible. In short, the production of visable, controllable phenomena, perhaps constructed of some form of electrical energy, by an act of conscious or unconscious will; and there we find ourselves in the area of poltergeists (which seem to occur in the vicinity of the emotionally troubled), and the physical phenomena of Spritualism. Whether or not the will of Mary Jones could conjure up lights that would do her bidding, we are likely ever to know. Although she continued her mission until the revival finally lost its force in 1906, there is no known report of the lights after July 1905. Of Mary Jones's later life we know little, but it seems she never found domestic happiness. Her husband - of whom we know nothing - died in 1909, and both her daughter and her son died young. She continued to teach at Egryn chapel Sunday school, and occasionally took part in prayer meetings. She lived on alone, near the chapel, until her death in 1936, and she was burried in the Horeb cemetary at Dyffryn, where the grave can still be seen. After he hard life, with its brief, yet remarkable, interlude of fame, perhaps it is as well that her achievements are not entirely forgotten. end.