Gigantic Human Form
The Advertiser took note of a recent report by 2 men, one a prominent farmer, of a gigantic human form rising over a hedgerow.Then a ball of fire appeared above and a long ray of light pierced the figure, which vanished.
In the midst of all of this, Mrs. Jones and some of her followers were also encountering Christ and angels, who would manifest themselves in dreams and visions.
One dark night, as she walked along a country road, Mrs. Jones said she encountered a shadowy figure who turned into a black dog and charged her, only to be dissuaded when she broke into a hymn.
The attacker was, of course, Satan.
These sorts of experiences are invariably personal and subjective and thus susceptible, to those so disposed, to secular psychological explanations.
The lights, on the other hand, remain a mystery nearly a century later.
The appearance of the lights in the context of an evangelical revival may or may not be coincidental.
Certainly it is true, if we look at the broader historical view, that anomalous luminosities are usually observed in a purely secular context.
Still, there are precedents.
During a religious revival in Ireland in 1859, a cloud of fire was seen to descend from the sky and then hover over open air assemblies of the faithful.