Lights In Wales
In early December 1904 a 38 year old Welsh housewife and folk evangelist, Mary Jones of Egryn, Merionethshire, allegedly experienced a vision of Jesus, and in short order she became the leading figure in a Christian revival which in the weeks and months ahead attracted international attention, not because of her message, which was simply the tried and true one, but because of the peculiar phenomena that accompanied it.The lights themselves were not unusual, but they had an odd quality, sometimes though not always, they were visible to some persons but not to others who should have been able to observe them.
A London Daily Mirror reporter related a sighting he experienced in the company of the newspaper's photographer.
Both had stationed themselves one evening in Egryn, where they hoped to see the lights.
At 10:00 p.m., after a 3½ hour vigil, a light resembling an unusually brilliant carriage lamp appeared at a distance of 1,000'.
As the reporter approached it, it took the form of a bar of light quite 4' wide, within a few yards of the chapel, from which Mrs. Jones conducted her ministry.
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.
Look, Look, cried 2 women standing just behind me.
Look at the Light.
I found they had seen exactly what had appeared to me.
Now comes a startling sequel.
Within 30' of where that band of vivid light had flashed across the road, stood a little group of 15 or 20 persons.
I went up to them, all agog to hear exactly what they thought of the manifestations, but not one of those I questioned had seen anything at all.
The witness does not say what, if anything, his photographer saw, or why the latter took no photographs.
No photographs of the lights are known to exist, and some contemporary accounts even assert, improbably, that the lights could not be photographed.
Arguably, the climate of excitement and expectation caused the reporter to hallucinate, but the Daily Telegraph writer was not the only journalist to report such an experience.
If anything, the incident recounted by Beriah G. Evans of the Barmouth Advertiser is more puzzling.
Evans wrote that while walking with Mrs. Jones and 3 other persons early on the evening of January 31, 1905, he saw 3 brilliant rays of light strike across the road from mountain to sea, throwing the stone wall 75' in front into bold relief, every stone plainly visible.
There was not a living soul there, nor house, from which it could have come.
Half a mile later, a blood red light appeared in the middle of the village street a foot above the ground and immediately in front of them.
It vanished, and only the reporter and the evangelist saw these things.
I may add, that a fortnight later a London journalist had an almost identical experience, Evans wrote in a subsequent magazine article.
He, and a woman standing near, saw the white light, now a broad band, crossing the road near the chapel, and climbing and resting upon the wall.
A group of half a dozen other people present at the same time saw nothing.
Others have had an almost precisely similar experience.
Still, other light manifestations claimed not only multiple but independent witnesses.
Once, as Mrs. Jones was holding a revival meeting in a chapel in Bryncrug, a ball of fire casting rays downward illuminated the church.
It was also observed by passers by.
On another occasion, Mrs. Jones and 3 companions were traveling in a carriage in broad daylight when a bright light with no apparent source shone on them.
The occupants of 2 trailing carriages including 2 skeptical journalists, witnessed the sight as did Barmouth residents who were awaiting her arrival.