T-hill Light

This story took place in Thermopolis, Wyoming. At the beginning of June '23, my girlfriend and I were staying there on a week-long vacation. One night after dinner, we went on a walk by the river in Hot Springs State Park. Across the river and up the bank, a road goes past T-Hill. It is named for the letter T made of white rock on its side to represent Thermopolis.

The year previous, I hiked up this hill. A small portion of the trail is visible from the road, and you can see bits and pieces of it continuing upward if you look close. I'm very familiar with it as it took me an hour or so to reach the top. And I have visited Thermopolis and the park many times.

Back to the night we decided to walk. The sun had just set. Some rain was falling, and a storm had passed through an hour or so beforehand. As we admired the river, I noticed a bright white-blue light on T-Hill. This light was on the established trail, moving up.

I pointed this light out to my girlfriend. I said it was not a flashlight, as the light was not a beam- more like a ball. We both wondered if someone were going on a night hike up a steep, demanding trail in the rain but decided this probably wasn't the case. And the light was moving at a much faster pace than a person walking.

She suggested a person biking up the hill. That was the only logical explanation as far as I could tell, so we stood there and waited to see this person either go around the switchback to continue up the hill or turn back to come down.

Neither of those things happened. The light disappeared. We had a perfect view of the side of the hill and I know exactly where the first switchback is that should have taken a person the other direction up the hill. It did not move up or down the hill. It was just gone. We continued to walk and watch. It did not reappear.

We went back to our truck and parked it in a lot with a higher vantage point to look for it. The strange light did not reappear, and we waited for 20 or so minutes. After a short drive back to my mom's house where we were staying, we told her about what we had seen. She did not seem surprised and told me that locals and tourists both report strange lights in the hills and mountains visible outside town and within the park. She also told me that someone had died on that trail years ago.

Wyoming at night has an unsettling vibe I can feel in the pit of my stomach every time I'm out there. It is mostly still a very wild place. The state has the smallest population of the contiguous US. I believe lots of paranormal things do occur out there. The area and surrounding states are notorious for this weird activity. I don't have a solid idea of what I saw that night. Maybe a ghost or some kind of extraterrestrial. Or there's a normal explanation - ball lightning, or some other obscure scientific phenomenon. But no matter what it was, Wyoming has a place in my heart as a beautiful, somewhat spooky state that I will keep exploring.