Ghost Light Mystery: A Small Town Church’s Glowing Cross

Author: Brianna Cooper

In the small town of Cross Hill, SC  there is a church cemetery that some claim has supernatural forces at work. Bethabara Baptist Church’s cemetery is home to an iron-cross which mysteriously glows and changes colors and then it returns to its natural state. Many may not know about this unique grave marker because Cross Hill is not a very popular town in South Carolina or in general. As of July 1, 2017, it has a population of 502 (cite).I went to great lengths to unlock the truth behind this paranormal activity. Here’s the (long and hard) process I went through to find this information:

Upon googling “Old Ford’s Glowing Cross,” the amount of results that seemed relevant were minimal. The images results at the top of the page were all old, rusty Ford trucks (LOL). I only found 2 leads from Google which posed a problem. 2 articles suggested that the cross in question was the giant glowing cross standing above the Ford Amphitheatre in Hollywood. This seemed like the more appealing and glamourous story to write about. However, there was still more evidence to be found. A book called the Weird Carolinas, written by Roger Manley, claims what was stated in the above paragraph about the glowing cross. After reading all 3 of these sources, I had to decide which of these stories was the one I was looking for. The articles on Ford Amphitheatre had a little more information, but the title of the short paragraph on the back of Manley’s book was the exact same title I had received as my topic. This gave me a gut feeling that I should do more research. I had no idea how frustrating this would be.

I searched near and far. I searched far and near. I dug a hole in my backyard and ended up in China. I couldn’t seem to find anything else about Old Ford’s Glowing Cross. I was stumped.Then Igot the bright idea to look up the church itself. Silly me. I thought this would help HAHA. I could find anything about this church as well. It led me to believe it didn’t exist anymore. All that came up were different churches in Cross Hill, SC. At this point, I was desperate. Maybe the church was renamed? I googled each church with this search term glowing cross. One church made me jump for joy when I found 2 sources (both sites dedicated to haunted places) that matched the same description from the bookI found. Additionally, one of the websites Haunted Places  brought new information that made this glowing cross even more interesting. It claimed that the marker belonged to a Civil War Soldier’s ghost. Although I felt pretty satisfied with this newfound knowledge, I still couldn’t piece together what happened to Old Ford’s Baptist Church and how it was connected Bethabara Baptist Church. The whole small-town thing definitely did not make this search easy. No one was reporting church name changes in Cross Hill, SC. Who cares? Well I cared at the moment, so I had to dig that whole to China again. I used an academic database to search the church but nothing relevant came up (of course). Luckily, I didn’t give up and decided to just search “bethabara.” To my advantage, I found an encyclopedia article that explained that Bethabara was a place in biblical times that was located above the Dead Sea at a ford. YES!IT ALL MAKES SENSE!I never got any actual confirmation that Old Ford Baptist Church is now Bethabara Baptist Church, but just go with it *wink wink*.

Is this glowing cross a confusing, hard-to-find, and somewhat unbelievable conspiracy? Yes. Should you go look and see for yourself? Yes. Will I go look and see for myself? No. I love my life and I want to keep it. Happy ghost hunting! 😊

Works Cited:

“Annual Estimates of the Resident Population: April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2017.”American FactFinder, 5 Oct. 2010,factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=bkmk.

“Bethabara.” Academic Search Premier, Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 2019, pp. 1.ezproxy.usca.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=134504652&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

“Bethabara Baptist Church Cemetery.” Haunted Places, www.hauntedplaces.org/item/bethabara-baptist-church-cemetery/.

Manley, Roger. Weird Carolinas. Sterling Publishing, 2007.

“Tantrum Not In The Mood GIF.” Tenor, Tenor, 18 Mar. 2017, tenor.com/view/tantrum-gif-
8034080.

Links for further research:
Ghost Lights: Believe them if you
darehttps://earthsky.org/human-world/ghost-lights-believe-in-them-if-you-dare.
This site gives the reader background information on ghost lights and the history of these supernatural entitiesas well as different locations that ghost lights can be seen in the United States.

Ghost Lights: Origins, Legends, Well Known Sightings and Science
https://www.trueghosttales.com/ghost-lights.php.
This site also gives background information on ghost lights and accounts of sightings.

Lismore’s Glowing Cross
http://www.unexplainedaustralia.com/30-unexplained-phenomena/77-lismore-s-glowing-cross
This site is a report of another glowing cross in a cemetery located in Australia.