- April 25, 2024
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Longtime Ormond Beach residents debate over the meaning behind this paranormal sighting.
Suzanne Heddy, executive director of the Ormond Beach Historical Society, used to drive on North Beach Street up to Tomoka State Park in hopes of spotting the Tomoka Lights.
“As the road goes into the canopy of trees we would turn off our headlights,” Heddy said. “Then we’d just hope that we would see them. The first time I saw them, as the car approached they separated in two and went around the car and reformed behind the car. The second time I saw them, they formed in front of the car and went over the car together.”
Heddy describes the lights as round, white and smaller than car headlights.
“There was a lot of speculation as to what it was,” Heddy said. “Nobody ever really knew what it was. Of course the most obvious answer was aliens but other people discounted it as swamp gas but I find that hard to believe because they weren’t reflective lights.”
Heddy’s sightings occurred in the 1960s, which is around the same time Assistant Manager of Tomoka State Park Joe Isaacs said the bridge going over the Tomoka River was rebuilt.
“The Tomoka lights are a local lure that has kind of disappeared due to changes in the highway,” Isaacs said. “They used to be a luminescent glow that would bounce headlights back at people. The new bridge was built I believe in 1961 and that changed the trajectory of the headlights going out over the marsh. That doesn’t illuminate the marsh and it was the end of the Tomoka Lights.”
Though Isaacs said there haven’t been any sightings that he’s aware of, people still drive up around midnight in hopes of seeing the ghost lights.
“There are a whole bunch of versions about the lights,” Isaacs, who’s done some research about the sightings, said. “There’s one person that says if the lights make contact with you, it would eat your flesh. It’s a little gory. Locals say that a young couple that were parked on the side of the road were involved in an accident and died and they are a part of the haunting now.”
Isaacs doesn’t want to bum out any believers, but he’s doesn’t think the Tomoka Lights are anything more than swamp gas.
“I don’t want to be a naysayer but I’ve lived here in the park for 30 years and I’ve never seen them,” Isaacs said. “I think every town in the world probably has a legend like this.”
According the website WeirdUS.com, a travel guide for local legends and best kept secrets, the Tomoka Lights are just a part of the story. Between 1955 and 1966, there were reports of people encountering a strange pink cloud that hung low to the ground in the woods along the Tomoka River. It was blamed for the disappearance of dozens of people, though no names were mentioned on the website. A few anonymous locals wrote on the website and said the cloud was carnivorous.
“It would devour your body if you got too close to it,” a local named Jimbo wrote. “It was not always there but many deer hunters came upon it during deer season. No one knows what it was. Some said it was swamp gas and some said it was old Chief Tomokie protecting his happy hunting grounds. I don’t think anyone has seen it since about 1965. That whole area is now built up with new homes.”
Though there’s no scientific proof to the Carnivorous Cloud or the Tomoka Lights, the locals still like to believe.
“You couldn’t guarantee that you’d see them,” Heddy said. “You have to take a chance. So to see them twice in my lifetime is pretty amazing.”
