from Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 1905-7

(page 104)

... I heard of the appearance of " lights " at Ynysybwl, a small colliery town a few miles north of Pontypridd, Glam., and on August 2nd, 1905, I visited the town to interview some of the percipients. Mrs. Jones of Egryn preached at Ynysybwl on July 4th, 5th and 6th, but there is no trustworthy evidence of lights being seen before July 23rd. On that evening several persons went to Ynysyboeth to hear Mrs. Jones once more and by all accounts they were very much affected by the service. On their return to Ynysybwl they held an open-air meeting, at about 10.30 p.m., in the open space known as Robert Town Square. The religious fervour was intense and the service lasted until 1 a.m. One correspondent (see 27a) reports that his attention was called, during the service, to a "ball of light about the size of the moon," with a slight mist over it. Then stars began to shoot out around it, the light rose higher and grew brighter but smaller.

Another at the same gathering describes the light as a "block of fire" rising from the mountain side and moving along for about 200 or 300 yards. It went upwards, a star "shot out to meet it, and they clapped together and formed into a ball of fire." The form changed into something like the helm of a ship. The appearance lasted about a quarter of an hour. This deponent went home to fetch his wife to see the light, but from his house he saw nothing, although the house faces the same mountain side. Returning to the square he again saw it. A third witness says that the light was a ball of fire, "glittering and sparkling," and it seemed to be "bubbling over." A Mrs. J. and her daughters saw the light at 12.30 a.m. as a ball of fire, white, silvery, vibrating, stationary. Mrs. J. also saw two streamers of grey mist emanating from the ball and in the space between them a number of stars. The daughter saw nothing of the stars, but remarks, as no one else does, that the form became oval instead of round. In conversation they told me also that the ball decreased in size. Another witness, whose account has not been written, described his vision to me as a ball of fire with 4 or 5 pillars of light on the left of the ball, the intervening space containing no stars. He was standing near the last-named witnesses. It will be sufficient here to point out that whilst all the witnesses saw a ball of fire, each saw something in connection therewith not mentioned by the others. All agree in thinking that the duration of the light was from 10 to 15 minutes, but whether "vision" minutes are of the same duration as those of solar time remains to be proved. There is no evidence that any one consulted a watch or clock to mark the time that really elapsed.

On July 26th, at a meeting of the Salvation Army, in the same square, Mr. D. D. tells me that he saw over a wood on the mountain side a black cloud from which emerged first a white light, then a yellow, and finally a brilliantly red triangle.