Since it’s urban legend month here at the Midnight Society, I decided to hit up dear old Google to see what it knew. If you have never searched the Internet for “Urban legends in (insert your state, city, town)”, I suggest you do it. I typed in… urban legends in Indiana, thinking maybe…HOPEFULLY…I would find something. ANYTHING!
What I stumbled across took me on a little adventure…one I’m not quite done with, but TIME, PEOPLE, TIME!
I came across several blurbs about ‘The Lights of Bruick Road’…
Wait…Bruick Road?
I know a Bruick Road. IT IS VERY CLOSE (I’M TALKING A FEW MILES) FROM ME BRUICK ROAD. A bit more investigation and, why yes, it is that very Bruick Road.
Whoa. An urban legend right down the street…
Here are a few of the things I found:
In Great Memories and History of Fort Wayne, Indiana’s FB page…this post…
In Inside IPFW: 6 Fort Wayne Urban Legends to Keep You Up At Night… Check out number 3…
In HauntedRooms.com: 12 Most Haunted Places in Fort Wayne, IN… Check out number 9…
In Eskify.com: 10 Haunted Places in Fort Wayne… Check out number 5…
They all basically say the same thing. Bruick Road is a strange little road that goes nowhere. People have reported seeing lights, like headlights, in the distance, but if you go after them, they back away. They change colors, move, and get bigger. Some talk of a bridge…others of being out after midnight…but I need specifics, people.
Do I need to travel in a certain direction?
Do I need to stop on the bridge or just drive?
Do they appear at a certain time of year?
WHAT CAN THESE LIGHTS BE?
Well, I plan on going out at night, but today, I did a bit of recon. *puts on stalker clothes* *grabs knife and chainsaw to be safe*
First…a map. Bruick Road is a few miles from my house and is about four to five miles long. I drive past it all the time. I don’t ever have the need to drive on it, and that’s probably because it really goes nowhere.
Bruick Road is circled in red. It begins at the bottom of the map at an S-curve, where one road becomes another. It ends at US 37. The yellow circle is Schlink Bridge, where it crosses the Maumee River, near US 24.
The S-curve, the beginning of Bruick Road.
The overpass for US 24.
Schlink Bridge.
The Maumee River.
Bruick Road…not very creepy…maybe it would be better at night…
…not very interesting…
A normal country road, lined with houses, farms, horses, and crop fields. I passed quite a few Amish buggies, which I have to tell you are known to have extremely bright lights (I’m talking purple and red LED lights that blink and flash!).
With farms, you have tractors, which do sometimes run at night.
Traffic…sure, but not much.
Horse poo? Everywhere, but not very bright.
Lights on houses…on barns…street lights (well, we don’t have many of those out here), but some people have motion lights on their houses.
Can any of these explain what some people have reported seeing? I don’t know. But moving backwards if you keep following them? Changing colors? Changing sizes? Moving above the tree line?
Ghosts? Aliens? Monsters? Faeries? (Definitely faeries…)
I have no idea. After dark one night, I’ll take a spin down little, lost Bruick Road. See if I can spot anything odd. After all it is right next door…
Where Bruick crosses my street a few miles West of my house. Who knew? Be sure to Google your state or town…never know what scary goodness you’ll find.
*All pics taken by me on my phone…out my car window as I tried to NOT look like a creepy stalker.
Judi Lynn
Good luck, supernatural sleuth!
Kathy Palm
Judi LynnThank you!
Mary Rajotte
This is co cool! PLEASE do another post when you visit it at night!
Kathy Palm
Mary RajotteOf course! Gonna bring my phone and hope to catch some crazy lights!
Enos Shenk
Okay, let’s talk about Bruick Road, or as my friends and I used to call it “Couch Road”
Why that name? Because back around 1999 when my friends and I were teenagers, right at that S-bend on the road there always seemed to be an abandoned couch sitting there by the woods. We thought it was pretty creepy, and finally one night stopped to check it out. What did we find laying around? Skulls. Either from dogs or deer, we never did figure it out. Being stupid teenagers we took a couple.
Then one night a few months later we went to drive down Couch Road, and the couch was on fire. There wasn’t anyone around, just the couch merrily burning. Maybe some other dumb teenagers lit it on fire.
The one thing that was consistent was the skulls. No lie, we would find one every single time we stopped on that S-bend. At one point when I was attending high school I must have had four of them sitting in the back window of my car.
Joe
A little late to the party, but I was just thinking about Bruick road the other day. When I was in high school my friends and I would regularly visit Bruick road. We called it “Ricker Road” or “The Light”. I went there at least 15 times with different groups of people. I saw a light 3 different times. One time we saw a really bright white light and decided to chase it in our car. The light always stayed just too far away and then just disappeared. The other two times the light was more of an orange color, like a dimmed light. It hung out in down the road, and then went out.
The story I was told is that a young amish boy was walking home at night and was killed by a drunken hit and run. The boy’s father carried a lantern and went looking for his son. He never found the boy, and so the light you see today is the lantern of the ghost dad looking for his son. The accident happened around 11pm, so you’re supposed to visit the spot in your car, after 11pm.
The instructions we followed were: drive down Bruick road until you cross a bridge. Then stop your car, turn off the lights and the engine. Wait for the light. Sometimes it comes, sometimes it doesn’t.
To add to the scare factor, one time a friend of mine went out there, sat in his car, and waited for the light. When it didn’t come, he turned on his car lights to see 5 amish people standing in the road looking at him. He quickly got out of there.
Kathy Palm
JoeWow! Thank you for the info! I didn’t grow up around here, so never knew the legend.
Josh Peebles
I have been going to The Light for about 20 years now (I’m 36 now), at least once a year. Was actually just there tonight and it did not disappoint. So the best way that I’ve found is to go down Doty road and turn north down Bruick. Go past the orchard until you come to a very small wooden bridge and turn around in the driveway so you’re facing Doty rd. I have seen this thing in so many colors and sizes and movements and I’m still amazed every time I see it. The absolute best time was when I was 18 and a group of us went out there, 3 or 4 cars worth of kids all standing in the road waiting for it. We see a bright white light coming at us and assumed, at the speed it was going, it was an Amish person on a bicycle or something. Well it kept getting closer and closer and we couldn’t hear anything but as many times as we’d seen it at that point, we knew it never got that close and it never got that bright. Well one of my friends got freaked out, started his car and drove away quickly. The thing was, he drive right through it. And after he’d driven away, nothing. No light. No bicycle. Nothing. It. Was. Awesome. If you can handle being in the dark and hearing strange noises in the middle of nowhere, I highly recommend doing it the right way. Let me know when you plan on going! I LOVE going out there!
Kathy Palm
Josh PeeblesFabulous! I have to go out there…I want to see it!
Mark
I grew up about a half mile east on (what was then) US 24. I had forgotten about the lights until now. It seems they were more prevalent in the late 70s and early 80s. I think the old bridge across the Maumee was replaced around 1980. With the old bridge, the foliage was much closer to the road, and the bridge was single lane at the time. It freaked me out as a little kid. My brother, some friends, and I used to spend an inordinate amount of time on the river bank being boys. I don’t recall seeing anything too weird in the day time.
Kathy Palm
MarkThat old bridge sounds cool! And creepy. Having not grown up here, it is neat to hear from people who did. Thanks for reading and commenting.