When Your Eyes Deceive, Your Imagination Can Take Over

The Pointe Vicente Lighthouse, built in 1926, is located at Rancho Palos Verdes west of Long Beach, CA. This lighthouse towers more than 65-feet above a cliff that drops more than 100-feet straight down to the Pacific Ocean. The classic masonry tower holds a 1.1 million-candlepower light that can be seen from twenty miles out to sea.

During World War II the light was dimmed to avoid giving aid to Japanese submarines which threatened shipping along the coast. After the war, the light was returned to normal power and local residents complained about the bright flashes. Therefore, the landward side of the lantern room was painted an opaque, pearly white. The light from the rotating third-order Fresnel lens could be seen through the opaque lantern room windows which created the illusion, for some people, of a woman pacing the tower’s walkway and she became known as “Lady of The Night” and maybe started another lighthouse ghost story. Some people said the ghost was the spirit of a woman who leaped into the sea when her lover was lost in a shipwreck off the point. Others claimed the ghost was the broken-hearted wife of a lighthouse keeper who had fallen to his death from the point’s high bluffs. Sightings of the ghost ended in 1955 after officials had a thicker coat of paint applied to the landward side of the lantern room. I learned this story when I visited the lighthouse in 1999.

This story reminded me of a personal experience I had as a young boy around the age of ten or eleven. I was staying with my grandparents to help them on the farm. From their house, the driveway was about three tenths of a mile long out to the main road. A portion of the driveway was lined with trees and small bushes while fence posts were also visible at the edge of an adjoining field. I was asked to go pick-up the mail from the box at the end of the driveway. It was late in the afternoon and by the time I got the mail and started back to the house it was later than dusk. Suddenly, I saw a man moving at the edge of the bushes. I became afraid and walked faster, keeping my eyes on the man as I got closer. I could feel my heart beating and I felt warm all over. Soon my eyes focused on him in the dim light. My heart and soul felt relief when suddenly I realized it was not a man, but just a fence post. Like the folks at the lighthouse, my eyes had deceived me and my imagination took over.