We Went Looking for the Cahaba Lights

A friend and I went to Old Cahawba a few years ago after we’d heard stories about strange lights people had seen around the area. We were curious more than anything and honestly didn’t expect to see anything.

We spent a while walking around before it started getting dark, and nothing unusual happened. At some point, we noticed a light through the trees in the distance. It wasn’t very bright, and we assumed it was another person with a flashlight.

Then we saw another one in a completely different spot.

We started paying more attention after that. The lights would show up for a few seconds and then disappear. Sometimes we’d see one farther away and then another would appear somewhere else. We couldn’t see anyone walking around with them, but there were trees and plenty of places where someone could have been out of sight, so we still figured there was probably a normal explanation.

My friend eventually pulled out her phone and tried to get a video. That’s when things got really strange. We could both see one of the lights through the trees, but she couldn’t find it on her phone screen. She moved the phone around trying to line it up with what we were looking at and finally handed it to me because she thought she was doing something wrong.

I couldn’t see it on the screen either.

We could look up and see the light. I looked at the phone, and there was nothing there.

We tried a couple more times before giving up. It was getting dark anyway, and neither of us particularly wanted to be wandering around out there much longer.

I know phones aren’t great in low light, so maybe there’s a perfectly good explanation for why the camera wasn’t picking it up. I also can’t say what the lights actually were.

I just know we went there joking about whether we’d see the Cahaba Lights, and by the time we left, neither of us was joking anymore.