If you ever want to understand human optimism at its worst, visit a “haunted” lighthouse on a foggy afternoon.
Specifically, visit The Broken Lantern Lighthouse — proudly advertised as “The Most Active Paranormal Site on the Coast” by a town whose tourism slogan might as well be “We’re Still Here!”
The Broken Lantern dates back to the 1800s, when it kept countless ships from smashing themselves into the jagged rocks offshore. Or so the legend says. Most of the historical markers have been weathered into oblivion, and what remains mostly concerns the tragic fate of one keeper, Elias Wren, who supposedly vanished one stormy night after “hearing the call of the sea.”
It probably sounded a lot like the roof falling in during a Category 2 hurricane.
Local lore promises mysterious lights flashing from the tower, heavy footsteps echoing on the stairs, and the disembodied smell of pipe smoke drifting through the keeper’s quarters. I was promised an experience that would leave me forever questioning reality.
What I got was a self-guided tour through a building best described as “tenaciously vertical splinters.”
The lighthouse itself is crumbling with impressive dedication. The stairs groan like a horror movie soundtrack, every doorknob has the texture of a tetanus shot waiting to happen, and the “keeper’s quarters” are a single barren room containing a moth-eaten cot and a guestbook where half the entries read, “Thought I heard something… might’ve been my own breathing.”
I did smell something strange on the second floor. Turned out to be mold.
The “light” in the lantern room is a low-wattage LED bulb duct-taped to a rusted bracket, gently flickering in time with the electrical shorts running through the walls. Paranormal? Sure, if you consider “poor maintenance” a supernatural event.
No footsteps.
No shadowy figures.
No mournful cries carried on the mist.
Just the steady, grinding reality of an abandoned building slowly losing a century-long argument with gravity.
The only tragedy at the Broken Lantern Lighthouse is the slow death of structural integrity and the price of the commemorative “I Survived the Broken Lantern” t-shirt ($24.99, two sizes too small).
If you want to experience true existential dread, skip the lighthouse tour and look up the town’s public infrastructure budget instead.