The yellowish -- or orange or white -- light darts, swoops and flutters about, giving Quapaw, Okla., residents and other passersby a 15-minute ethereal performance, the Oklahoman newspaper reported.

Asking around generates lots of stories about the "spook lights," which are well known in this area of abandoned mines and rolling terrain at the edge of the Ozark Mountains.

But while folks know about the what, they can't explain the why.

Suggestions have been made that the lights, which have been reported for generations, could be something environmental, such as an escaping gas or vehicle lights from the nearby turnpike, the Oklahoma City newspaper reported. Other explanations are more haunting: Two lovers who died, or the spirit of a lost miner or a torch of an American Indian searching for his severed head.

Whatever the explanation, Pam Lovell of the Miami (Okla.) News Record, said, "It's really cool.”