Bone And Sickle

The Halloween Jack-o'-lantern, made from pumpkins in the US and originally turnips in the UK, began its existence as a wisp of glowing marsh gas or "spooklight." We begin our episode with a montage of modern American spooklights including that of Oklahoma's "Spooklight Road," North Carolina’s Brown Mountain, and the flying saucers sighted in Michigan in 1966, famously identified by investigator Allen Hynek  as "swamp gas." "Jack-o'-lantern"  was just another name given to what's more widely known now as a Will-o'-the-wisp -- a wavering, bobbing light seen in marshy places, understood as mischievous spirit intent on leading travelers off course and into their doom in muck and mire.  Flaming methane produced by rotting vegetation in such environments, is said to the the cause of the phenomenon, though the mode of ignition is still largely a matter of debate. The Latin name for such lights, ignis fatuus  (ool's fire), was also applied to phenomena having nothing to do with swamps, as it's been used interchangea