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Bowling Green Lane, Constantine, Cornwall
12/2024 - 03/2025
It started when I was walking home through the village one day at dusk. It was midwinter so it was barely light enough to see but the few streetlights that worked lit my way well enough. I was approaching the lane which ran up between two graveyards, and when I walked underneath the streetlight, it flickered and turned off. I was already eager to get out of the dark and this scared me but I just laughed it off as a coincidence.
It was only as I was getting further from it that it turned back on again. (For context we moved to the village 9 years ago and this was the first time it had happened.)
This was not the last time it would happen. For next few months the same streetlight would change when I passed under it, and return to how it was as I left - too many times to blame faulty electrics. One time my phone even started glitching and died on 27% battery. Nobody believed me at first, and those who did said it probably had a motion-sensor but if I walked under it with anyone else it would not do anything.
Then one evening in February I was walking through the village with a friend and I told him to wait behind and video me. I passed under it and it turned off (when watching the video later I noticed the bamboo next to it shake violently as it turned off). I walked back to my friend triumphantly - it was the first time anyone else had seen it - and it turned back on. We then figured out it would not work with both of us under it but if he left it would change for me again.
These occurrences stopped a few months ago, but I still don’t know if I was the one causing it to go haywire or if it was something from one of the graveyards trying to talk to me…
I’ve done some research since and my experience is similar to a phenomenon called street light interference, or the SLI phenomenon.
Submitted by:
Jonty B