What’s Behind the Ghost Lights at Colorado’s Silver Cliff Cemetery?

There are lots of people in Colorado who are captivated by the phenomenon experienced in person at Silver Cliff cemetery. While some people stand in the dark and see nothing, others are stunned by visual effects they just can't explain.

Imagine walking a mile south of the remote town of Silver Cliff, and into a couple of cemeteries that have been there since the 1880s. Soon after the sun goes down, this International Dark Sky Community's cemetery starts to come to life.

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Where is Silver Cliff Cemetery?

The community of Silver Cliff is located in Custer County, Colorado, and is sandwiched between the Sangre de Cristo mountains and the Wet Mountains. Silver Cliff Cemetery is located off Colorado 96 about 1 mile south of the town.

Tragedy at the Geyser Mine at Silver Cliff

In 1885, an explosion at the Geyser Mine (also called the Silver Cliff mine) killed 10 miners. Some of them were buried at the cemeteries at Silver Cliff. Newspapers of the time reported on deaths and accidents that happened at the mines, but the publications do not mention ghosts or ghost orbs at the time the mine was in operation. That came later.

Ghost Lights First Reported at Silver Cliff Cemetery

The mysterious and unexplainable ghost orbs have been seen floating around the cemetery since 1956. A headline first appeared in the Wet Mountain Tribune that read “Silver Cliff Cemetery Ghosts Carrying Own Lights at Night.”

In 1969, National Geographic devoted tens of pages to a visit to Colorado which included a few paragraphs about a stop at Silver Cliff Cemetery specifically to look into the ghost orbs. Take a creepy nighttime tour of the cemetery in the photo gallery below.