Picture this: You’re in a marsh, and it’s getting dark. You’re all alone in the murky water, or so you think, until you glimpse on the horizon a flickering blue flame. You think you’re imagining things, but there it is again: a spark of ghostly light, shining through the reeds.

These apparitions are known as will-o’-the-wisps, an unexplained natural phenomenon that legend says are the spirits of those who died in the swamp.

But Stanford University’s Richard Zare thinks he may have solved that mystery, and shares his glimpse beyond the veil with Here & Now‘s Peter O’Dowd.

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.

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