The often tempestuous Lake Superior is never short of legends and stories. Whitefish Bay, off of Michigan's eastern Upper Peninsula is often seen as a refuge from the wider open lake. After it, it was making Whitefish Bay that may have saved the ill-fated Edmond Fitzgerald.

However, reports of lights seen from Whitefish Bay have baffled residents and visitors to Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

The topic came up recently on the PureUP Facebook group:

Anyone on Whitefish Bay seeing a light from the Canadian side late at night. Kind of looks like a lighthouse beam of light. Only comes on for a short period. Can be seen from the Paradise shoreline...The light is pretty high elevation. And pans back and forth

So what could it be, UFOs, Fata Morgana, Natural light from the Canadian shore? A lighthouse? All of these have been proposed as answers for the lights.

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Natural Explanations for the Whitefish Bay Light

It's roughly 22 miles from the Michigan shoreline to Canada. Tack on another 10 miles to get to the nighttime lights of Sault Ste Marie.

One commenter notes there's a wind generation farm due east from Paradise, Michigan that may account for the light.

Another suspected lights from a train or vehicle on the Canadian side.

Unnatural Reasons for the Whitefish Bay Lights

This comment spells out some of the history of the region

Back in the summer of '95 there were over 2,000 sightings over the Great Lakes. Many saw them as we did. Bright orbs. No sound. No anything except a ball of fiery light.
They were all over the place that summer.

Indeed there is video posted to YouTube of unexplained lights on Lake Superior.
Recorded in 2019, the recording was taken over Whitefish Bay, specifically Whitefish Point, the western and northernmost curve of land that forms the top of the bay.

The video shows there is a ship, so the orange light is not from the freighter. The lights go from one to two and speed closer and further from the person doing the recording.

There certainly is enough evidence to cause you to question what is happening above the inland sea that is our greatest of the Great Lakes.

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