Welcome to Haunted Road, a production of I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Minky.

Listener discretion is advised. Of all the places I investigate, believe it or not,

Lighthouses may be one of the saddest.

I think of the Lighthouse Keepers. They're very living to provide a guiding light to keep people from danger.

Their job was built in routine and discipline for to fail meant failing those at sea who so desperately depended on them for safety.

Is it any wonder lighthouses are notoriously haunted that in death those who once manned them still feel enough

of a sense of duty to return and diligently walk hundreds of steps forever manning a beacon

in the darkness? and how sad that something once so

noble and important has long been replaced with technology and super-powered lights and lenses. How do these spirits feel now? What are they trying to

tell us as time and time again they don't leave their posts even after they have long passed away. Perhaps the Pensacola Lighthouse can guide us to an understanding.

I'm Amy Bruni and this is Haunted Road.

If you were to hike along San Carlos Beach near the Pensacola Naval Air Station, and you glanced up on a dark night.

You might see a brilliant beam of light in the sky.

It would pulse on for 20 seconds, then flicker off again, only to light up once more after another 20 seconds.

The beam comes from the 1,000 watt bulb mounted in the Pensacola lighthouse, a beacon that's amplified by the historic over 170-year-old

Fresno lens.

It's so brilliant you can spot it from 27 miles away.

Unlike many haunted places, the Pensacola Lighthouse is still in operation today.

It's not abandoned or in a state of disrepair.

It also doesn't have an on-site keeper operating its machinery anymore.

Its processes are all automated. The roughly 150 foot tall tower looms over the two-story keeper's quarter. The residents now home to home home to historic exhibits for the public is surrounded

by balconies on each floor.

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