Luther McCarty – A Light From Heaven

This story always seems to cause a stir and people love to debate it. The strange light around Luther McCarty, was it our first proof of the light from heaven or just a strange coincidence?

The Boxer

The 6 foot 4 inch Luther McCarty was a talented young boxer and actually ended up making his full professional debut at the tender age of 18. This debut fight took place on the 7th of January, 1911, and his opponent was a guy named Watt Adams.

Luther managed to demolish him within two rounds.

Over the next twelve months, he skyrocketed to stardom as he smashed through every fighter put in front of him. The public began to pin the nickname of ‘Lute’ on him.

Such was the dominance of Lute, that a championship bout was arranged for New Year’s Day 1913. This big-time main event was to be against a fighter named Al Palzer – the White World Heavyweight Champion.

Palzer was absolutely smashed during the fight but managed to get out of it with a TKO. He handed over his belt to Lute.

The boxing community went wild with this win, and promoters started to battle to set up a legendary fight between Lute and Jack Johnson. This fight never took place…

Before his big fight with Johnson, Lute took part in a sort of ‘warm-up match’ against a fighter named Arthur Pelkey. This fight should have been fairly routine for a boxer of Lute’s quality.

In the very first round of the fight, Lute took a rather feeble punch to the heart area and collapsed instantly. He lay motionless on the floor as the referee counted him out.

The referee, Ed Smith, started to panic – something was not quite right here!

Medical professionals jumped into the ring and tried their best to revive the famous fighter, but it was no use – after 8 minutes Lute was pronounced dead.

The Luther McCarty Light

As Lute lay on the boxing ring canvas, being counted out, the 6000-strong crowd all witnessed an amazing paranormal light beam down on the stricken boxer’s body. The light seemed to hit him as the referee started the count, then disappear as soon as the count was over. The shaft of light seemed to be the perfect size to cover only Lute’s body.

There is only one photo image of this strange light, and it has been debated ever since by thousands of skeptics (don’t I know it) and most of these believe the photo to have been somehow faked…but I’m under the impression that Photoshop didn’t exist back in the early 1900s.

Remember – just over 6000 people at that fight also witnessed this heavenly light…

A coroner’s report later determined that the cause of Lute’s death was probably linked to a horse-riding accident he had suffered just days before the fight took place.

So what was this strange light?

Was it an ethereal sign from a higher power, calling Lute home?

Was it nothing more than a trick of the light?