The Fascination Of Yooperlites: A Closer Look At Michigan’s Glowing Rocks

There will be a special on the Weather Channel pretty soon featuring stones from Michigan. And they're probably something you have never heard of.

Actually, a couple of guys from the Upper Peninsula taped a segment for Weird Earth, a TV series about unexplainable weather phenomena, and the Weather Channel picked it up.

The segment they shot was about Yooperlites!

Stumped, huh! Yes, Yooperlites. No, they're not people in the U.P. with lights. Lame!

This is serious stuff folks. The website Rock Seeker says the Yooperlite, which is a trade name by the way, is a very interesting rock that is known for a beautiful, spotted fluorescence that displays in awesome ways with UV light, but no one is quite sure of what it really is.

If you see these things you would swear they're from another world. But technically, yooperlites are a form of sodalite-rich syenite, Rock Seeker says. While yooperlite sounds like a mineral name, these are actually rocks.

Why are they called yooperlite? That's pretty simple because the name yooperlite originally stuck as a trade name from the guy who “discovered” them in the U.P. And we all know “Yooper” is the name for anyone from our Upper Peninsula.

So, is the discovery of these stones like a gold rush in California back in the day? Hardly because they're not rare. It's just that the just come from one specific place in Michigan and don’t seem to show up anywhere else.

However, they are odd enough that you sometimes could get a decent price for them.

Where are they?

Yooperlite is found only along Lake Superior’s shore in the U.P. This is the northern portion of the Upper Peninsula and they’re generally found along the shores of the lake itself. Most seem to originate from the stretch of beach north of Newberry

The trick to finding them is that you need a "black light" to see the colors. And it's better to see them at night.

So, if you are hunting for yooperlites, be sure to bring a regular flashlight as well so you can see where you're going, and good luck!