Ghostly swamp will-O'-the-wisps may be explained by science

It's interesting to me how common will o the wisp was in the past, but the concept seems completely forgotten. Of my grandmother's generation and in her town (which was nowhere near a swamp), everyone reported seeing weird lights floating around during their youth to early adulthood. They were always very clear that the lights were not fireflies, which were also common at the time but very distinct. I'm lucky I at least got to witness fireflies in my youth.

Anyways, an interesting nugget is buried in that article. It says that a reason will o the wisp may have been common in the past is because lantern flames may have ignited the gas, which seems like a decent explanation. People use electric light everywhere now.

I guess another issue could be that there's so much ambient lighting from street lights and light being reflected off clouds that it's simply too bright for us to see anything. People back in the day probably experienced a lot more completely black nights.

It's completely possible that will o the wisp will be a completely forgotten phenomenon in a couple more decades, since I don't know anyone under 80 who's reported seeing it, and kids probably don't even know of it now. And it makes me wonder if there are other phenomenons that ancient people were very aware of but no living person has ever seen.

I don't think it's been completely forgotten. At least in Germany, most people will probably understand what you mean if you talk about an "Irrlicht" and it's sometimes used as a metaphor. (There is even a verb form "irrlichtern" for going astray in areas that are not helpful for your goal)

Buy what strikes me is how completely it has become a fairy tale/fantasy trope. You'd talk about them the same way you'd talk about dragons or vampires. So the knowledge that there actually is a real underlying phenomenon seems to be vanishing.

Maybe it's simply that the scientific explanation is just so much more boring than all the "causes" people have speculated about in past centuries (spirits of nature, lost souls, etc).

You can tell an engaging story about a girl who was murdered and the corpse hidden in the swamp and who will reappear as a ghostly light to try and lead people to her murderers.

You cannot tell a similar story about self-igniting swamp gas.