Ghost Lights - by Karen Spring

Throughout the United States and the world, people have reported seeing ghost lights or “spook” lights. The balls of light can glow in just about any color and nonbelievers chalk them up to lights from distant cars, reflective lights from towns and cities, St. Elmo’s Fire, campfires, or ignited swamp gases. Many old timers like to tell legends about the ghost lights, claiming they are UFOs or some Indian spirits who have come to haunt visitors.

Although ghost lights have been reported by people in all areas of the country, most of the phenomena are spotted in the southwest United States. Near the remote town of Marfa, Texas, spook lights have been sighted by people for well over 100 years. One of the old tales in Marfa folklore explains the lights as that of an old Apache chief who became separated from his tribe as they long ago traveled through the Chinati Mountains. To this day, some locals believe that the chief is still wandering as he tries to find those members of his tribe. The Texas Highway Department has received so many calls about the lights that they have established a roadside park so that motorists can safely observe the phenomena at their leisure.

The Marfa lights are not seen until after sunset. Once the sun goes down, lights begin appearing in the desert. Sometimes they glow intensely, other times they pulsate, other times they gradually fade.

North Carolina is also known for its own ghost lights, the Brown Mountain Lights. Cherokee Indians were the first people known to have seen the lights, but they were first documented by a German engineer in 1771. The lights appear over the Brown Mountains and have been the subject of numerous newspaper articles. Skeptics in the 1913 claimed that the lights were nothing more than the brightness from a nearby train in Catawba Valley. In 1916, a flood swept through the valley and destroyed the train tracks and bridges. Yet, the ghost lights continued to glow.

At this time scientists are still baffled by ghost lights. They have some theories on the possible cause but nothing in their investigations and studies so far has revealed the exact cause of the phenomenon. Many in the scientific world believe, however, that the ghost lights are not related to some supernatural occurrence but rather to some explainable factor occurring in nature because the lights seem to gravitate to the same areas time and again.