Brown mountain lights

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As Brown Mountain lights indicating Ufologie and parascience one since at least 1913 observed and documented phenomenon of luminous effects, the great similarities with the Marfa lights and the famous lights of Hessdalen should have. The phenomenon is said to occur on and around Brown Mountain near the cities of Hickory and Morganton in the US state of North Carolina .

description

The "Brown Mountain Lights" are always observed at night and described differently. Sometimes they should appear as wildly flickering, flame-like structures, sometimes as weakly pulsating spheres of different sizes. Depending on the report, the colors also range from white to yellow to bluish. In most cases, the lights are meant to move leisurely along Brown Mountain, but sometimes they are described as stationary. The lights are often supposed to appear in pairs or in groups in order to then apparently chase one another. They appear and usually disappear suddenly.

Folklore and research

According to local legend, the Brown Mountain Lights are said to be the souls of slain Cherokee and Catawba Indians searching for the souls of their beloved women at the base of the mountain. Other versions of this legend claim that the souls of the Cherokee and the Catawba fight each other on Brown Mountain today.

The first printed report of the Brown Mountain Lights is from the Charlotte Daily Observer Gazette , September 13, 1913. The article states that a group of local fishermen observed red, flickering balls of light from the sea for several nights rose southeast near the flank of Brown Mountain and disappeared behind the mountains. The incident was investigated shortly thereafter by DB Sterrett, a member of the US Geological Survey , according to the newspaper . He found that the fishermen had apparently been fooled by the lights of the locomotive on a nearby railway line in the Catawba Valley. The residents, however, strongly contradicted this theory, as the lights are said to have been known from times when there was no rail traffic in North Carolina.

Since the reports of eerie lights on Brown Mountain continued, in 1922 the US Geological Survey asked George Rogers Mansfield to investigate further incidents. The background to this were reports of luminous phenomena during and immediately after a severe flood disaster in 1916, which paralyzed traffic for a long time. Mansfield found that 44% of the phenomena were from vehicle lights, 33% from new rail traffic, 10% from public station lights, and another 10% from natural bushfires. 3% remained unexplained, but Mansfield suspected that the witnesses might have seen fireflies .

In 1977 an experiment took place in which a 500,000 W light was shone from a town 22 miles away onto the western flank of Brown Mountain, where onlookers and participants were hoping for an apparition. As a result, there were reports that a "floating orange-red ball of light" had been seen over Brown Mountain on the night in question. The researchers concluded from the experiment that most of the alleged "ghost lights" are due to mirages.

In addition to the previous theories on the origin of the Brown Mountain Lights, further explanations have been and will be used. Some researchers suspect that it could be Elmsfeuer or Fuchsfeuer , others also suggest so-called earth lights as the cause. In the parasciences (especially in ufology) the lights are simply referred to as “unknown objects in flight”.

literature

  • Jerome Clark: Unexplained: Strange Sightings, Incredible Occurrences and Puzzling Physical Phenomena . Visible Ink Press, 1998, ISBN 1578592666 , pp. 138 & 139.
  • Brad Steiger: Real Ghosts, Restless Spirits, and Haunted Places . Visible Ink Press, 2003, ISBN 1578592658 , pp. 54-56.
  • Jerome Clark: Encyclopedia of Strange and Unexplained Physical Phenomena . Gale Research International Limited, 1993, ISBN 081038843X , p. 39.