Are the Brown Mountain lights just headlights from cars driving on winding roads? Or is it the ghost of a slave, looking for his lover? Are they balls of gas floating in the air?
The first symposium on the Brown Mountain lights hopes to find an answer as to what causes the lights.
Researchers Joshua Warren and Daniel Caton have spent years researching the subject and will present their findings on Feb. 11.
Burke County Tourism Development Authority (BCTDA) Director Ed Phillips initiated the symposium as a way for people to find out more about the Brown Mountain lights, “one of the most unique things about our county.”
Warren and Caton are two researchers who have studied the lights and have reached conclusions about the source of the lights, said Phillips.
Warren is an author, radio host and paranormal investigator. Caton is a professor of physics and astronomy at Appalachian State University.
Phillips said BCTDA receives inquiries from around the world about the lights and people have been seeing the lights for years.
“They’re real. Thousands and thousands of people have seen them,” Phillips said. “And there is something creating these lights.”
The mysterious lights appear randomly along the Brown Mountain range northwest of Morganton. There is no proven scientific explanation for the lights, but theories abound.
The lights are described as balls of light that move, either slowly or quickly. The first published account of the lights appeared in 1913 in the Charlotte Daily Observer and chronicles the Morganton Fishing Club’s sightings.
Explanations include headlights from locomotives and cars, moonshiners signaling each other, phosphorescence from decaying stumps and logs, radium emanations and chemical reactions. Others believe the lights are similar to St. Elmo’s Fire — an electrical phenomenon — or the Andes light of South America.
The U.S. Geological Survey has twice undertaken an investigation of the lights. The first investigation in 1913 concluded the lights were reflections from locomotive headlights.
In 1922, the second USGS investigation concluded the lights were caused by the spontaneous combustion of marsh gasses. The mountains create a basin-like area and air, of different temperatures and densities, move into the basin creating a unstable conditions and the lights.
Still others disagree, calling the lights a mirage, or perhaps signs from creatures beyond Earth.
Have Warren and Caton finally solved the mystery of the Brown Mountain lights?
The symposium runs from 1 to 5 p.m. at Morganton City Hall. After a catered meal, symposium attendees will load up on a shuttle bus at 6:30 p.m. and head up N.C. 181 to the Brown Mountain overlook. The group will spend two hours at the site. Tickets are $20 per person.
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