Scott Weisman (SPELLING ERROR: The incorrect spelling, as it appeared on LP labels, was corrected to Scott Wiseman on the 2001 CD issue by Collector's Choice)

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"The mountains emit nitrous vapors which are borne by the wind and when laden winds meet each other the niter inflames, sulphurates and deteriorates," said de Brahm. De Brahm was a scientific man and, of course, had a scientific explanation. But the early frontiersman believed that the lights were the spirits of Cherokee and Catawba warriors slain in an ancient battle on the mountainside.

One thing is certain, the lights do exist. They have been seen from earliest times. They appear at irregular intervals over the top of Brown Mountain - a long, low mountain in the foothills of the Blue Ridge. They move erratically up and down, visible at a distance, but vanishing as one climbs the mountain. From the Wiseman's View on Linville Mountain the lights can be seen well. They at first appear to be about twice the size of a star as they come over Brown Mountain. Sometimes they have a reddish or blue cast. On dark nights they pop up so thick and fast it's impossible to count them.

Among the scientific investigations which have undertaken from time to time to explain the lights have been two conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey. The first was made in 1913 when the conclusion was reached that the lights were locomotive headlights from the Catawba Valley south of Brown Mountain. However, three years later in 1916 a great flood that swept through the Catawba Valley knocked out the railroad bridges. It was weeks before the right-of-way could be repaired and the locomotives could once again enter the valley. Roads were also washed out and power lines were down.

But the lights continued to appear as usual. It became apparent that the lights could not be reflections from locomotive or automobile headlights.

Cherokee Indians were familiar with these lights as far back as the year 1200. According to Indian legend, a great battle was fought that year between the Cherokee and Catawba Indians near Brown Mountain. The Cherokees believed that the lights were the spirits of Indian maidens who went on searching through the centuries for their husbands and sweethearts who had died in the battle.

The lights can be seen from as far away as Blowing Rock or the old Yonahlosse Trail over Grandfather Mountain some fifteen miles from Brown Mountain. At some points closer to Brown Mountain the lights seem large, resembling balls of fire from a Roman candle. Sometimes they may rise to various heights and fade slowly. Others expand as they rise, then burst high in the air like an explosion without sound.

Late in 1919 the question of the Brown Mountain Lights was brought to the attention of the Smithsonian Institution and the United States Weather Bureau.

Dr. W.J. Humphries of the Weather Bureau investigated and reported that the Brown Mountain Lights were similar to the Andes light of South America. The Andes light and its possible relation to the Brown Mountain Lights became the subject of a paper read before the American Meteorological Society in April 1941. In this report Dr. Herbert Lyman represented the lights as a manifestation of the Andes light.

The second U.S. Geological Survey report disposes of the cause of the Brown Mountain Lights by saying they are due to the spontaneous combustion of marsh gases. But there are no marshy places on or about Brown Mountain. The report also states that the lights from foxfire would be too feeble to be seen at a distance of several miles.

The report rules out the possibility that the lights are a reflection of mountain moonshine stills. "There are not enough such stills and they probably would not be in sufficiently continuous operation to produce lights in the number and regularity of those seen at Brown Mountain."

St. Elmo's Fire, that electrical phenomenon familiar to sea voyagers, was dismissed by a scientist from the Smithsonian Institution. He stated that St. Elmo's Fire and similar phenomena occurred at the extremity of some solid conductor and never in midair as in the case of the Brown Mountain Lights.

Some scientists have advanced the theory that the lights are a mirage. Through some peculiar atmospheric condition they believe the glowing balls are reflections from Hickory, Lenoir, and other towns in the area. The only drawback to this theory is that the lights were clearly seen before the War between the States, long before electricity was used to produce light.

In recent years scientists have been more concerned about exploring outer space. Perhaps they have forgotten that there are mysteries on our own planet still unsolved. The Brown Mountain Lights are one of them.

SOURCE: http://www.ibiblio.org/ghosts/bmtn.html

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) -- Hundreds of people have claimed to see the mysterious flickers of light on a low-lying ridge near the border of Burke and Caldwell counties. But no one has been able to explain their existence.

Now, an Asheville group says it will find the cause of the Brown Mountain Lights, one of North Carolina's most enduring legends.

Joshua Warren, 24, heads a group that recently announced it captured the elusive phenomenon on video. The video was shot last November from an overlook on N.C. 181 north of Morganton. Warren, who has made a full-time job out of writing, film-making and researching the paranormal, says his group is using the film to pinpoint where the lights originated.

The group has also been camping periodically in the area to find an explanation, and has launched a Web site -- www.brownmountainlights.com.

Warren has written books on the paranormal, while his group sometimes charges for ghost-hunting services. Yet he welcomes skeptics who want to challenge the legitimacy of the video.

After all, he says, scrutinizing the video might lead to an explanation for the lights.

"I know without a doubt (the video) is legitimate," Warren said.

The lights have generated a wide range of theories, including the paranormal, alien, natural or man-made. Folklorists point to a Cherokee legend which attributes the lights to the spirits of warriors slaughtered in a battle between Native American tribes on the mountain. Some legends say the lights are torches carried by ghosts of grieving maidens.

The video, captured with an infrared camera, shows the ridge from 3.5 miles away. On two separately filmed segments, narrated by Warren, spherical lights appear and dance around on the mountainside, then seem to form an orderly line moving toward the top of the ridge.

They don't move like headlights or other man-made lights. They're also in an area of the mountain without roads.

"I have no reason to believe it's been faked," said David Mull, who lives a few miles from the mountain and has documented sightings of the lights since the mid-1980s. "The appearance in the video of these lights is not inconsistent with the reports I've gathered over the years from witnesses."

Daniel Caton, an astronomy professor at Appalachian State University, said caution should be used when approaching the mystery. He thought he saw unexplained lights on the mountain once, and wrote about them in a 1998 column in The Charlotte Observer. He has since concluded what he saw was a car light.

However, he's aware that reports of the lights were documented before cars were invented. A German engineer wrote references to them in journals in 1771. They were also described in an area newspaper in 1912 or 1913.

"I just don't know what to make of any of it," Caton said. "I can't really even say for certain there's anything there."

The lights have entered pop culture, first with the 1960s bluegrass song ''(Legend of the) Brown Mountain Light." They were most recently featured in a 1999 episode of "The X-files."

Warren said no existing scientific theory -- gases, seismic activity, mirages or ball lightning -- has satisfactorily accounted for the bizarre behavior of the lights.

"I feel there is a good chance this will be explained according to the known laws of physics," he said. ''(But) there might not be another place on the planet which produces an effect just like this one."


• Story originally published in •
The News & Observer / NC - July 2 2001

For more on the Brown Mountain Lights:

Western North Carolina Attractions: http://www.westernncattractions.com/BMLights.htm 

Chorus:
High, high on the mountain, and down in the canyon below
It shines like the crown of an angel, and fades as the mists come and go.
'Way, 'way over yonder, Night after night until dawn,
A faithful old slave, come back from the grave,
Is searching, searching, for his master who's long, ling gone.

In the days of the old covered wagons,
when they camped on the flat for the night;
With the stars growing dim on the high gorge rim,
they would watch for the Brown Mountain light

Chorus

Long years ago a southern planter
Came hunting in this wild land alone
And here, so they say, the hunter lost his way,
And never returned to his home

Chorus

His trusty old slave brought a lantern
And searched, but in vain, day and night;
Now the old slave is gone, but his spirit wanders on,
And the old lantern still casts its light

Chorus

Last revised: April 18, 2006.