Picture Source: NASA

There are many places that boast of mysterious happenings. Sometimes they are unexplained ufo sightings that seem to happen for long periods of time. Other times they are phenomena of different sorts that just don't seem to make sense. These events happen all over the world. One has just to look at Gulf Breeze, in Florida, U.S.A., to see what I am talking about. There have been ufo sightings going on there for years and thousands of people have seen them by now. There are also things such as crop circles that seem to appear overnight. While some of these events are hoaxes, others are unexplainable.

In North Carolina there is a phenomena called the Brown Mountain Lights.

Brown Mountain is located in the Pisgah National Forest, in the Blue Ridge mountains of Western North Carolina. The Brown Mountain Lights are mysterious lights which are described as lights of red, blue, green or white. They are in the shape of balls and they disappear when approached. Some say they are the spirits of Native Americans who were killed in battle. They appear in areas where swamp land is nonexistent so they can not be swamp gas, and they have been seen for hundreds of years. The U.S. Geological Survey however seems to think they are reflected headlights.

There is another legend that says the lights are caused by a slave with a lantern who went into the mountain looking for his lost master, neither of whom returned.

The Brown Mountain Lights are one of the most famous of North Carolina legends. They have been reported a dozen times in newspaper stories. They have been investigated at least twice by the U.S. Geological Survey. They have attracted the attention of numerous scientists and historians since the German engineer, Gerard Will de Brahm, recorded the mysterious lights in the North Carolina mountains in 1771.

On dark nights they pop up so thick and fast it's impossible to count them. 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.

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.

A United States Weather Bureau scientist, Dr. Humphries, did a paper on the lights. He concluded that they were similar to the South American Andes Lights.