EDITOR'S NOTE: This story originally appeared in our March/April 1995 issue. It is being presented again here as part of our 30th Anniversary celebration.
Imagine a clear, cool evening on Brown Mountain of North Carolina in the wild, hardwood forest of the Pisgah. Imagine you're sitting 15 miles northwest of Morganton at a spot where Caldwell and Burke counties meet. From here you can take in the lush views of nearby Chestnut and Little Chestnut mountains, just a crow's flight over from the Linville Gorge Wilderness and the Linville River. All is peaceful, quiet and dark. You start to unwind, relax.
And then ... lights begin to move, flicker and dance across the night sky. No need to panic; they're just the Brown Mountain Lights. While some say there's magic in them thar hills, others ask, "Are these lights mountain magic or what?"
Could they be, as often speculated, the reflection of a passing locomotive, fox-fire (an eerie, phosphorescent light related to fungus and decaying wood, insects and animals), or burning marsh grasses? Are they moon dogs (moonlight shining on haze), St. Elmo's Fire (electrical discharges from sharp objects during a thunder storm) or Andes Light (luminous electrical discharges observed over the crests of the Chilean Andes)? Are they beings from outer space? Are they the result of too much moonshine, bottled or otherwise?
Or are they, as told and re-told in legends and lore, Cherokee maidens with lanterns searching the forests for their fallen lovers and husbands? The souls of the long-suffering Belinda and her child, allegedly murdered by her husband Jim who was in love with Susie? The light created when a mountain gal carries a torch for her loved one? The spirit of a loyal servant in search of his master? Or are they a returning Revolutionary War hero searching for his family?
Legend, lore and more
One favorite tale from Brown Mountain recounts the sad demise of Belinda and her child, thought to be murdered by her husband, Jim, who was having an affair with Susie. Neighbors were suspicious about Belinda's disappearance, a hunch compounded by the appearance of a stranger in town whom they believed helped with the double murder. As a clincher, blood stains were found in Jim's cabin. Soon after Belinda's disappearance, lights began to appear, and when followed, led to a pile of rocks under which, you guessed it, were found the bones of a woman and child. Some say the lights remain as a warning: if you are evil, you will be shown in your true light.
Another legend tells the tale of a bitter battle in the 1200s between the Cherokee and Catawba Indians. The death toll was quite high and the lights, people surmise, are the wives and sweethearts, with lanterns in hand, searching the forest for their dead warriors.
Women, historically, have carried torches for men and it seems the women of Brown Mountain were no exception. That is, if mountain lore can be believed.
Here's one tale: When a certain mountain guy courted his favorite mountain gal each night, he had to cross through a dangerous patch of forest. To aid in his passage, the gal lit a torch so he would safely find his way. On the eve of their wedding, she lit a torch as she did every night, yet he never arrived. Is she still out there at sunset hoping he'll find his way?
And the lure of mountain lore leads to other versions of the lights. Consider this one: A family is newly settled from Virginia to the foot of Brown Mountain. The husband and father soon leaves his wife, three children and homestead to fight in the Revolutionary War. When he returns, he finds his home a charred ruin with no traces of his family. Sick with grief, hunger, and exhaustion, the lights, some say, is this man still searching for the family he lost.
Another account details a hunter who traveled to Brown Mountain with his trusted servant. While the hunter went off in search of game, the servant stayed behind to set up camp. When the master didn’t return, the beloved servant, lantern in hand, went off in search of him. And to this day, people still see the light of his lantern as he searches, searches, searches for his long-lost master.
Present-day lore says seeing the lights while wooing your sweetheart will bring luck to love. The Burke County Chamber of Commerce at Morganton, N.C. has published the following: "It's a classic 'courtin' custom' of the Blue Ridge Country to drive your girl friend out to see the Brown Mountain Lights, or to persuade your suitor to take you out to see them if you're a woman in love. If you see the lights, the legend implies, you'll be lucky in love. If not, your courtship will come to nothing."
If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes
Marion, N.C. native C.W. Smith has been a district law enforcement officer for the U.S. Forest Service, Pisgah National Forest, Grandfather Ranger District, for more than 25 years.
Part of his duties includes the patrol of the district, keeping an eye out for anything unusual. Smith says he's heard tales about the lights, has seen thousands of people watching for the lights, and has talked to others who have seen the lights. And while he says he's never looked for the lights and never really believed in them, he's seen them.
"I saw them twice. The first time was at least 15 years ago when a fellow officer and I were using binoculars to check on some forest visitors. I was gazing across the bottom up toward Table Rock and saw a different light- not so unusual-but different in the sense that it wasn't supposed to be there.
"When I turned to ask the other officer if he had seen it, he asked at the same time, 'Did you see that light?'. This all took place in a matter of seconds. So I said, 'yeah, it's probably just an airplane or something going across.' We watched for about two minutes while it moved around, then it was gone. It was a cloudy night and the light was like nothing I had seen before, doing a lot of dancing like people say. It was there just a short time. It wasn't a bright light and we wouldn't have seen it without binoculars," Smith explains.
"We were at Wiseman's View looking straight toward Table Rock. It was kind of south of Table Rock in an area we call the Chimneys when we first saw it. At first I thought it was just someone walking a trail carrying a flashlight or lantern. But I know the area well, having been there on foot so many times. I know where the trails are and there was no way anyone could have covered the distance those lights covered in that short amount of time.
"The second time, three to five years later, was a crystal clear fall night when quite a few other people were watching. I was there in my law enforcement capacity watching and listening, and I saw a similar-type light. It was different than the first time but it was down underneath what we call Little Table Rock, lower in the tree line. It moved around a little, then it was gone. There's no doubt in my mind that it wasn't a lantern, wasn't a flashlight and wasn't a star. All I can tell you is that it was a light. I've probably been at this location at Wiseman's View thousands of times and I've seen lanterns and flashlights, and I've seen lights from cities in the distance. The lights I saw were the Brown Mountain Lights."
Ask Smith if what he saw might be Belinda and this forest professional laughs heartily and shakes his head.
Journalist Dan Smith (no relation to C.W.) grew up near Asheville surrounded by mountains and tales of the lights. His mother, who lived in the Squirrel Creek and Cranberry communities, often spoke of the mysteries of Brown Mountain, and he also liked the tune "Legend of the Brown Mountain Light," made popular in the early 1960s by country music singer Tommy Faile. But Smith says, the lights weren't all that mysterious.
"People I knew didn't consider the lights to be all that unusual. Anybody can see them and if you spend time looking for them, you will see them. When I was in high school, it was just something we did (there wasn't a lot to do at that time): get a group of guys together and drink a Cobb's Creek beer or one of those Falstaff beers out of the tall horse container it came in. Maybe that helped influence what we saw."
And former Banner Elk resident Ben Calloway says, "It was fairly eerie, watching the lights go up. They were kind of hazy, the size of a small streetlight at 50-100 yards, and it was fun to see them as a kid. Everyone knew about the lights. It was just part of growing up in the area."
Mrs. Viola Carter, now of Kingsport, Tenn., grew up in Montezuma, N.C. She recounts her favorite Brown Mountain Lights story. "I married a man from Tennessee who had never heard of the lights, and I was very anxious for him to see them. Almost every time we would visit my parents, they and I would take him to see them. Night after night we would sit in the car watching for them. But not even a tiny flicker were we able to see. My husband did not think they existed, and he constantly teased me about my vivid imagination.
"Then, one Christmas on a bitterly cold night, with the clearest sky I ever saw, we went again. And to the utter amazement of all of us, we saw the most spectacular display of lights that I have ever seen. The entire top of Brown Mountain, from one end to the other, looked exactly like a big city with every light glowing brightly. In addition to normal colored lights, scattered among them were red, green, and yellow lights. Every minute or two, lights here and there would go up one or two hundred feet in the air and explode into a brilliant fireworks display. My husband was astonished and he never again teased me about my imagination."
Science seeks reasons
Numerous books have been written about the baffling Brown Mountain lights. A bestselling song, "The Brown Mountain Light," written by North Carolina native Scotty Wiseman and performed by popular radio and television personality Tommy Faile has focused on the lights, as have a play, video and numerous short stories and folk tales. In 1991, the "Unsolved Mysteries" television show considered a segment on the lights (to date, it hasn't been produced). And the lights have provided the focus for numerous studies, scientific and otherwise.
Perhaps the first study occurred in 1913. Conducted by government scientist D.B. Sterret for the U.S. Geological Survey, his findings concluded that the lights were nothing more than reflections from passing locomotives, an observation that disappointed and even enraged some locals who protested that lights were seen even when the locomotives weren't running. A 1921 U.S. Weather Bureau study suggested that the lights were a phenom similar to the Andes Lights (silent electrical discharges between mountain tops and clouds). But that theory, like others including St. Elmo's Fire, foxfire, methane gas and will-o-wisps, continues to be debated.
In May, 1978, a multi-disciplinary team of researchers from ORION, the Oak Ridge Isochronous Observation Network of Oak Ridge, Tenn., spent eight days in the shadow of Brown Mountain. They were rewarded with sightings on four separate evenings. ORION was founded in 1974 by a group of scientists primarily to perform correlated, instrumented observation of atmospheric phenomena. (Isochronous, by the way, relates to equal time, correlated or simultaneous.)
ORION’s conclusions, explains Dr. David E. Fields, were similar to the ones offered by the US Geological studies of the early 1900s.
"We found there were lots of fairly easily explained things," says Fields. "For instance, any number of lights could be lights and reflections of lights from cities, automobiles, flashlights and lanterns, and of course now we see lights from airplanes.
"I think the refraction theory is most interesting. In cooler air, light moves more slowly than through warm air. Because of this, if a beam of light goes from warmer to cooler air, and it's moving in any direction other than perpendicular to the interface between the different temperatures, the light gets bent just like in a lens. So you'll have a lens effect.
"We also saw some interesting electrical effects when lightning storms were moving in. We saw a lightning strike and subsequent to it, we saw a tree glow, probably St. Elmo's Fire, an electrostatic discharge from the tree. That was pretty interesting. We also had some success with experiments to see if mineral lights can be produced. Mineral lights are the electrical discharges from stressed crystals: piezoelectricity (from the Greek word meaning "to press").
An example would be applying pressure to quartz crystals in the granite which is plentiful in the area. When the quartz is stressed, a voltage develops across the crystal. We speculated that this might give rise to a luminous phenomenon—something miners know about even though other people often don't," Fields explains.
Although scientific studies may not be nearly as much fun as unrequited love, murder, war and revenge, anyone who watches for the Brown Mountain Lights long enough will be rewarded. People see different lights, in all kinds of weather, in any season. Sometimes they last only a few seconds; other times they may last half an hour. Some say the lights cast a red glow, others say it's definitely yellow. For still others, it was absolutely green. The lights range in size from basketballs to car tires.
Best bets for seeing the lights
- Take binoculars to Brown Mountain Overlook on N.C. 181 or Wiseman's View on the Kistler Memorial Highway.
- The lights are more commonly seen on the west side of the mountain around the middle of the ridge.
- Sightings occur year-round, in any weather, although some people swear by frequent summer occurrences.
- Sightings occur anytime after dark, and the darkest nights are best when there is less competition from the moon.
Many thanks to our readers who wrote to us about the Brown Mountain Lights, including Viola Carter of Kingsport, Tenn.; Marsha Garwood of Thomasville, N.C.; Regina Hill of Micaville, N.C.; Walter A. Johnson of Boone, N.C.; Val Smith of Black Mountain, N.C.; and the Burke County Public Library of Morganton, N.C.