Following is a fairly recent and well-written eye-witness report of Marfa Lights and is substantially what I saw in 1970 through 7X large-aperture binoculars. Note that, with magnification, Lights appear to illuminate nearby ground and actually duck behind intervening terrain features.

Dozens must see them most every night in summer, but frequency and little else seems documented. I requested help in locating source of published data re Lights from McDonald Observatory Public Information Office (stardate@astro.as.utexas.edu), located about 40 miles north of Marfa, but no answer as yet.

Rob Johnson

On Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, 1990, Jeff and I (both college graduates with engineering degrees) went to the city of Marfa, Texas, to see the well-known Marfa Lights. Several reputable news broadcasts, including the Texas Eight Reporter (a state-wide TV show) are supposed to have mentioned the Lights, but I can't vouch for this.

The Marfa Lights have been reported since the 1880's. Apparently, the majority of the sightings have been along Highway 90, a two lane road leading east from the city. The lights are unique among unexplained phenomena, in that they appear regularly, and can be seen almost any night. According to the descriptions of numerous observers, the lights vary in color, are spherical, are characterized by rapid and erratic movements, and range from the size of a baseball to a basketball. The light is constant, rather than pulsating. Many people claim to have seen the lights up close, and others even claim to have been chased by them.

Numerous scientific hypotheses have been proposed to explain the Marfa Lights, but none fit the data well enough to have gained general acceptance. Most explanations, however, are nonscientific, and range from to extraterrestrial visitors to Apache spirits.

When we arrived in Marfa, the friendly clerk of a rather shabby motor lodge in the city supplied us with directions to the "viewing area". This turned out to be a parking lot on the south side of the road, roughly ten miles east of the city. The Texas Highway Department has installed some fifty feet of parking area and (***) o three hundred feet high) rise around the edge of the plain. The only vegetation on the plain is scrub brush and small cacti, no more than a couple of feet tall. Although visiblity across the plain was unblocked and excellent, there was the major disadvantage of completely losing any sense of distance. Therefore, most distances given here are estimates.

 ^  North
/ \
 |        ====================XXX==============  Highway
 |         %%                    Viewing stand.
 |          %%                /
 |       C  %%               /
         h  %%%             /
         i   %%            / Estimated to be about
         n  M %%          /   twenty miles, maybe less.
         a  n  %%        /
         t  t   %%%     /
         i  s    %%%
                   %%% R - Radio antenna light.
                     %%%%
                       %%%%
                         %%

Jeff and I arrived at the viewing site about one hour before sunset. At that time, there were no cars present, except for mine. We had brought along some dinner, and we cooked it, while waiting for darkness. Well before sunset, at least fifteen cars pulled up and parked. A few people brought chairs, and nearly everyone had binoculars. One middle-aged lady parked immediately beside my car, and shortly afterwards joined us in conversation.

The lady said that she had been at the viewing site the night before, as well, and gave us a few pointers on what to watch for. She pointed out where a red antenna tower light would be seen (not visible at all in the day-light), and said that the Lights appeared near the tower, and could be seen dimly moving clockwise along the mountain. She also said that some were visible far to the north-west.

About a half hour after sunset, the tower light became visible in the darkness. A few people began questioning aloud if "that's one of the Lights", but were quickly assured that it was not.

However, within just a few minutes (ten at the most), a bright white (not red like the tower) point of light appeared at the base of the mountains near the tower, and could obviously be seen to move clockwise along the mountains. After about ten seconds, (and already about one third of the way along the mountains) the light disappeared. In less than a minute, another light appeared and repeated the motions of the first.

This turned out to be just the beginning. From then until midnight there was a nearly constant stream of Lights. There were two major patterns visible to the eye. The first pattern was to appear near the southern edge of the mountains (near the tower), and move about halfway to the road and vanish. The second pattern was to appear about two/thirds of the way to the road (or closer), and to stay motionless. With both patterns, however, there was still a wide range of variation. The moving Lights traveled at different speeds (although movement was always easily visible to the eye), whereas the stationary Lights tended to blink on and off at regular intervals, before disappearing.

The Lights themselves appeared about equal in brightness to the tower light (or perhaps somewhat brighter). They never appeared to be anything other than mere points of light. They appeared quite similar to distant car headlights, but were always single to the naked eye. Car headlights eventually were ruled out as a cause, since reports have occured for over a century. In addition, the map provided to us showed no indication of a road on the near side of the mountain.

The lady beside us provided a great deal of entertainment. She posessed a rather large set of binoculars and kept up a running commentary of the "antics" of the Lights. Comments, su distance.

Jeff and I had been attending the Texas astronomy party, so I had my eight-inch diameter Celestron telescope with me. For over an hour, I was too fascinated by the Lights to even remember the telescope, but eventually I brought it out of the car and set it up. With this telescope, the Lights were resolvable into obvious fuzzy round balls, apparently several feet in diameter.

The telescope verified several observations, and provided several more discoveries. The most significant observation was that the lights truly were all the way to the mountains. The view through the telescope allowed each viewer to verify that the lights were passing behind rocks and cliffs ON the mountain side. Indeed, many, but by no means most, of the blinking observed was due to a Light passing behind a rock and being eclipsed by it. The light shed from the Marfa Light was more than enough to illuminate the rock wall behind the light. Rocks to the front were obvious from their silhouettes.

A fascinating discovery from the telescope was that several of the balls were doublets. Often, a single light would appear, and about fifteen to thirty seconds later, a second, identical light appeared right beside the first. Indistinguishable with the naked eye, these balls were obvious pairs through the telescope. These balls would then begin varying in brightness, one going dim while the other brightened, and then the first brightening while the second dimmed. After eight to ten cycles, the balls would usually split up, and separate into two naked eye pairs. This easily ruled out car headlights.

One item I found rather disturbing was that whenever another car arrived (people kept arriving for several hours into the night), the watchers already present acted like tour guides for the occult. The newcomers were quickly treated to a lecture by people that had received the same lecture themselves no more than twenty minutes earlier. To my small dismay, Jeff and I fell quite naturally into the "pro" mode. Having been at the viewing site since before dark, we made a point of describing all we had seen that night. We never, thankfully, went so far as the lady next to us, who eagerly attribruted conscious thought to the movements.

About midnight, the lights tapered off and came to a halt. In all, there had been lights nearly constantly visible for about four hours. Rarely was there NOT a light visible, and a good deal of the time, three, four or sometimes five lights were seen at once.

On the ride back to the campsite, we tried to check the distance to the mountains. However, after driving about eight miles, our road turned off to the north. We estimated that we had come less than half way to the mountains.

In short, watching the Lights was fascinating. All of the suggested natural causes were quickly ruled out from their appearences. However, I eventually decided that I really didn't care what caused them. They were pretty to watch, and provided me with my most interesting vacation in years.