On Thursday of last week, I loaded up the van with my camping gearand telescope and headed to west Texas for a long weekend. OnThursday I drove to Alpine to spend the night and to make an effortto see the "Marfa Mystery Lights". I had heard about the lights foryears but I had never made an effort to see them.

I had a lot of preconceived notions about what they were includingthe likely idea that they were a hoax of some form. After seeingthem I can tell you that I have no idea what they are but I am verycertain that they are not a hoax -- but I get ahead of myself.

On the road that runs from Marfa to Alpine, the Texas Highway Depthas built a road side park called the Marfa Mystery Lights ViewingArea. It is located about 8 miles east of Marfa at a high point thatgives a clear view of the area where the Marfa Lights are seen. Iarrived a little before 8PM, right at the end of twilight to findthe park completely filled with people -- most of whom were standingon top of the picnic tables -- 'oohing and 'aahing and generallylooking off to the south at something that looked car headlightsalong the side of a mountain range that was about 15 miles away. Iwas not immeadiately impressed.

Pulling a sweater and my big 11x80 comet binoculars out of the vanI began to scan the mountain side looking at the lights. In thebinoculars it was clear that these lights were not pin point carheadlights but were small glowing disks (or spheres) of light thatwere a bright yellow orange in color.

As each light appeared, you could see it form (only with binoculars)and quickly grow to brilliance -- extremely brilliant. They wouldkeep their peak for 15 seconds to a minute or so and then start tofade. As they faded you could see an orange central disk with aborder of faint blue light. At times there were as many as a dozenlights visible at one time and the east to west extent of the areawas perhaps 5 miles. As I began to think about how far away I wasfrom the mountain, 15 miles, I realized that to see a clearly formeddisk meant that the object must have been the size of a house!

The best visual image I can think of would be to think of thisphenomena as a "natural gas geyser". The gas building upunderground until it rushes up through a crack in the rock and thenignites burning brilliantly until the gas supply was exhausted. Theproblem is how is the gas ignited? And the gas should burn in aplume not in a ball.

As I watched some of the lights, they would dim slightly and thensplit into two disks -- both disks fading simultaneously. On oneoccasion I observed one light split into four lights. These fourlights were perfectly aligned horizontally and equally spaced -- asure sign of some kind of man made hoax -- right?

The light show lasted for about 40 minutes and then the number oflights appearing rapidly declined and then quit. As I drove backto Alpine I was really stumped by what I had seen. I decided toreturn to the viewing area the next morning to see it in daylight. Standing on a picnic table, I surveyed the area. Mountainsat Alpine run to the south as do the mountains at Marfa leaving aprairie (or savannah) between the two that is 26 miles wide. Theridge line where the lights were was close to the horizon and clearly 15 miles away. There is a placard at the viewing area which gives some of the history of the lights including some suggested explanations. But after seeing them for myself, I immediately discounted the suggestions.

Here is what the placard basically said:

    1. Lights first documented by a white settler in 1883 
       who thought they were Indian camp fires.
    2. Lights have been continuously seen ever since 
       (133 years). 
    3. Lights are seen almost every night with no special 
       time of year being preferred.
    4. Lights might be: swamp gas; biological luminecence 
       (bugs, fireflies, etc); ball (globe) lightning; 
       signals  from the dead; morse code from alien beings.

Why I don't think the lights are a hoax:

    1.  133 years is a long time to keep up a hoax.
    2.  Lights spanned 5 miles horizontally and 1500 feet 
        vertically and that would take a lot of man power.
    3.  Hoax would be quite expensive and for what purpose?
    4.  What is source of light?  Modern technology could 
        probably do it but what about 30 years ago - or 50?
    5.  How to keep such a thing under cover so long.
    6.  Credible research has been done (including a team 
        from UT) and no sign of a hoax was uncovered.

I returned the next evening to view a second time to see if what Ihad seen was average, above average, etc. I also decided to arriveearlier -- I wanted to see how long before dark the lights could beseen and I wanted to get one of the good picnic tables. I got thereabout 7:15PM which was still good daylight. The first light wasseen about 7:40 which was just early twilight. The second night,the show was mush less impressive. A much smaller number of lightswith never more than three seen at any one time and the show stoppedbefore good dark.

Some other random facts and conjectures:

    1.  The start and stop of the lights definitely coincided
        with the setting sun.  On the second night, the first
        light seen was more than bright enough to have been 
        seen much earlier if any were being generated.

    2.  No lights were ever observed above the ridge line.

    3.  At times I had the distinct impression that I was
        seeing a virtual image.  I have a lot of experience 
        with optics and images seen through a beam splitter 
        or projected through a hologram have a certain "look"
        -- some of these objects had that look.

    4.  The lights did not float around.  Even though they
        appeared randomly, once seen they did not move.

    5.  The splitting images seemed artificial because they
        were so regularly spaced.

    6.  The physical objects must have been quite large to 
        be seen as a disk at 15 miles.

    7.  Car lights could be seen in the area -- there is a 
        road that runs from Marfa to Presidio across in front
        of the mountain but the car lights were very 
        distinctive and quite different looking from the 
        Mystery Lights. 

    8.  Can't the people in the cars see the lights?

    9.  Have the lights ever been triangulated to determine
        their exact location?

   10.  In spite of the tourist draw, Marfa has benefited
        little so why keep up a hoax?

   11.  The lights are not supernatural or alien and 
        probably not biological.  Globe lightning is a 
        candidate but what is source of the energy (plasma) 
        needed to make them and why so stable and predictable?

   12.  Why is the phenomena tied to twilight?

This might make a good FLF outing! Drive to Alpine on Friday andsee the lights on Friday and Saturday and home on Sunday. Plus alot of good sight seeing in the Ft. Davis area (McDonaldObservatory, solar electric power station, power generating windfarm, etc.).