Tag: Marfa Lights

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Sightings of Marfa Lights in Texas

Marfa Light Introduction

Specific sightings of mysterious Marfa Lights, in southwest Texas, deserve notice here. Not all sightings of apparently strange lights around Marfa need be from the same source, of course; not all of them need be actually mysterious (I believe that some of them are the bioluminescence of a flying predator: a species of live pterosaur, maybe similar to the glowing ropen of Papua New Guinea). But the strange appearances should receive more attention, for investigating those lights may result in an important discovery.

Marfa Lights and Ropen Lights (blog post by Jonathan Whitcomb)

(ML photographed in 2003) . . . The flying light appeared to have “on and off states as well as occasional bursts to brightness.” He concluded that it had “the appearance of chemical combustion including at least two re-ignitions and step changes in brightness.”

. . . in 2004, the American cryptozoologist David Woetzel witnessed a strange light flying to the mountains near Lake Pung. . . . “shimmering around the edges.” Other eyewitnesses of the horizontally-flying ropen light have mentioned a pulsating appearance.

The Marfa Lights (qsl.net)

Robert Ellison came to Marfa in 1883 . . . He then drove [his cattle]  herd . . . and on the second night out, while camped just outside Paisano Pass, he saw strange lights in the distance. . . . Mr. Ellison searched the countryside by horseback. He finally realized that the lights were not man-made. Other early settlers assured him that they too had seen the lights and had never been able to identify them.

Marfa Lights Seen With Binoculars (testimony of the scientific researcher-investigator Ed Hendricks)

Car lights could easily be discerned by their regular motion and color. Other lights would suddenly appear, move slightly, split into multiple lights, and show a distinctly different color and motion. They were not at all head lights.

Handbook of Texas: Marfa Lights

Mrs. W. T. Giddings, who grew up watching the lights and whose father claimed he was saved from a blizzard when the lights led him to the shelter of a cave, considers the lights to be curious observers, investigating things around them.

 In recent years the lights have become a tourist attraction. The Texas State Highway Department has constructed a roadside parking area nine miles east of Marfa on U.S. Highway 90 for motorists to view the curious phenomenon. [Marfa Lights Viewing Platform]

Marfa’s Legendary Lights (by Lee Paul) Includes a fuller account of the 1883 sighting and investigation by Robert Ellison (although he seems to have been a cowboy rather than a scientist)

All day, the men searched along the base of the Chinati Mountains and the mesa between their camp and where the lights had been. They found no evidence that Indians had been anywhere in the area. No tracks, no doused campfires, no nothing. But the next night and the next after that, they again saw the strange lights. Cowboys kept seeing the lights night after night, week after week, and year after year. All attempts at identifying them went fruitless. . . . the cowboys finally decided the lights were [not from people] . . . calling them “ghost lights.”

The Marfa Lights — a Mystery (by Rosemary Williams; related by an email from Janet Christian)

“Well, I first saw the Marfa Lights in 1916, when I was teaching school in Presidio,” says Hallie, who has lived in the Big Bend country for most of her 95 years. “Every time I’d go home to Alpine, I’d have to wait until school was out, and it would be nighttime when I would pass by the Chinati Mtns. That’s where the ‘mystery lights’ would appear,” she says.

The Marfa Lights Mystery of Texas (part of report by Zeke_D)

. . . there is a separate and unique light phenomenon in the area of the Chianati mountain range that I can not explain. Balls of light sitting in a chico bush, atop a small pile of rocks or on the foundation of a removed radio antenna spitting streamers and shifting color from yellow to purple and red, a few flashes of yellow streamers and the light blinks out. The lights in the washes and gulleys that you can only see shadows from really get my heart pumping. I want so much to see what they are doing. Normally you just wait and a few will pop out in plain sight. The color changes and lightning like tendrils are very neat to watch. One I really enjoyed watching moved straight up a cliff face and then rested on top of the mountain changing from bright yellow to a dim red then blinked a couple times and was gone.

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Lively topics on living pterosaurs

Once in a while let’s consider some of the best articles on living pterosaurs, those especially deserving attention.

Why so few eyewitnesses?

I’ve lived more than half a century in Southern California, but I have never seen a mountain lion in the wild. It’s not that I’ve never walked through a wilderness area; mountain lions keep hidden, most of the time. But a few Southern Californians do see them.

At the San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary, in Southern California, near Irvine, in the summer of 2007, a man was driving north from the university, with the ponds on his right. From the marshy area on his left a very strange flying creature flew across the road, right in front of him, flying into the sanctuary.

American eyewitnesses (1400) of pterosaurs

 I have learned, over the years that I have promoted attention to the eyewitness evidences, that some vocal critics are overly anxious to discredit all those who promote the idea of living pterosaurs. I welcome comments on the eyewitness evidence itself, rather than weaknesses (real or wrongly-supposed) of the interviewers and investigators.

Marfa Lights and Min Mins (and ropens)

Come with me to Victoria, Australia, along Salisbury Road in Mt. Macedon. Notice, as we enter an open window, that Mr. Fred Silcock is sleeping in the easy chair by the fireplace. Now search for a thin brown book on the bookshelf. That’s the one; the spine says “The Min Min Light  F.F. Silcock”. Notice the drawing of a glowing barn owl on the cover.

Science and Clear Thinking

“The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane.” I believe Nikola Tesla was thinking clearly when he said that. I also believe that we need clear thinking in the scientists of today, at least as much as in the time of Tesla. It appears to me difficult to define, although its opposite appears easy to expose. Perhaps we should be grateful for extremes that help us to distinguish between foggy and clear thinking. I suggest a couple of examples.

Glowing Orbs of the Mekong River

What attracts hundreds of thousands of spectators, every October, to Nong Kai Province? The Naga Fireballs of Southeast Asia have attracted crowds for many years, and these strange glowing orbs have been seen emerging from the Mekong River for centuries.

. . . We know that some insects glow and some insects emerge from rivers to fly away. This may be a large bioluminescent insect.

Cryptozoology Book Live Pterosaurs in America

“The world’s greatest expert on chickens—that’s a fox. The details of that expertise culminate in picking bones, executed differently than, but for the same purpose as, the work of a fossil expert: to make a living. The hope differs: The paleontologist searches for ancient bones somehow protected from the destructive forces of time; the fox, for fresh meat, somehow unprotected by the farmer for a time. Interminable dogmatism keeps both of them searching: one for death anciently; the other, death soon-to-be.”

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Marfa lights and ropen lights

In his non-fiction book “Hunting Marfa Lights,” James Bunnell describes many sightings, including one “mystery light” that was photographed on February 19, 2003. The flying light appeared to have “on and off states as well as occasional bursts to brightness.” He concluded that it had “the appearance of chemical combustion including at least two re-ignitions and step changes in brightness.” He also concluded that the photographed light could not have been a car headlight.

On Umboi Island, Papua New Guinea, late in 2004, the American cryptozoologist David Woetzel witnessed a strange light flying to the mountains near Lake Pung. It moved almost horizontally, had no meteor tail, and was “shimmering around the edges.” Other eyewitnesses of the horizontally-flying ropen light have mentioned a pulsating appearance.

A few years earlier, on a different island in northern Papua New Guinea, missionary James Blume saw a pulsating light on a ridge. The light was about the size and shape of a large penguin, but the shape of the creature itself could not be determined, for he had no night-vision equipment.

This similarity between Marfa lights of Texas and ropen lights of Papua New Guinea deserves attention.

More: Cryptozoology book on pterosaurs

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Marfa Lights of Texas

I recently interviewed a man who observed several strange lights near Marfa, Texas. Driving across the country, two days earlier, Mr. Greene decided to stop at the Marfa observation station, having previously read of the strange lights. He watched the sky for hours, grateful that the flying lights were active that night. [details became available in late 2010, in the nonfiction book on cryptozoology: Live Pterosaurs in America.]

Why consider that American “ghost lights” relate to live pterosaurs? Consider the ropen light of Papua New Guinea. From them we can learn that at least some living pterosaurs are bioluminescent, in particular the apparent Rhamphorhynchoids of the Southwest Pacific. Now consider how many strange lights are reported across the United States: North Carolina (Brown Mountain Light), South Carolina (Bingham Lights), Arkansas (Dover Lights), Washington state (Yakima Lights)–those are only a sample. Strange lights have appeared across the United States for decades or centuries; apparent pterosaurs have also appeared across the United States for decades or centuries.

A bioluminescent flying creature much larger than a firefly I label “B.F.C.” Of course, not all strange flying lights are BFC, but I will also use this term to refer to ones with reasonable potential, from the perspective of my associates and I (who are convinced that the ropen is a bioluminescent Rhamphorhynchoid).

I took special interest in one of the lights that Mr. Greene described to me. It flew around for over two hours, until the sun was about to come up. At least once, it dived down, at a speed apparently consistant with what I would expect of a B.F.C. that is hunting bats, diving after one bat.

[The special characteristics of Marfa Lights should not be confused with ghost lights that may be barn owls.]

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cover, front and back of the nonfiction cryptozoology book "Live Pterosaurs in America" second edition