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Marfa, Texas was established in 1881.
It is located in Presidio County, about 26 miles west of Alpine,
Texas on U.S. Highway 67/90. The lights appear in an area SW of
Chinati Mountain, on Mitchell Flat, near Twin Peaks, and over the
flat prairie north of Cuesto Del Burro Mountains. A roadside plaque
on US 90, 8 miles E of Marfa commemorates the lights. An abandoned
USAF base is nearby.
Marfa, Texas is a small west Texas ranching community of about 2,000
folks, located near Big Bend National Park. Marfa is known primarily
for two reasons. The classic movie "Giant", with Rock
Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor, an incredibly clean-cut Dennis Hopper
and James Dean, was filmed in Marfa. Marfa is also home of the semi-famous
Marfa Mystery Lights.
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The Marfa lights are visible
every clear night between Marfa and Paisano Pass in northeastern
Presidio County as one faces the Chinati Mountains. At times they
appear colored as they twinkle in the distance. They move about,
split apart, melt together, disappear, and reappear. Presidio County
residents have watched the lights for over a hundred years.
The first historical record of them recalls
that in 1883 a young cowhand, Robert Reed Ellison, saw a flickering
light while he was driving cattle through Paisano Pass and wondered
if it was the campfire of Apache Indians. He was told by other settlers
that they often saw the lights, but when they investigated they
found no ashes or other evidence of a campsite. Joe and Sally Humphreys,
also early settlers, reported their first sighting of the lights
in 1885. Cowboys herding cattle on the prairies noticed the lights
and in the summer of 1919 rode over the mountains looking for the
source, but found nothing. World War I observers feared that the
lights were intended to guide |
an invasion. During World War II pilots
training at the nearby Midland Army Air Field outside Marfa looked for
the source of the elusive lights from the air, again with no success.
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The Lights, which
most people describe as spherical, appear south of Marfa each evening.
They appear to bounce around, vanish, then re-appear elsewhere.
According to the legend, these lights have been observed since the
1800s. The Lights have become an important tourist attraction in
Marfa, a town that has seen much better days. On a nice evening,
dozens of people will stop and view the Lights at the "official"
viewing area, about 10 miles east of town on Highway 90.
Apache legends say the lights are the spirit of Chief Alsate - condemned
to wander the area after he offended a tribal God. Early settlers
thought they were the lanterns of a family that got lost in the
1850's.
The first recorded sighting of the
lights was by rancher Robert Ellison in 1883. Variously described
as campfires, phosphorescent minerals, swamp gas, static electricity,
St. Elmo's Fire, and "ghost lights," the lights reportedly
change colors, move around, and change in intensity. Scholars have
reported over seventy-five local folk tales dealing with the unknown
phenomenon. |
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We went out on three
separate occasions and viewed the lights. We also had spectral data
on different kinds of lights such as headlights, taillights, street
lights, and fog lights. We will also obtained spectral data on hydrogen,
nitrogen, and helium lights. We will record our results by taking
pictures and using a spectroscope.The results will be compared with
the data we previously acquired on natural and man made light sources.
The absence of thermal anomalies indicates that
there was nothing on the ground, such as a sphere of ball lightening
or a cloud of burning gas, to generate such a signal. We can therefore
eliminate any discrete source of light and/or heat.
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We scientifically proved with a number
of experiments that the Marfa Lights we saw were indeed only headlights
coming from a distant road in the mountains on U.S. highway 67. We were
told, however, that the "Marfa Lights" we saw were not the only
recorded type of them seen. It is said that there have been mysterious
lights seen in the horizon to the left of the "headlights" that
are unexplainable. We, unfortunately were not lucky enough to witness
these. Perhaps we will go out again repeat the expeiment over to see if
we get the same results.
From our analysis, we believe that car
headlights shining in the direction of the Observation Site, reflected
along the concave surface of soil alongside of Highway 67 are the source
of the Lights. The highly reflective soil acts as a mirrored surface that
creates the observed phenomena.
A car descending from the Chinati Mountains
would begin shining its headlights in the direction of the observer several
miles to the southwest before it turns northward towards Marfa. When the
headlights are facing the observer in this fashion, they are aligned with
the highly reflective soil that flanks the road. There are several locations
where a car changes angle and the area of reflective soil is sufficiently
wide to be seen by the observer. There are several small hills to the
east of the Rancheria Hills that will interfere with reflected light.
The Rancheria Hills themselves will stop much of the reflection to someone
looking in that direction from Marfa. The soil creates a reflected beam
that appears magnified and can appear to split and merge to an observer
at the Marfa Lights Observation Site. This duplication, splitting and
merging is likely the result of the cars' movements along the highway.
Once the car descends down the mountain and onto the plain,it no longer
reflects its lights in the direction of the observer and the Rancheria
Hills and other topographic features block the transmission of the car's
lights at that point.
Historical Research
The story of the Marfa Lights often makes
the point that they were seen by early settlers in the 1880's. A particular
person, Robert Ellison, is frequently cited. Here is the history of Marfa
based on reputable sources. Robert Ellison is quoted in Cecilia Thompson's
"History of Marfa and Presidio County"
(F 392.P7 T52 1985. Volume 1, 1533-1900. Volume 2 is from 1901 - 1946).
However, he was about 70 years old in 1937 when "someone" asked
him about the lights he saw in 1883. The person that asked him couldn't
have been Thompson who published the book in 1985 unless she had heard
it from him as a child. This means the sighting info is second-hand to
Thompson and she got it from another source who actually asked Ellison
about it. Moreover, Thompson says that Ellison wrote his memoirs in 1937
at the age of 70, but that he did not include his sighting of the Marfa
Lights in 1883. Apparently had told his family this information, and related
this to some interviewer, who again was not Thompson.
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