In the dark skies above Brown Mountain, North Carolina, eerie ghost lights have been spotted in the night sky for over a century. To many eyewitnesses, the lights appear as glowing orbs that hover in the sky above the mountain before suddenly disappearing or soundlessly exploding. The first reported sighting of the Brown Mountain Lights was in 1913 by a fisherman who claimed to see odd red lights dancing above the horizon. Sightings continued, and in 1922 the U.S. Geological Society investigated, determining that the Brown Mountain Lights were really just the headlights of cars or passing trains. But a major flood in 1916 changed that theory. The raging waters washed out roads and bridges and took out power for several weeks—but the Brown Mountain Lights were still spotted in the night sky.
Bluegrass songs claim that the lights are the ghost of a slave searching for his lost master. An episode of the X Files reasons that the lights are caused by UFOs. Popular Native American folklore says that a bloody battle between the Cherokee and Catawba tribes took place on the mountain. Many lives were lost. The lights, claim the legend, are the ghosts of grieving women still searching the mountainside for the bodies of fallen warriors.
But not every story of the Brown Mountain Lights is steeped in superstition. In July 2016 the Charlotte Observer reported that Forest Service officers had reported close-up encounters on the mountain with beach ball sized orbs that floated by and then vanished. And in August 2016, local TV station WLOS reported that scientists from Appalachian State University believed to have captured images of the Brown Mountain Lights on two digital video cameras. Though scientists have not been able to determine what causes the lights, ball lightning and naturally occurring mountain gases are two widely accepted theories.
If you want to find out for yourself, the best time to see the Brown Mountain Lights is September through early November. The lights can be observed on the Blue Ridge Parkway at the Brown Mountain Light Overlook located at milepost 310 or the Green Mountain Overlook at milepost 301. The City of Morganton, North Carolina even recently helped to improve the Brown Mountain Overlook on North Carolina Highway 181 for the purpose of attracting curious visitors hoping to catch a glimpse of the ghost lights.
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