The Brown Mountain Lights: History, Science and Human Nature Explain an Appalachian Mystery

262 Pages·2017·99.07 MB·English

by  Wade Edward Speer

The Brown
Mountain Lights
CONTRIBUTIONSTOSOUTHERNAPPALACHIANSTUDIES
1. Memoirs of Grassy Creek: Growing Up in the Mountains
on the Virginia–North Carolina Line. Zetta Barker Hamby. 1998
2. The Pond Mountain Chronicle: Self-Portrait of a Southern
Appalachian Community. Edited by Leland R. Cooper and Mary Lee Cooper. 1998
3. Traditional Musicians of the Central Blue Ridge: Old Time, Early Country, Folk
and Bluegrass Label Recording Artists, with Discographies. Marty McGee. 2000
4. W.R. Trivett, Appalachian Pictureman:
Photographs of a Bygone Time. Ralph E. Lentz II. 2001
5. The People of the New River: Oral Histories from the Ashe, Alleghany and Watauga Counties
of North Carolina. Edited by Leland R. Cooper and Mary Lee Cooper. 2001
6. John Fox, Jr., Appalachian Author. Bill York. 2003
7. The Thistle and the Brier: Historical Links and Cultural Parallels
Between Scotland and Appalachia. Richard Blaustein. 2003
8. Tales from Sacred Wind: Coming of Age in Appalachia.
The Cratis Williams Chronicles. Cratis D. Williams.
Edited by David Cratis Williams and Patricia D. Beaver. 2003
9. Willard Gayheart, Appalachian Artist. Willard Gayheart and Donia S. Eley. 2003
10. The Forest City Lynching of 1900: Populism, Racism, and White Supremacy
in Rutherford County, North Carolina. J. Timothy Cole. 2003
11. The Brevard Rosenwald School: Black Education and Community Building
in a Southern Appalachian Town, 1920–1966. Betty J. Reed. 2004
12. The Bristol Sessions: Writings About the Big Bang of Country Music.
Edited by Charles K. Wolfe and Ted Olson. 2005
13. Community and Change in the North Carolina Mountains:
Oral Histories and Profiles of People from Western Watauga County.
Compiled by Nannie Greene and Catherine Stokes Sheppard. 2006
14. Ashe County: A History; A New Edition. Arthur Lloyd Fletcher. 2009 [2006]
15. The New River Controversy; A New Edition.
Thomas J. Schoenbaum. Epilogue by R. Seth Woodard. 2007
16. The Blue Ridge Parkway by Foot: A Park Ranger’s Memoir. Tim Pegram. 2007
17. James Still: Critical Essays on the Dean of Appalachian Literature.
Edited by Ted Olson and Kathy H. Olson. 2008
18. Owsley County, Kentucky, and the Perpetuation of Poverty. John R. Burch, Jr. 2008
19. Asheville: A History. Nan K. Chase. 2007
20. Southern Appalachian Poetry: An Anthology of Works by 37 Poets.
Edited by Marita Garin. 2008
21. Ball, Bat and Bitumen: A History
of Coalfield Baseball in the Appalachian South. L.M. Sutter. 2009
22. The Frontier Nursing Service: America’s First Rural
Nurse-Midwife Service and School. Marie Bartlett. 2009
23. James Still in Interviews, Oral Histories and Memoirs. Edited by Ted Olson. 2009
24. The Millstone Quarries of Powell County, Kentucky. Charles D. Hockensmith. 2009
25. The Bibliography of Appalachia: More Than 4,700 Books, Articles,
Monographsand Dissertations, Topically Arranged and Indexed.
Compiled by John R. Burch, Jr. 2009
26. Appalachian Children’s Literature: An Annotated Bibliography.
Compiled by Roberta Teague Herrin and Sheila Quinn Oliver. 2010
27. Southern Appalachian Storytellers: Interviews with Sixteen Keepers
of the Oral Tradition. Edited by Saundra Gerrell Kelley. 2010
28. Southern West Virginia and the Struggle for Modernity.Christopher Dorsey. 2011
29. George Scarbrough, Appalachian Poet: A Biographical and
Literary Study with Unpublished Writings.Randy Mackin. 2011
30. The Water-Powered Mills of Floyd County, Virginia: Illustrated Histories,
1770–2010.Franklin F. Webb and Ricky L. Cox. 2012
31. School Segregation in Western North Carolina: A History,
1860s–1970s.Betty Jamerson Reed. 2011
32. The Ravenscroft School in Asheville: A History of the Institution
and Its People and Buildings. Dale Wayne Slusser. 2014
33. The Ore Knob Mine Murders: The Crimes, the Investigation
and the Trials. Rose M. Haynes. 2013
34. New Art of Willard Gayheart. Willard Gayheart and Donia S. Eley. 2014
35. Public Health in Appalachia: Essays from the Clinic and the Field.
Edited by Wendy Welch. 2014
36. The Rhetoric of Appalachian Identity. Todd Snyder. 2014
37. African American and Cherokee Nurses in Appalachia: A History,
1900–1965. Phoebe Ann Pollitt. 2016
38. A Hospital for Ashe County: Four Generations of Appalachian
Community Health Care. Janet C. Pittard. 2016
39. Dwight Diller: West Virginia Mountain Musician. Lewis M. Stern. 2016
40. The Brown Mountain Lights: History, Science and Human Nature
Explain an Appalachian Mystery. Wade Edward Speer. 2017
41.Richard L. Davis and the Color Line in Ohio Coal: A Hocking Valley
Mine Labor Organizer, 1862–1900. Frans H. Doppen. 2016
42. The Silent Appalachian: Wordless Mountaineers in Fiction,
Film and Television. Vicki Sigmon Collins. 2017
This page intentionally left blank
The Brown
Mountain Lights
History, Science and Human Nature
Explain an Appalachian Mystery
W E S
ADE DWARD PEER
CONTRIBUTIONSTOSOUTHERNAPPALACHIANSTUDIES, 40
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina
LIBRARYOFCONGRESSCATALOGuING-IN-PuBLICATIONDATA
Names: Speer, Ed (Wade Edward), author.
Title: The Brown Mountain lights : history, science and human nature explain
an Appalachian mystery / Wade Edward Speer.
Other titles: Contributions to southern Appalachian studies ; 40.
Description: Jefferson, North Carolina : McFarland & Company, Inc.,
Publishers, 2017 | Series: Contributions to southern Appalachian studies ; 40 |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016054832 | ISBN 9781476666761
(softcover : acid free paper)
♾
Subjects: LCSH: Curiosities and wonders—North Carolina—Burke County. |
Legends—North Carolina—Burke County. | Optical illusions—North Carolina—
Burke County. | Burke County (N.C.)—Description and travel. |
Pisgah National Forest (N.C.)—Description and travel.
Classification: LCC F262.B96 S68 2017 | DDC 975.6/85—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016054832
BRITISHLIBRARYCATALOGuINGDATAAREAVAILABLE
ISBN (print) 978-1-4766-6676-1
ISBN (ebook) 978-1-4766-2620-8
© 2017 Wade Edward Speer. All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying
or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
Front cover insetstaged light test on Brown Mountain at Bear Rocks
(photograph by Ed Speer); view from Wiseman’s View © 2017 skisergel1 / iStock
Printed in the united States of America
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com
To all those folks,
including my own family,
both past and present,
who have seen and been mystified by
unknown lights in the Brown Mountain area
This page intentionally left blank
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments xi
Preface 1
Introduction 3
1. The Research Team, Methods used and Data Collected 17
2. Historical Overview of the BML Phenomenon 21
3. Lack of Sightings Before Electricity 25
4. Legends, Myths and Folklore 32
5. First Sightings and Birth of the Legend 36
6. The Events of 1916 43
7. Government Investigations: 1913, 1919 and 1922 48
8. Early Photographers of the Lights 57
9. Paul Rose’s 1962 Tower on Brown Mountain 63
10. Ralph Lael’s 1962 Alleged Alien Encounters 69
11. Other Scientific Investigations, 1915–2011 74
12. Lack of BML Sightings from the South and East 79
13. Ghosts, Aliens, Spirits and uFOs 81
14. Pseudoscientific Explanations 83
15. Possibly Misidentified Natural Lights 96
16. Possibly Misidentified Man- Made Lights 120
17. Staged Light Tests 153
18. Appalachian State university Nightly Cameras 167
19. Morphing of the Legend 171
20. unclassified Lights 174
21. Reality or Delusion 176
Concluding Remarks 179
Appendix A. BML Research by the Author 183
ix