Brown Mountain Lights

The survey

Members of Congress asked the U.S. Geological Survey to look at the Brown Mountain lights, and in 1922 the survey sent George R. Mansfield, a research geologist. He spent about two weeks in the area and worked it as a surveying problem.

Mansfield set up observing stations, one of them near Loven's Hotel, and used an alidade to take repeated azimuth readings on any light that appeared. He plotted the bearings on a detailed map of the mountain and the valleys behind it, with the rail lines, roads, and homesteads marked.

His breakdown was automobile headlights about 47 percent, locomotive headlights about 33 percent, and stationary lights and brush fires about 10 percent each. His conclusion was that the lights "are clearly not of unusual nature or origin."

Why trains

Southern Railway had begun fitting locomotives with headlamps rated at 600,000 candlepower from 1909, brighter than some lighthouses then in service, thrown along valleys that funnel toward the viewing points.

The claim that the lights came first

The argument that people saw the lights before there were headlights to see is the one that keeps the case open. It is repeated far more often than it is sourced, and the early references usually cited have not been produced in a form that can be checked.

What people go to see

The overlooks face a long wooded ridge with valleys behind it, and the conditions that make lights appear, clear cold air over damp valleys, are also the conditions that make distant headlights carry. Mansfield's report is more than 100 years old and the pullouts still fill on autumn nights.

The usual viewing points are the Brown Mountain Overlook on NC-181 north of Morganton, Wiseman's View above Linville Gorge, and the Lost Cove Cliffs Overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway. All are public pullouts, free, and unstaffed.

Autumn evenings after dark draw the most people. The parkway overlook closes whenever the parkway closes for weather, which happens in winter at short notice, so checking the road status before driving up is worth the minute.

The road to Wiseman's View is gravel and rough in places. None of the overlooks has lighting, water, or facilities, and phone signal along that stretch is unreliable.