http://news.yahoo.com/mysterious-orbs-confound-nc-county-decades-144601261.html

every seent it? My wife's from there. She says it's pretty dang cool.

2/28/2012 8:56:57 AM

I've seen some glowing orbs down at the coast... it was really weird. About 8:30 at night, dark, and just above the tree line were 2 glowing orbs just sitting there and quite close to my position (within a hundred yards or so). The orbs started to slowly move to the right, and after a while they picked up speed to went out of sight to my right and increasing in altitude.

[Edited on February 28, 2012 at 9:02 AM. Reason : .]

2/28/2012 9:02:10 AM

Skeptoid did an episode on them

http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4226

2/28/2012 9:02:15 AM

I love the word "orb"

I want to see one.

2/28/2012 9:02:34 AM

I just started reading a book (Will Storr Vs the Supernatural) written by a skeptic who hooks up with a demonologist in order to get some first hand experience with ghost investigations. In the appendix, Brown Mountain is listed as one of the top ten haunted places in the USA. Now, I'm a skeptic myself, but seeing that in the appendix reminded me of this thread and I wanted to share my Brown Mountain experience. I don't believe in ghosts and I feel sure there's a rational, physical explanation, but here's my story:

This was years ago, May/June of 1990. I, my brother, and his then girlfriend/now wife were doing some hiking along the Parkway in NC. We were curious about the lights, so we decided to just sleep overnight in the car at an overlook of Brown Mountain on the Parkway. Completely sober, but not by choice. Earlier in the evening we'd gone to a grocery store in Mitchell County (I think) to get some hamburger to grill. Looked for beer and were told, "This here's a dry county!"

Anyway, probably about 10 or 11 o'clock that night we started seeing the lights. Now I don't know how the lights are supposed to appear (and I remember reading that the lights appear in different ways at different times) but here's what we saw:

On the top of the ridge there would be a small flash of light (like a small explosion (of light, no flames or anything like that), but no noise whatsoever); from out of that flash a point of light would fly up above the mountain, then arc over and back down like the parabola of a flare.

It wasn't especially bright or colorful. The points of light were about the color, size, and brightness of the average star. The initial flash on the ridge was slightly brighter and larger than the point of light that rose into the sky. I'd estimate the points of light rose about 100 feet above the mountain (and we were seeing this from at least a few miles away).

When we first started seeing them, as far as I remember we saw one every two or three minutes. After we'd gone to sleep, I got up around 2 or 3AM to take a piss; at that time, the lights were coming so fast it would have been hard to count them all. I'd estimate they were coming at a rate of around half a dozen per second. (And all across the ridge, not one particular spot).

Anyway, there you go. Just wanted to share that story, and also curious to hear if anyone's experience with the lights is at all similar to that.

9/3/2016 8:38:55 PM

Theres a big scientific research project on them now at App State

http://www.dancaton.physics.appstate.edu/BML/BML.htm

http://wlos.com/news/local/asu-scientists-capture-rare-images-of-wncs-brown-mountain-lights

They recently got some good data on it (2nd link) so theres a lot of interest in it right now.

9/4/2016 2:39:02 PM

^Thanks for the links! I watched the videos for the first minute, and while it's not absolutely identical with my memory, it's fairly consistent with what I remember seeing.

Just thought I'd also mention I once made an attempt to see the ghost lights in Marfa, Texas, too.

This was back in 2002. Around Marfa, they have a decent sized rest area type place specifically designated for viewing the lights. I got there probably a half hour to an hour before dusk. Over the next hour, a decent crowd poured in to see them (1 or 2 dozen people).

The only thing I ever saw there were car headlights driving up the same highway I drove in on earlier that day.

Now, of course I know better than to assume that I saw the same thing that has made the Marfa lights famous. However:

THEY SOLD POSTCARDS THERE OF THE LIGHTS AND THEY WERE THE SAME DAMN HEADLIGHTS ON THE HIGHWAY I SAW!

One postcard I remember in particular was simply a photograph with a long exposure of a car's headlights coming up this highway. Towards the end of the shot, the headlights became extremely erratic, and it was obvious to me that someone simply jiggled the camera for that effect.

So Marfa was a disappointment to me. It's possible there's something worthy of note there, but when the advertising of it is obvious bullshit I'm not particularly encouraged.

9/4/2016 6:38:19 PM

giant lightning bugs

9/4/2016 7:49:12 PM

I always assumed it was just some type of natural gas leaking out somewhere and something igniting it with static electricity or something

9/7/2016 8:44:49 AM

9/7/2016 9:13:33 AM

A bunch of bigfoots lighting their farts.

[Edited on September 7, 2016 at 9:14 AM. Reason : Or is it bigfeet????]

9/7/2016 9:14:13 AM

oR BigMan's?

9/7/2016 9:20:35 AM