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