4....Locomotive Headlights: Among the scientific investigations which have undertaken from time to time to explain the lights have been two conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey. The first was made in 1913 when the conclusion was reached that the lights were locomotive headlights from the Catawba Valley south of Brown Mountain. However, three years later in 1916 a great flood that swept through the Catawba Valley knocked out the railroad bridges. It was weeks before the right-of-way could be repaired and the locomotives could once again enter the valley. Roads were also washed out and power lines were down. But the lights continued to appear as usual. It became apparent that the lights could not be reflections from locomotive or automobile headlights. The Guide to the Old North State, prepared by the W.P.A. in the 1930s, states that the Brown Mountain Lights have "puzzled scientists for fifty years." The same story reports sightings of the lights in the days before the Civil War. (http://www.ibiblio.org/ghosts/bmtn.html) In 1913, the first Geological Survey investigation decided the lights were caused by reflected light from locomotive headlights in the Catawba Valley, south of Brown Mountain. However, when the great Catawba Valley flood of 1916 knocked out power lines, roads and railroad bridges, suspending train traffic for weeks, the lights still appeared. Apparently, the lights were not caused by reflected light. (http://pa.essortment.com/mysteriouslight_rgks.htm)
"Brown Mountain Lights "From time to time, luminous objects, or beings, have often been reported from Brown Mountain, North Carolina. They appear, and then for a long time are not seen, and then they appear again. ...The luminosities travel, as if with motions of their own. They are brilliant, globular forms, and move in the sky with a leisureliness and duration that exclude the explanation in meteoric terms. For many years, there had been talk upon this subject, and then, in the year 1922, people of North Carolina, asking for a scientific investigation, were referred to the United States Geological Survey. A geologist was sent from Washington to investigate these things in the sky. One imagines, but most likely only faintly, the superiority of this geologist from Washington. He heard stories from the natives. He contrasted his own sound principles with the irresponsible gab of denizens, and went right to the investigation, scientfically. he went out on a road, and saw lights, and made his report. 47% of the lights that he saw were automobile headlights; 33% of them were locomotive headlights; 10% were lights in houses, and 10% were bush fires. Tot that up, and see that efficiency can't go further. The geologist from Washington, having investigated nothing that he had been sent to investigate, returned to Washington..." (Page 624) (http://members.tripod.com/Dragonrest/sky_obs.html#brown mountain)
5...Car Headlights: Always popular is the explanation that the lights are simply headlight reflections from Rattlesnake Knob in the distance... but this hardly explains the fact that the lights were reported well before automobiles were even invented. (http://www.prairieghosts.com/brownmt.html)
Copyright (C) 2001 Dr. Sten Odenwald