Marfa’s Mystery Lights

(UPDATE: We have maps now! Checkout our older posts to see our route.)

Yesterday (1/27), we left San Antonio and started our eight-hour drive to Alpine, which is still another 110 miles from Big Bend National Park (one of our main goals). So you can expect there wasn’t much going on other than driving, driving, rest break, driving, driving, diesel stop, and so on. We arrived at an RV park that can really use some smooth concrete around the place (anyway that’s what I think; there’s absolutely no concrete other than a small bit of sidewalk by the office to ride my Hi-Tide on).

After setting up everything you have to at an RV park, we went on a drive in the falling dusk to see what Mom hinted vaguely as “mystery lights in Marfa.” On the way she described it more fully as mysterious lights that come on almost every clear night. It was reported by a cowboy in 1883 who thought at first it was just Apache Indian campfires. We thought it was funny because at the same time, the Indians thought it was stars that fell out of the sky! After about thirty minutes we came to a look out station where for the first time saw the mystery lights. Dad and I thought at first it was the headlights of cars on one of the roads, but we found that no road ran out there – it’s only desolate wilderness – no towns, roads, or radio towers – just nothingness. We knew they were really the famous “mystery” lights when they started doing weird things. First, they melted together, then split apart, disappeared and reappeared. We were able to see them very closely with our binoculars. Mom explained that park Rangers had gone out there and found nothing there, but they know it is not attributed to fire or smoke. There are many theories about why the bright lights are there: The majority think it may be either St. Elmo’s fire, static discharge, swamp gas, or the ghosts of gold miners. But the Rangers have gotten close enough to see that it wasn’t any of the above theories. Here's some more details you might find interesting: http://www.astronomycafe.net/weird/lights/marfa.htm


After a while, though, we got a little spooked by the dark and the unknown lights and Joe urged us to leave. We did, and we will never forget that experience. (Blogged by Daniel)