New Article on Brown Mountain Lights

The Blue Ridge Country Magazine’s 30th Anniversary Issue (Vol. XXXI, No. 7/8, July/August, 2018) contains an article on the Brown Mountain Lights by Linda Shockley, who wrote the magazine’s first article on the Lights in 1995.  Shockley interviewed Ed Speer, author of the recent book on the Lights.  She also presented some newer research on the famous mystery.  You can find the magazine online at:  BlueRidgeCountryMagazine.com. 

Radio Interview Feb 16, 2018

Don’t miss my upcoming live radio interview on WNCW 88.7 FM Spindale’s NPR station on Friday February 16, 2018.  I will be discussing my new book on the Brown Mountain Lights for the final 10 minutes of Morning Edition (8:50-9:00am). On every Friday, WNCW supplements part of the regular daily NPR syndicated program Morning Edition with local news and events of interest.  I’m very excited!  Should be fun.

New book explains the legend of the Brown Mountain lights

Find out what the legend is all about, when it actually started, and how it has changed over time.  This book is the result of a three-year investigation by a team of outdoor specialists; it’s the largest and most comprehensive investigation ever undertaken on the phenomenon.  See photos of thousands of actual identified lights, both manmade and natural (including some never-before mentioned natural lights).  The book reveals what was learned from studying hundreds of thousands of time-lapse photos taken by two full-time nightly cameras overlooking Brown Mountain and Linville Gorge; as well as the results of multiple staged light tests.  The book includes a detailed yearly timeline of the legend, an annotated chronological list of more than 325 published and unpublished documents about the lights, review of the largest and most important stories/myths about the lights, scientific review of possible light sources, and informative  panoramic images from the most popular viewing sites with landmarks clearly labeled.

This exhaustive and objective investigation concludes that the legend of the Brown Mountain lights  is a collection of constructed mysteries based on mistaken identifications, unreliable anecdotal stories, unsupported beliefs, unquestioned misinformation, and unchallenged wishful or magical thinking—-in other words, it all comes down to human nature.  This book has already become the standard reference manual for anyone interested in North Carolina’s most famous ghost story, the Brown Mountain lights.

The book is published by MacFarland Books of North Wilkesboro, NC and is available for purchase at all major book sellers, including online retailers like Amazon, Target, Books-a-Million, & Barnes & Noble.  It is also available as an ebook at Google Books (Google Play).

Listen to The Mind’s Eye radio program interview with author Ed Speer about the Brown Mountain Lights.  Originally aired October 22, 2017.  The 40-minute interview can be found online at: www.themindseyemedia.com

 Go to the Archives page and search for the interview.  

The Mind’s Eye host Brian Turnof and Speer discuss the history and causes of the mystery lights. An in-depth, informative, and well-balanced discussion of the legend.

Book Signing Meet-And-Greet the author of the latest book

Join me and buy a signed copy of my new BML book at Refinery13 (13 North Main St, Marion, NC) 5:30-8:00 pm on Thursday Nov 16.  I’d love to hear your stories of mystery lights!  Hope to see you there.

Brown Mountain Lights book now available!

The Brown Mountain Lights book is finally available from the publisher!  www.mcfarlandbooks.com/book-2.php?id=978-1-4766-6676-1

Advanced orders shipped out Friday and at least some were delivered to customers today.  Hopefully it will soon be available at online book sellers.

Advance ordering of the book is now available!

My Brown Mountain Lights book is finally available for advance ordering!  The publisher has set the publication date as Fall/Winter 2016 and has started taking advance orders at:  www.mcfarlandpub.com.  $35.  Just search their website for Brown Mountain Lights   800-253-2187

 ISBN: 978-1-4766-6676-1

I can't wait for the actual publication date!  This has been a long time coming.  3 years of field research, 1 year to write the book, and 1 year to get it published.  But the wait will soon be over!

BML Research update Jun 30, 2016

Both nightly cameras continue to run, but nothing unexpected or unexplained has been seen in the 3 years since they began filming--a major disappointment to the team and supporters of supernormal lights.  

My BMLs book is slowly making its way thru the publishing process and now appears to be headed for a late summer or fall publication date.  When it finally is published, I'll certainly post the news here.

BML Research continues

Both night- time cameras continue to run---a total of more than 1.6 million images over the past 3 years and not a single light that can't be explained with logic and critical thinking!  That pretty much sums up  our entire research effort to date.

My book manuscript is at the publisher and hopefully will be out by the end of the year.

Alex and I have given several short slide presentations over the past few weeks to civic groups and the Blue Ridge Parkway' Mineral Musuem.

BML Research update May 3, 2015

Not much of note happening lately with our BMLs research.  The two nightly cameras continue running but no unexplained lights have appeared lately.  My book preparation continues but has been delayed by my busy schedule and a computer crash in March---no data was lost as everything was backed up on external drives!  I'm now learning Windows 8.1 on a new computer.  A publisher has been selected and hopefully the book will be out before the end of the year.  I'm now working with the publisher on formatting the numerous images for the book.

New Light on Brown Mountain

The recent cold weather has added a new naturally-occurring light on Brown Mountain!

Snow on the bare rock outcrop that I call Lael's Rock reflects moonlight and creates a bright spot of light on the west side of the mountain.  The image below shows the reflected moonlight from the Waxing Gibbous Moon (57%) about 4 hours before Moon set.  The previous two weeks of zero or below nightly temperatures probably turned the small stream of water that flows onto Lael's Rock into ice, which was then covered by reflective pure white snow.  This patch of snow-covered ice had not yet melted like the snow on the rest of the mountain---leaving an obvious bright white spot on the side of the mountain.  Similar snow-covered rock outcrops can also be seen in the foreground of the image.

The Brown Mountain Lights Research Team's BML Cam1 sits atop a house on Jonas Ridge and overlooks Brown Mountain 7 miles to the east. It has been running intermittently since February 2013 and has recorded over 4,000 hours of night-time images.

Who could mistake this light as  'mysterious'?  Probably not many people would be fooled, but with the number of people we've seen so far who are unsure of what they see, anything is possible.

Dr. Dan Caton, Professor and Director of Observatories, Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, Appalachian State University (Boone, NC) installed and operates the camera as part of an on-going research project. Dr. Caton also installed and operates another research camera (BML Cam2) located at the southern end of Linville Gorge.   The images from both cameras are compiled into nightly videos and posted on YouTube---just search "Brown Mountain Lights Camera 1" (or Camera 2) for the individual nightly videos. Both cameras are modified digital meteor-hunting cameras with low-light sensitive CCD sensors.

BML Cam1 Jonas Ridge Camera for December 2014

The Brown Mountain Lights Research Team's BML Cam1 sits atop a house on Jonas Ridge and overlooks Brown Mountain 7 miles to the east. It has been running intermittedntly since February 2013 and has recorded over 4,000 hours of night-time images.

Dr. Dan Caton, Professor and Director of Observatories, Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, Appalachian State University (Boone, NC) installed and operates the camera as part of an on-going research project. Dr. Caton also installed and operates another research camera (BML Cam2) located at the southern end of Linville Gorge.   The images from both cameras are compiled into nightly videos and posted on YouTube---just search "Brown Mountain Lights Camera 1" (or Camera 2) for the individual nightly videos. Both cameras are modified digital meteor-hunting cameras with low-light sensitive CCD sensors.

To date, numerous lights have been recorded by Cam1, including: town/city/rural lights in the valleys beyond Brown Mountain, fireworks, communication tower lights, airplanes and helicopters, highway-vehicle lights, off-highway-vehicle lights, stadium lights, back-country user lights, and brush/forest fires.   Natural lights captured by the camera include stars, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Mercury, the Moon, meteors, lightning and fireflies.  Disappointingly, Cam1 has yet to record any support for mysterious or unknown lights in the Brown Mountain area.

BML Cam1 recorded 336 hours of nocturnal observation time on 29 seperate nights during December 2014, resulting in 38,569 individual 30-second time-exposure images. This brings the totals over the past 23 months since start up in Feb 2013 to 4,002 hours of nocturnal observation time on 440 seperate nights resulting in 437,273 individual time-exposure images. Each of these images has been examined in detail by members of our research team.

No abnormal, unusual or unexplained nocturnal lights were recorded by BML Cam1 during December 2014. However, the usual distant city/town/rural lights, airplane lights, and Lenoir's Christmas Star atop Hibriten Mtn were visible this month.  In addition staged hiker lights atop Brown Mountain were visible on Dec 11, while a probable hunter's camp was visible on Dec 4, MedEvac helicopters were visible on Dec 13 & 18, and probable ATV lights were visible on Dec 31.  During the staged hiker light test on Dec 11, an airplane was seen flying very low over Brown Mountain and it's lights were captured by BML Cam1.

The following images are selected to show some significant features visible during December 2014. Note that the camera position does not change during this sequence of images. Blurry or out-of-focus distant lights are caused by: 1) over-saturation of the super-sensitive CCD sensor; 2) movemnt of the lights; &/or 3) rising heat currents that distort the incoming light waves during the time exposures.  Bright lights with light rays extending above & below are also due to the CCD sensor.

 

Dec 11, 2014  Staged hiker lights on Brown Mountain

 

 

Dec 11, 2014  Unknown low-flying airplane passes over hiker during staged light test

 

 

 Dec 31, 2014  Lights of two southbound ATVs on Brown Mountain

 

Dec 13, 2014  MedEvac helicopter northbound over Brown Mountain heading for Lenoir

Dec 13, 2014  MedEvac helicopter leaves Lenoir and flys southbound over Brown Mountain

 

Numerous ATV Lights on Brown Mountain December 31, 2014

New Year's Eve ATV ride captured by our BML Cam1 overlooking Brown Mountain!

The following image shows the lights of two seperate ATVs on Trail #2 atop Brown Mountain between 8:31 pm and 9:02 pm on December 31, 2014.  The ATVs traveled southward (left-to-right) on the rugged one-way trail and stayed fairly close together during the trip.

Two ATVs traveling together on Trail # 2 atop Brown Mountain

The convoluted trace of Trail # 2 is apparent from the line of lights.  Only about 1 mile of Trail # 2 is visible within the field of view of this photo.  Compare this image with earlier posts of similar ATV lights visible along the trail on Aug 16, 2014 & my handheld spotlight as I hiked the trail on Dec 11, 2014.

ATV Trail # 2 is part of the US Forest Service's Brown Mountain Off-Highway Vehicle Recreation Area (34 miles of maintained ATV trails atop Brown Mountain).  The Recreation Area is open to ATVs from mid-March until Jan 1 each year; thus these were perhaps the last ATVs on the mountian until spring time.  This was not a staged light test and the riders are unknown.

Our BML research team has conducted numerous light tests on Brown Mountain over the past two years and has established that back-country user lights are readily visible at night.  Lights such as these are probably frequently misinterpreted as mystery lights by uninformed and unprepared observers viewing from the popular observation sites like the NC Hwy 181 Overlook and Wiseman's View.

More strange Lights above Brown Mountain Dec 13, 2014

Once again, our BMl Cam 1 camera overlooking Brown Mountain has captured a MedEvac helicopter flying north over the mountain, landing at the Caldwell Memorial Hospital in Lenoir, and then taking off 30 minutes later and flying back south over the mountain.

In this 4-minute sequence, the helicopter is inbound (right-to-left) with it's bright landing light burning. 

The helicopter leaves the heliport at the Caldwell Memorial Hospital in downtown Lenoir 30 minutes later with it's bright landing light burning, but soon turns it off. 

Notice the fainter blinking navigation lights as the helicopter flies south (left-to-right) over Brown Mountain.

 

Once again, BML Cam 1 has captured unusual and unexpected yet normal manmade lights over Brown Mountain.  Actually such MedEvac helicopter flights have been captured by the camera several times this year (see previous post).

Strange Lights above Brown Mountain July 4-5, 2014

Low-flying MedEvac helicopters have been seen flying at night above Brown Mountain on several occassions this year.  On the night of July 4, 2014, one was captured landing and then taking off by our BML Cam1.  The helicopter flew south-to-north (right-to-left) above Brown Mountain landing at the Caldwell Memorial Hospital in Lenoir at 11:38 pm on the 4th.  The helicopter left Lenoir approximately 36 minutes later at 12:14 am on the morning of the 5th and flew southward (left-to-right) over Brown Mountain.  For those wondering---yes there is a Heliport at the Caldwell Hospital in downtown Lenoir.

Such low-flying aircraft above Brown Mountain demostrate that unexpected manmade lights do occassionally occur in the area and can lead to misidentifications by uninformed or unprepared observers.

Forest Service Rd 4099 Staged Light Test Apr 9, 2014

A member of our BML research team conducted an unannounced staged light test on the night of April 9, 2014.  His motorcycle lights on Forest Service Rd 4099 along Little Chestnut Mtn Ridge were captured by our BML Cam1 during his out and back round trip.  In addition, Mike's 135-lumen headlight was also visible as he hiked the short trail to the summit of Wildcat Knob.  The following image is a composite stack of 15 separate 30-second time-exposure images taken by BML Cam1 during Mike's ride and hike.  Although the team was not aware of Mike's planned light test, as soon as we saw that night's online video, we correctly guessed that the lights were produced by a motorcycle on road 4099.  This unannounced light test helped establish the actual path of FS Rd 4099 and showed the team's quickly growing expertise in understanding lights observed in the area.

Chestnut Mtn Staged Light Test Nov 4, 2013

This image is a stacked composite of 3 seperate time-exposure images of our Nov 4, 2013 staged light test on Forest Service Rd 198.  Brown Mountain itself lies just beyond the right edge of the image.  The lights are approximately 2.3 miles east of the camera, which was set up at the  Brown Mountain Overlook on NC Hwy 181.  Althought normally gated, FS Rd 198 is temporarily opened during the fall hunting season every year giving hunters and our BML Research Team access to the area of Chestnut Mtn.  As planned, the road was driven on the night of Nov 4, 2013 by one of our team members while I manned the camera.  Such distant lights are occasionally seen and misinterpreted as mysterious BMLs by uninformed and unprepared observers at the Hwy 181 Overlook.  Light tests like this one help demostrate that unexpected manmade lights do occur in the area and that they can be impossible to distinguish from non-manmade lights by most observers.

31 Lights on Brown Mountain 16Aug14

A probable ATV rider was captured traveling south on Trail # 2 on Brown Mountain on the night of August 16, 2014.  Although leaves were still on the trees at the time, the light was readily visible at many points along the trail.  This is one of the maintained ATV Trails as part of the US Forest Service Brown Mountain Off-Highway Vehicle Recreation Area (34 miles of trails atop Brown Mountain).  The image was created by stacking 31 seperate 30-second time exposure images taken by our BML Cam1.  The trace of the lights matches the convoluted path of ATV Trail # 2 as shown on the Forest Service map of the recreation area.  The lights in this image also closely match my lights as I hiked the same trail on December 11, 2014 (see earlier post).  The compiled image below shows 36 minutes as the probable ATV traveled south on the trail and 21 minutes as the ATV sat at Bear Rocks with it's headlight pointed toward BML Cam1. 

July 4th Fireworks over Brown Mountain

This composite image clearly shows July 4th sky-rocket fireworks in the valley east of Brown Mountain.  The fireworks were captured by our BMl Cam1 which sits atop a house on Jonas Ridge and looks southeast toward Brown Mountain.  The image was compiled by stacking 4 seperate 30-second time exposure images together.  A MedEvac helicopter on it's way to the Caldwell Memorial Hospital in downtown Lenoir was also captured, first withfaint navigation lights on, then with it's bright landing light burning.

12 Lights on Pinch-In Trail in Linville Gorge August 13, 2014

This time-lapse photo shows 12 staged hiker lights on the Pinch-In Trail on the west side of Linville Gorge.  The lights were captured by our BML Cam2 camera which sits at a house near the lower end of the gorge.  BML Research Team members Dr. Cato Holler, Chris Holler, & I hiked the trail with 520- and 320-lumen handheld spotlights.  Recent forest fires have created open vistas along the middle portion of the trail where our lights are visible, while dense trees blocked our lights on the upper- and-lower-most parts of the trail.

 12 Staged Hiker Lights on Pinch-In Trail

520-lumen Handheld Spotlight (6" X 6" w/ 2" dia lens)