The Mystery of the Marfa Lights

This is another story that I have some ties to. It’s the kind of mystery I usually don’t write about because it is more fantastical than it is realistic. However, I have had personal experience with the events and the location of this mystery.

The Marfa Lights is a Texas phenomenon that is known throughout the country. It is a strange event that happens every night in West Texas, on highway 90 east of Marfa in Presidio County, Texas. Every night when the skies grow black with only little white twinklings of stars and the moon to light the night, something otherworldly happens. The stars and the moon soon are not the only lights in the sky. White lights suddenly appear in the air, hover, and then disappear. Sometimes the lights move in unpredicted ways that are not like shooting stars. Sometimes they have been known to change colors. They appear out of nowhere, and they disappear just as fast. These lights are called the Marfa Lights, Chinati Lights, or the Marfa Mystery Lights.

Before you think this is all a hoax and that someone is in charge of it all, the lights have been spotted since the 19^th century. The first documented encounter with the lights was in 1957 in an issue of Coronet Magazine. They have been around for nearly seventy years, which makes it more probable that a person isn’t behind this phenomenon. People are not just having a collective hallucination because there have been hundreds if not thousands of people have visited the site and have seen the lights for themselves. The lights have been documented by scientists and celebrities. James Dean was entranced by the lights and kept a telescope with him while filming the movie Giant to watch them every night.

You can see them at the Marfa Lights Viewing Center; it is the best place to view them. Ghost lights have been a phenomenon that happens worldwide. If you’ve ever seen the Disney princess movie Brave, Merida refers to the orb of light she finds as a will-o-wisp, but other names aren’t as intriguing. While these kinds of lights are widely known through many cultures, no one knows what causes them. Some people believe they are paranormal; others think they are roaming spirits. The people who are skeptical of the lights justify their presence as just reflections from campfires or headlights of cars.

Two notable studies have been done on the Marfa lights. One study was done by the Society of Physics students at the University of Texas at Dallas in 2004. The other research was done by a group of scientists from Texas State University four years later. They both seemed to come to the same conclusion. They claim that the lights were caused by the headlights of cars driving on Highway 67, or by small campfires in the distance. An unhappy conclusion to the visitors of Marfa who’ve seen the lights themselves. People want mystery. They love the excitement of the unknown.

I want to challenge these findings because I have been to Marfa, and I have seen the lights for myself. My family loves to travel, and road-tripping has been a staple in my family. I was seven weeks old when I went on my first road trip; it wasn’t necessary; my parents just love to travel. I love to do it, as well. We went to Marfa solely for the mystery lights themselves. I was younger, and it was freezing cold outside. I was excited at first but soon became bored and disappointed after about an hour or so had gone by, and there was no “lights” insight. Just as we were about to leave, something bright appeared in the distance. After that, lights became present, showing up and disappearing. It was mesmerizing. As wondrous as it was, we were cold and had been observing them for a while, we left. I have always been curious about those lights, and from someone who saw them in person, they did not seem like reflections of headlights.

We have seen reflections from miles away on the heated pavement where the road looks wet but indeed isn’t. Some describe this as one possible explanation for those lights. Sure, this could be a reason, but I have never seen those same types of reflections in the sky. Also, if this were true, then don’t you think we would have more occurrences of these types of phenomenons around the country. If we see the heat waves coming off the ground on any roads, wouldn’t it seem like we would see the same kind of reflection with car lights and campfires all of the time? If that were the case, then the Marfa lights would be nothing special. Also, the lights were spotted in the 1850s before Texas even had roads or cars. It could be campfires if it isn’t cars. However, I don’t know about y’all, but I have never seen any weird moving orbs of light reflected from a campfire before. I’m not saying it’s something otherworldly, and I’m not saying it isn’t. There is one thing I believe for sure, and that is that the Marfa lights are more than just mere reflections from car headlights and campfires. What do you guys think might be the cause of the Marfa lights? Let me know down in the comments.

Resources I used: https://www.wideopencountry.com/true-texas-mysteries-that-remain-unsolved/ https://www.wideopencountry.com/true-texas-mysteries-that-remain-unsolved/