Marfa Lights Explained

billsoxs writes "The Marfa lights are ghostly lights that have been observed for years around Marfa TX (near Big Bend). They have been the subject of curiosity , a source of tourism and scientifically studied a number of times. Now a group of physics students from the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) have use small lasers and traffic sensors to show that these lights are most likely headlights from cars on a distant highway. The publication is in the Society of Physics Students website. The PDF of the article is here. (Unfortunately the related video is no longer available on the web but more stuff is here.)"

Comments

Re:Weird...

[Tinn-Can]

"Robert Ellison came to Marfa in 1883 and off-loaded his cattle in Alpine. He then drove the herd west and on the second night out, while camped just outside Paisano Pass, he saw strange lights in the distance. At first, it was feared that they were Apache signal fires. Mr. Ellison searched the countryside by horseback. He finally realized that the lights were not man-made. Other early settlers assured him that they too had seen the lights and had never been able to identify them." from the first thing google came up.. yeah no cars in west texas in 1883 I guess thats why they go to UTD...

Re:Science!

[EtherealStrife]

Don't understand something? Lets say ghosts did it! Or aliens!

All you need is some clever dudes, equipment, and the will to find something out.

Not that clever, if they're attributing this to automotive traffic. There were only a handful of automobiles (all of them "experimental") on the North American continent when the first documented reports emerged (1880s). In effect, they're doing exactly what you blame others for doing: they don't understand what has been causing the lights over the last 120 years, so they pull a scientific possibility out of the hat and give it a go. According to the article, they've been able to create light appearances observable at the same locations as the Marfa lights have been observed by having a vehicle on the highway flashing its lights on and off. This presents the possibility that many of the so called sightings were of cars traveling on the highway. Unfortunately for them, the highway has only been around since 1930... *cue xfiles theme* (not to mention the Marfa lights are often described as being highly distorted, and not always as clear as those observed by the students).

The students did a great job of presenting a possible explanation, but it should be noted that they have not proven / solved anything. Even in their writeup it's mentioned that they were unable to find any historical accounts to compare their findings with. At which point Robert Ellison (first documented sighter) rolled over in his grave and coughed.

Not Very Comprehensive; Duplicate Study

[Pulsar]

I wouldn't be surprised if the 'official viewing area' the UTD students used in the study, supposedly constructed to keep tourists from wandering all over private property in search of a better view (but most likely constructed for the revenue), was designed so that the majority of the 'Marfa Lights' visibile from the viewing area are car headlights, as discussed in the UTD study. It ensures visible 'Marfa Lights' every night, and will keep the hype and the legend alive, in turn keeping some level of tourist dollars flowing into Marfa.

However, their study does not resolve or even address one problem with this conclusion - the lights have been visible long before cars were common, or even available, in the area. Furthermore, the students documented the lights were car headlights from US Highway 67 - however, Highway 67's west end was in Dallas when the highway was originally built; Highway 67 did not extend into west Texas and the Marfa area until 1930.

The best part is, this study has been done before, in March 1975, by another Society of Physics Students, who reached a slightly different, but similar conclusion:

Don Witt, then a physics professor at Sul Ross University in Alpine, coordinated a monumental effort to locate the lights' source. Using the Sul Ross Society of Physics Students, the Big Bend Outdoor Club comprised of community members, and local pilots, short-wave radio amateurs, and a few outside professionals, Witt's group was positively unable to form any sort of solid conclusion. They did say, however, that sometimes the lights that people claimed were "Marfa Lights," were really artificial lights from area ranches or automobile headlights merely passing behind unseen obstructions along distant Highway 67, which winds through the Chinati Mountains between Marfa and Presidio.

So some of the lights are car headlights - this was already known and accepted, I'm pretty sure. I'm disappointed with their 'grant from the Schlumberger corp.' mentioned in the PDF and the equipment they had access to at UTD, these students couldn't do a more in-depth study or come up with a more comprehensive conclusion. Sounds like a group of students at UTD wanted a 4 day all-expenses paid road-trip to one of the more beautiful parts of Texas, down near Big Bend National Park.

Then again, as a UT-Arlington (UTA) alumnus, I may be a little biased against our cross-Metroplex rivals.

Re:Weird...

[Jimbookis]

I haven't RTFA of course, but there are similar lights here in Australia called the Min-Min lights somewhere out the back of NSW. Hot flat plains during the day, cold flat plains at night - perhaps a bit like Marfa in Texas. Anyway, some professor here demonstrated that the Min-Min Lights were car headlights being refracted from a long distance away. Even before cars I am sure someone's campfire at night could have been a sufficient source of light. I have to say, refracted light is terribly pedestrian and no-where near as interested as ghosts and UFOs be a source of the light - not that I think either exist. Except for Tommyknockers.

Re:Do you really need lasers?

[Pulsar]

People have, actually, people have 'walked towards the lights' in one form or another ever since they were first reported in the 1800's. From one of the links in the original post:

The unexpected lights alarmed the cowboys, who thought the Apaches were on the move, and they quickly doused their own campfires. But they determined to investigate the area in the daylight. After spending an uncomfortable night huddled under blankets for warmth on the cold desert floor, dawn found them on horseback, combing the area for any signs of an Indian encampment. They found none.

All day, the men searched along the base of the Chinati Mountains and the mesa between their camp and where the lights had been. They found no evidence that Indians had been anywhere in the area. No tracks, no doused campfires, no nothing. But the next night and the next after that, they again saw the strange lights.

As well as...

An unscientific method was tried in the 1980's by Dallas journalist, Kirby Warnock. Warnock's family had settled in the Trans-Pecos region just north of Big Bend country more than one hundred years ago, and he first saw the lights in 1963, when he was eleven-years-old and his brother was eight. He and his brother decided that the reason no one ever got close to the lights was because they used motor vehicles, such as airplanes, jeeps, and cars. The two men thought that if they headed out on foot across the desert, they just might be able to sneak up on the lights.

One summer, they assembled their gear and a camera, and at dusk, started walking. They tried for four hours to get close to the lights, but it was like walking up to a mirage. The more they walked, the further the lights moved away. Warnock reported that he thought the lights were "trying to frustrate and thwart us. It was like they knew what we were doing and were teasing us by staying just a little ahead of us." It is a fact that distances are deceiving in the desert. The Warnocks could not tell if they were looking at a light as big as a tire or one as big as a cantaloupe. They just could not get close enough to get a good idea of how big the lights actually were.

The lights seem to either evade or confuse anyone who attempts to walk/drive/fly closer to them, and sometimes they simply vanish if someone seems to get 'too close'. There's even been occasional reports of the lights 'chasing' a car or plane traveling through the region, but no one has ever reported getting close to any of the lights successfully.

Optical illusions

[jd]

The lights back then probably were not cars - unless they were Delorians... However, other posters have mentioned that there are other requirements - high humidity being one. My guess is that the distant highway in question would also need to have relatively low humidity. Furthermore, I would guess that if you were to draw a diagram, showing the observer, the apparent position of the lights, the boundary between the two air masses, and the cars, you'd find that the light is being bent by the amount you would expect from the difference in refractive index.

Now, how does this relate to the lights in the 1800s? Oh, quite easily. I suspect the lights were quite probably fires, but considerably further away and in a completely different place than the observers had expected - which is why they never found anything.

As for people chasing the lights and never reaching them (according to another poster), this is exactly what you expect from an optical illusion from refracted light. Most people have seen this with rainbows, which are also caused by refraction through water droplets. It's the same mechanism, so you get the same "moving" effect. Duh.

In fact, once people had observed they could not "approach" the lights, the physics of it should have been obvious. There aren't many types of illusion which work that way. You can approach a mirage, for example, but it vanishes when you get "too close". If you shine a bright light onto fog, you will get reflected light from it. Etc.

Re:Science!

[Kelson]

Unfortunately for them, the highway has only been around since 1930...

As someone else pointed out, the early sightings aren't very well documented -- the first substantiated reports of the early sightings were made years after the fact and date from well after the highway was built. Even Ellison, it turns out, never actually wrote about the event in his memoirs (1937) -- he told his family about it, and they later told the story to historian Cecilia Thompson or to her source.

The earliest report that researcher could verify was a 1957 magazine article. That doesn't mean the earlier sightings didn't happen, just that they couldn't be verified.