Scientific phenomena leaves researchers with unsolved questions

The Brown Mountain Lights have been a community and scientific anomaly for years, bringing locals and tourists alike to view the phenomenon. This image organizes a view of the lights, which are infamously shrouded in scientific and even spiritual uncertainty.
For centuries, the Brown Mountain Lights have stumped scientists and tourists alike, becoming one of North Carolina’s most infamous legends.
Brown Mountain, located in the Pisgah National Forest, is the setting for recurring reports of “mysterious lights” dating back to the early 1900s, according to U.S. Department of Interior.
However, for one App State professor, the answer to the mystery is simple: unexplained scientific phenomena.
Daniel Caton, the director of observatories for App State, said that most reports of the lights are bogus because people don’t understand what they see in the night sky.
“They see some kind of lights, and they leave thinking they’ve seen the lights,” Caton said. “But most people are completely unfamiliar with the nightscape.”
Caton became interested in the lights after a student claimed to have caught them on video.
“We went out to Wiseman’s View during the day to kind of see the lay of the land,” Caton said. “So, we decided to pursue some remote cameras to image the ridge.”
Mike Fischesser said he has worked on the project with Caton for eight years. Fischesser has never personally seen the lights, but he has interviewed 40 people who have.
“Two gentlemen who are reliable witnesses from Morganton saw a bright light as bright as an ATV headlight coming down,” Fischesser said. “All of a sudden, it crossed the Linville river toward the Wiseman’s View overlook.”
Using decommissioned equipment from App State’s observatory, Caton records several hundred images throughout the night using 30 to 60-second exposures.
Fischesser said two cameras run each night, one recording the south end of the gorge, the other pointed north. Due to the cameras’ angles, they cannot see what happens in the northern half.
After the cameras record their data, Caton edits the collected images into a video and posts them on YouTube.
“Haven’t seen much on that except a lot of human activity, (like) people camping occasionally down in the valley,” Caton said. “You know, nothing really unusual.”
Caton has appeared in several documentaries from “Discovery Kids” and a film called “Alien Abduction” due to his research on the lights, according to his biographical sketch. His office, packed with papers, magazines and folders on top of a desk with seven white computer monitors creating an “L” shape in the corner of the room, acts as a backdrop for most interviews.
There have been sightings of the lights in North Carolina for centuries. Frances Casstevens wrote in his book, “Ghosts of the North Carolina Piedmont,” that stories about the lights were told by the Cherokee as far back as A.D. 1200.
“The Cherokee have a legend about a great battle that was fought that year between the Cherokee and the Catawba Indians near Brown Mountain,” Casstevens wrote. “The Cherokee believed that the lights were the spirits of Indian maidens as they searched over the centuries for their dead husbands.
Read More – Brown Mountain Mystery: Recurring light phenomenon baffles scientists and witnesses
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