Marfa lights
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The Marfa lights are lights seen at night near Marfa, in the high desert of West Texas, mostly from a roadside viewing area east of the town. They are promoted as a tourist attraction. Studies from 2004 and 2008 found that most of the lights recorded were car headlights and other ordinary sources, though some observers say rarer unexplained lights also occur.[1][2]
History
The lights are traditionally said to have been first seen in 1883 by a young cowhand, Robert Reed Ellison, who saw a flickering light while driving cattle and wondered if it was an Apache campfire.[1][2] The first published account appeared in Coronet magazine in July 1957.[1] Marfa held its first Marfa Lights Festival in 1986, and it has since become an annual September event.[2]
Viewing
The official viewing area is on U.S. Route 90 about nine miles east of Marfa. The lights are usually described as distant orbs, often yellow-orange but sometimes other colours, that change in brightness, move or stay still, and split or merge.[1] Retired NASA engineer James Bunnell, who grew up in the area, set up automated monitoring stations from 2003 and recorded an average of about nine and a half such lights on five nights a year.[1][2]
Explanations
- Car headlights. In May 2004 students from the Society of Physics Students at the University of Texas at Dallas spent four nights watching from the viewing area with video cameras, traffic counters and chase cars. They found that the lights seen to the south-west matched traffic on U.S. 67 between Marfa and Presidio, and that a car flashing its headlights on that highway looked like a Marfa light from the viewing area.[1][3]
- Spectroscopy. In May 2008 scientists from Texas State University spent 20 nights recording lights with spectroscopic equipment. Everything they caught could be explained as headlights or small fires, though they said rare "genuine" lights might need further study.[1]
- Mirages. Skeptic Brian Dunning has suggested mirage effects caused by sharp temperature differences between air layers, which are common at Marfa's altitude. He also noted that the viewing area sits on the former Marfa Army Airfield, where thousands of people were stationed in the 1940s without the lights being widely reported.[1]
References
This page was last edited on 31 October 2026. Articles are written in our own words from the sources listed under References; disputed claims are attributed to the people who made them.
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