Searching for Ghost Lights in West Texas
The Trans-Pecos Region is a completely different world from the lands east of San Antonio. The land out there is untamed and less touched by the modern world. The small touches of development feel unwelcome in such an arid and harshly beautiful place. This lack of population density means that old adobe ruins or relics of the people who lived here are fairly well preserved. So many buildings in cities like Alpine, Marfa, and Fort Davis have been occupied for generations.
And on many a long night, people gathered together to share stories over the campfire. These stories led to the countless frontier ghost stories and western folklore that persist to this day.
One of the most famous of these folklore is one I’ve actually tried to capture myself: the haunting and elusive Marfa Lights.
The Marfa Lights
Take the road east out of Marfa along US Route 67 a little over nine miles until you see a well-kept adobe structure staring southwest toward an empty desert expanse. This is the Marfa Lights Viewing Area, but people have been witnessing (and seeking) the ghost lights here for well before it was built.
A traveler will look out most nights and see nothing but dirt and sky. Sporadically, however, seekers of the unknown will be treated to a show of lights - multicolored orbs dancing over the Mitchell Flat. Onlookers have been observing the light show for well over a century. The earliest known record of the Marfa Lights comes from a cowboy named Robert Reed Ellison who observed the lights in 1883. Ellison then spoke to locals only to discover that the Lights were a well known phenomenon with seemingly no earthly explanation.
The Marfa Lights are a huge mystery, literally. Visit Marfa (the city’s tourism page) reveals the Lights under ‘Mystery’ on the opening navigation.
There are also multiple sources that indicate that Apache legend claims it is the spirit of the real life Chief Alsate, the last Chief of the Chisos Apache, who was executed by Mexican officials in the late 1800s. However, similar to the Legend of BabyHead Mountain, I can’t find any indigenous voices to back this up and, given the way less savory folklorists often sensationalize frontier violence, I’m inclined to say it’s not an ‘Apache legend’.
Digging into the investigation opens up a whole other can of worms. Ellison may not have even seen the lights himself, and instead just passed on the tale to his descendents.
It makes you wonder what the urban legends of today will look like in a century. And, like so much through the murky sands of time, the exact origins are likely lost forever.
There have been multiple investigations. One common explanation is that it may be an optical illusion from a temperature inversion. Some others claim the lights may be the result of gasses or the result of long distance reflection off of rocks. It seems very likely it’s the result of the unique geothermal conditions and elevation of the Chihuahua Desert that creates these ghost lights. If automobile lights could be the cause, there’s no reason that campfires or locomotives couldn’t be as well.
My Visit
I stood under a blanket of stars on a frigid, moonless January night. My friend and I stared out at the lonely mountains somewhere beyond our sight, mere shadows in the overwhelming darkness beyond the red light bubble from the viewing area behind us. We had spent the day hiking, but decided to see if we could be lucky enough to catch the famous Marfa Lights. We manned the binoculars for a little while, before stepping back to let others do the same. I did see some lights, but they were clearly headlights.
We were there around twenty minutes before my friend was ready to go. I wanted to stay longer, but we were cold, tired, and had a long drive back to Fort Davis. We both agreed to one day try to return. If nothing else, the gorgeous night sky made it worth it.
I would like to try again sometime, perhaps as an all-nighter just for the story.
Most Marfa Lights sightings are likely just a trick of the way light plays through temperature, but many of the debunking articles acknowledge some potentially unexplained phenomenon. Not that it’s supernatural, just unanswered. But that little bit of wiggle room is enough to send people to the desert in search of the unknown in the Texas sky.
Standing by the side of the highway and looking out toward a complete lack of civilization really emphasizes the loneliness of the Chihuahuan desert, like staring out from the edge of the known world. Out there, in those untouched crags, the world feels old and I am just a pilgrim in a foreign world.
And I, too, want to look out and believe.
