Mystery Lights of Big Bend
By C.W. (Bill) Smith
B
eing denizens of the Big Bend,
we are fascinated by the beauty
and grandeur of our purple
mountains’ majesty, our rolling prairies
of grass and wildflowers and the
mañana way of life. We love our gentle
spring times (except when the wind
blows at hurricane force), we
love our wonderful summers
(except when the thermome-
ter explodes) and we absolute-
ly adore our mild winters (no
argument there). We also like
a good mystery, and the Big
Bend is full of them.
The Marfa Lights are a
prime example of nature at its
most mysterious in West
Texas. Reported in the media
down through the years, it is
even purported that Native
Americans saw the lights hun-
dreds of years ago. I can’t
vouch for that, but I can
speak with some authority
about this subject. I have
been out to the Marfa Lights
viewing area on Highway 90
just east of Marfa on many
occasions, starting with my
college years at Sul Ross. I
have seen them regularly over
the past 25 years that I have
worked on Sundays in Marfa.
We usually get to the view-
ing area long before daylight
and have seen the shimmer-
ing lights, bobbing and weav-
ing and racing across the prairie.
Sometimes white, sometimes red or
blue, they never fail to fascinate. No
one has come up with a satisfactory
explanation for them. Elton Miles, in
his book Tales of the Big Bend, (Texas
A&M University Press: 1987) talks
about the Marfa Lights and gives some
of the folk explanations, including the
story of the ghost of a rancher, tortured
to death by Mexican bandidos, search-
ing for his family. Or the ghost of
escaped German prisoners-of-war
being guided to freedom by the spirit of
12
Cenizo
Hitler, marking the way with the lights.
My personal observation is that they
occur in an area where we frequently
see mirages at sunrise. I am no physi-
cist or astronomer, but I suspect that
those atmospheric conditions that pro-
duce the mirages have a part in pro- West Texas, still, ghost lights remain
open to conjecture.
Full scientific expeditions have failed
to come to a definitive conclusion, but
not for the lack of trying. The Marfa
Lights have been seriously investigated
over the years by some very reliable,
ducing the Marfa Lights, maybe by
reflecting car or building lights just
over the horizon. Who knows?
So what are ghost lights?
Explanations range from the ridicu-
lous...ghosts and headless train conduc-
tors…to the quasi-scientific...swamp
gas, static electricity, foxfire, cosmic
worm holes and glow-in-the-dark, bio-
luminescent birds. One should include
the lunatic fringe that suspects para-
normal activity, demonic infestation
and little green men. Although I think
we can safely discount swamp gas in no-nonsense investigators, such as air-
plane pilots, university professionals
and bona fide scientists.
Marfa hasn’t cornered the market
on mystery lights. Red Wagner of
Marathon likes to tell of the time he
and other Highway Department
workers were traveling south on US
385 toward Big Bend National Park
with a large storm brewing in the dis-
tance. As they came to a high voltage
power line that crossed the highway,
they were startled to see a ball of fire
dance down the wire, cross over the
First Quarter 2017
road and skip on to the east. That, of
course, is an example of a well-docu-
mented phenomenon called ball light-
ning. Similar to and often confused
with ball lightning is St. Elmo’s Fire,
which is a small blue or violet pulsat-
ing orb of plasma emitted from a
pointed metal object. It
makes a hissing or crackling
noise as it moves about. My
own
grandmother,
Gertrude Odell Oatman,
witnessed such a display as
she washed dishes in her
home in Balmorhea in the
1930s. She heard a loud
pop and saw a small orb of
blue light jump out of the
fuse box above her kitchen
sink. It dropped down and
skittered around on the
metal cabinet top for a few
seconds, then it emitted a
loud “phftt!” and winked
out. It gave her such a scare
that she went to bed with a
sick headache.
Many Big Bend cowboys
can attest to the spooky
action of St. Elmo’s Fire as it
danced on the horns of cattle
herds during violent electri-
cal storms and slithered
across the prairie like a green
fog.
Author/interviewer
Patrick Dearen, in The Last of
the Old-Time Cowboys,
(Republic of Texas Press:
1998) gives many examples of strange
encounters with electricity during
thunderstorms on the trail.
And, even poor little Sanderson, the
ignored step-sister of the Big Bend, has
some tales to tell. The late Bill
Goldwire, lifelong resident of
Sanderson and Terrell County, col-
lected ghost stories about Sanderson
and the surrounding area. Like all tales
of this genre, his little book is highly
entertaining and highly inventive. But
there is one story that even he missed.
Not too long ago I ran across a ghost