This story a part of the True Ghost Stories page on Obiwan's UFO-Free Paranormal Page. Please do not copy or distribute without permission from Obiwan and/or the original author!
Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 08:36:59 -0500
To: obiwan (obiwan@netcom.com)
From: hwinters@jnlk.com (Howard Winters)
Subject: Re: True facts about the Brown Mountain Lights
I have had personal contact with the Brown Mountain Lights all my life. I first ran across them when I was in Gatlinburg, some 40 years ago when we were roofing the Joy Motel. I was an installagion supervisor in the waterproofing business back then and a friend and I were free to wander the surrounding countryside as pauses in construction time permitted. I found the lights to be something of an enigma and I began to search for answers.
Over the next 5 years I learned all there was to know about the Brown Mountain Lights. Driving from Atlanta to Washington, I made it a point to stop by and check to see it they were still there.
The next time I confronted them was on my honeymoon, some time after this when my new wife and I were again in Gatlinburg, wandering through the smokies over a two week period, and found ourselves over on the "other" side of the mountain, and with a motel accomodation secured for the night, we drove up to the area where at then, (this was around 1961) the state had cut an overlook into the side of the mountain across from what is basically known as Brown Mountain. It wasn't more than just a bull-dozed level area, then eroded by spring rains, but it was adequate for me to set up my tripod, [I was and am a photographer,] and I shot 36 exposures in Ektachrome of the lights as the sun went down, and dusk settled. Kodak Ektachrome ASA 64. Fast film for back then.
I was fascinated as the lights began to show up at dusk, quite clearly visible back then, because polution had not yet filled all the hollows of the smokies and other mountains. Their appearance coincided with dusk falling, just as the sun was going down, and they were roughly 1/2 to 3/4 mile away from us, across the valley that seperated us. Their color was pale, yellows, blues, greens, pinks, oranges, all on a translucent coloring, as though there was some sort of light within them. I had studied all I could find on swamp gas, wil-o'-the wisp and other phosgene emininces, and it just didn't make sense.
Over a period of about 45 minutes, we sat there and watched as these large lighted objects would just appear, about 5-10 feet above the ground, (I was watching with 7x50 binoculars) and ' then ascend to a height of sometimes about 100 to 150 feet in the air, pause there for some minutes, and then descend again to the level of the mountain top as visible to us, and then wink out.
Immediately others would appear, always different in color, and continue the rising, resting and falling pattern, and again, each one starting at a different spot on the ridge.
All this took place across the entire crest of the mountain, from about 1/4 mile to our left, to somewhere around 3/4 mile to the south. We were to the west of Brown Mountain, on the east side of the mountain across the valley, about 3/4 mile away, remember.
When it finally became too dark for them to be easily seen, for some reason, the activity stopped. We waited around for some little time, fifteen or twenty minutes, and seeing that the "show" was over for the evening, we drove back to the motel.
Back in Atlanta, where we were living then, the film was processed by Kodak in Chamblee, at their processing plant, and I got normally exposed slides of these lights, which are still in my posession. Over the past 40 years, I've taken then out of storage to show to people who have been interested, and they rest in my attic in my storage area even as I write.
The next time I was up there was around 11 years later, which would have been around spring in 1973. My wife and I were seperated, pending a divorce, and I had my girls with me for a week's vacation. We wandered through Gatlinburg again, and by way of something to do, we drove over to the overlook opposite Brown Mountain.
The overlook had been finished by the state, and a marker had been erected, describing the overlook and what could be seen each evening at dusk, (it doesn't take off for Saturdays or Sundays) but it had been badly damaged by grafiti. Phrases left by local people with nothing to do had fouled it with all manner of four letter words, steeped in escatology.
Also, polution was beginning to be found there in the hollows and valleys, and the visibility was markedly reduced from where it was some 10 years before.
Still, when the sun began to set, the same activity began to occurr, almost on schedule, and as my daughters and myself watched, the same old panarama began. Though difficult to see, there again were the pale colored globes of light, somewhere around 50 feet in diameter, possibly less, appearing from nowhere, rising 50 to 100 feet, pausing for a while, then slowly dropping back to the ridge, to stop, and then wink out, just as before. The girls were first fascinated, and then a little bit frightened.
Again, the area covered remained the same. From about 1/4 mile to the left of the overlook, down about 3/4 miles to the south. Not so clearly visible, due to the polution, but still there and still performing as they've been doing since the days of the Cherokee indians, and probably before them.
I've researched the stories of lights reflected from headlights or towns to the south. There were no towns, or lights visible anywhere around us for the light to be reflected from, or directed towards us from. 35 years ago, sitting on the overlook or alongside the highway, it was pitch dark, as it usually is in the mountains.
I know the story of the plantation owner who went hunting one night and never came back, and I know the story of the faithful servant who went looking for him with a kerosene lantern and never came back. I know all the theories as to what's going on, and I find them flawed in one way or another.
Since I e-mailed you this information some weeks, days ago or whatever, I've had occasion to reconsider my trips down to Brown Mountain, (I'm in New Jersey now) and in light of other things that have happened to me, I've reached a possible solution.
I have no idea if you're psychic or not. Possibly you are. Possibly you aren't. I happen to be of Irish and Scotch background, with Celts and Picts way back, and there is also a history of English mixed in as well. This makes me Scotch/Irish/English by ancestry, and I come with an honest to God Banshee attached to my family tree.
Believe this or not. I have the ability [neither wanted or sought after] to see those who have lived before, including members of my own family, and also those beings known as angels. Each time an angel has appeared before me, it was heralded by a transparent ball of light, much smaller, ((but still like those larger balls of light that rise each night on Brown Mountain)) and the only difference being that they are followed by a phosphorescent trail of small sparkles, much as a train would follow a gown, tapering off into nothing.
I have no way of knowing, but after reflecting, I've decided that it is just possible that these larger tranparent/translucent balls of light may be akin to one another. Given that they are far larger, 25 to 50 feet in diameter on Brown Mountain, size in other dimensions is relative, and it may be as they move closely among men, they don't need to appear as large.
These lights on Brown Mountain don't go anywhere, remember. Just rise up about 50 to 100 feet in the air and then settle down. I've seen these smaller balls of light transform first into transparent men, who later solidify, and then return to their transparent form and then back into the pale balls of light with the phosphorescent trails of light before rising into the air and just disappearing.
In this context then, there is therefore some possiblity of sameness between the two. The bible states that God has given his angels charge over us, to keep us from harm, and tradition has long helf that we each have a guardian angel, and men for centuries had debated, albeit tongue in cheek, about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
Are the Brown Mountain Lights real? Yes. Can you walk up close to them and examine them? The family that owned the mountain years ago would not permit it. I tried. Beyond this, there is the current information concerning them, that when you walk up onto the ridge itself at dusk, they are never seen. I don't know.
I do know they are still there. I think they will possibly be there as long as the world stands. Do I worry about them? Not any more. I've found that there truly are more things in heaven and earth than I'll ever understand. I leave it there.
I am an adult male, approaching 67 years of age, and I've wandered 3/4 of the world in the past 50 years. I do not recall who OBIWAN was, in my original contact with you, 'tho it must somehow be involved with Obiwan Kenobe from Star Wars, but if you are truly interested in this sort of thing, from pesonal experience, I'm willing to continue this e-mail link. Not too many people are truly interested in what's really out there.
Like someone told Agent Mulder, "The truth really is out there."
Howard Winters
To contact Howard by snail mail, you can mail him at the following
address:
Howard Winters
102 S. Broad St.
Penns Grove, N.J. 08069