The Mystery of the Brown Mountain Lights

The year was 1999 when Charles Braswell Jr. first went up to the 181 overlook in Burke County, where visitors can get a clear view of Brown Mountain. After that, Nesmith started making regular trips. On about his 35th visit, he finally saw what he thought to be the age-old NC legend, the Brown Mountain Lights.

“It was just inspiring to see it,” Braswell said. “I spent so much time there looking at nothing out there in the night sky, and then this bright light shows up. It was puzzling. . .What did I just see?”

Braswell, author of “Are Those the Brown Mountain Lights?” is one among many who have seen the Brown Mountain lights.

Legends of these mysterious lights date back to the year 1200. Passers-by and scientists alike have wondered at their existence for generations since then.

Dan Caton, a professor of physics and astronomy, and his observatory engineer Lee Hawkins take their cameras and other equipment before Brown Mountain to try to capture lights on film. But Caton is skeptical of any supernatural causes.

“The general scheme now is they go out thinking they want to see the lights, they see some lights and they leave thinking they’ve seen the lights,” Caton said. “Most of the lights they saw were manmade, or natural lights of one type or another.”

Regardless of any truth they find in the cause, Caton said, “It won’t matter what we find, because the myth will outlive us.”

Whatever the answer to the mystery, lights in various forms hovering above Brown Mountain have been caught on camera.

“I’ve seen them enough times that I know they’re real,” Braswell said. “I can’t tell you what they are, but I can tell you that they definitely exist.”