Scotty Wiseman, a popular musician originally from Spruce Pine, North Carolina, wrote the hit song “Brown Mountain Light” about the mysterious lights seen at night near Linville Falls.

Brown Mountain Lights Get Their Own Festival
Mysterious Phenomenon the Centerpiece of Linville Falls Event June 9-11

By Jeff Eason


Folks come from miles around to take in the wonder of Linville Falls, North Carolina. The area boasts such attractions as waterfalls, Linville Gorge, Linville Caverns and the Blue Ridge Parkway.
The area’s most mysterious attraction is the legendary phenomenon known as the Brown Mountain Lights. For generations, these strange paranormal lights have attracted scientists, believers in the occult, and the curious to Table Rock and other locations in and around Burke County where they are visible.

The lights have also been a subject of U.S. Geological Survey studies and have been featured in W. Anderson’s 1940 novel, Kill One, Kill Two, and in an episode of the hit television series The X Files.

Now the phenomenon is the centerpiece of a new three-day festival. The Brown Mountain Lights Heritage Festival will take place in the historic village of Linville Falls Friday-Sunday, June 9-11.

The festival will feature mountain music, fine arts and crafts, storytellers, special exhibits, food, bonfires, outdoor Sunday services and more. The festival will also feature guided tours in the evening to take visitors to view the lights from the vantage point of Wiseman’s View.

Visitors and locals will take part in an “open mike” session on Friday night to share their Brown Mountain Lights tales.

The Brown Mountain Lights Heritage Festival also is a chance for the area to honor the local Wiseman Family. Lafayette “Fate” Wiseman was one of the first people to tell the outside world about the lights and passed down his tales to his great-nephew, musician Scotty Wiseman. The younger Wiseman even had a hit with his song about the phenomenon, “Brown Mountain Light” in the 1960s.

The song is one of many written or made popular by Scotty Wiseman, a professional musician born in Spruce Pine in 1909. As a duo with his wife Myrtle “Lulu Belle” Wiseman, Scotty became famous through his original songs such as “Have I Told You Lately That I Love You,” and through the duo’s appearance in seven feature-length Hollywood movies. Scotty Wiseman passed away in 1981.

“The Brown Mountain Lights are perhaps North Carolina’s most famous mystery, continuing to this day to defy scientific explanation,” said a spokesperson for the new festival. “Seen most often on clear summer evenings after rainfall, they have appeared at times when no manmade light source could have been active in the area.

“Glowing balls of light in red, orange, green and blue, the lights move across Brown Mountain, a long flat ridge about 2,600 feet in elevation, in unpredictable patterns.”

The central hub of the Brown Mountain Lights Heritage Festival will be the exhibition building across from the Linville Falls Lodge on Hwy 183, just above the intersection with US Hwy 221.

For more information on the festival, visit www.linvillefallsvillage.com.

(Legend of the) Brown Mountain Light

Way out on the old Linville Mountain,
Where the bear and the catamount rein.
There a strange ghostly light, can be seen every night,
Which no scientist nor hunter can explain.
Chorus:
High, high on the mountain, and down in the canyon below
It shines like the crown of an angel, and fades as the mists come and go.
'Way, 'way over yonder, Night after night until dawn,
A faithful old slave, come back from the grave,
Is searching, searching, for his master who's long, ling gone.

In the days of the old covered wagons,
when they camped on the flat for the night;
With the stars growing dim on the high gorge rim,
they would watch for the Brown Mountain light

Chorus

Long years ago a southern planter
Came hunting in this wild land alone
And here, so they say, the hunter lost his way,
And never returned to his home

Chorus

His trusty old slave brought a lantern
And searched, but in vain, day and night;
Now the old slave is gone, but his spirit wanders on,
And the old lantern still casts its light

Chorus

The Brown Mountain Lights are one of the most famous of North Carolina legends. They have been reported a dozen times in newspaper stories. They have been investigated at least twice by the U.S. Geological Survey. And they have attracted the attention of numerous scientists and historians since the German engineer, Gerard Will de Brahm, recorded the mysterious lights in the North Carolina mountains in 1771.
"The mountains emit nitrous vapors which are borne by the wind and when laden winds meet each other the niter inflames, sulphurates and deteriorates," said de Brahm. De Brahm was a scientific man and, of course, had a scientific explanation. But the early frontiersman believed that the lights were the spirits of Cherokee and Catawba warriors slain in an ancient battle on the mountainside.

One thing is certain, the lights do exist. They have been seen from earliest times. They appear at irregular intervals over the top of Brown Mountain - a long, low mountain in the foothills of the Blue Ridge. They move erratically up and down, visible at a distance, but vanishing as one climbs the mountain. From the Wiseman's View on Linville Mountain the lights can be seen well. They at first appear to be about twice the size of a star as they come over Brown Mountain. Sometimes they have a reddish or blue cast. On dark nights they pop up so thick and fast it's impossible to count them.

Among the scientific investigations which have undertaken from time to time to explain the lights have been two conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey. The first was made in 1913 when the conclusion was reached that the lights were locomotive headlights from the Catawba Valley south of Brown Mountain. However, three years later in 1916 a great flood that swept through the Catawba Valley knocked out the railroad bridges. It was weeks before the right-of-way could be repaired and the locomotives could once again enter the valley. Roads were also washed out and power lines were down.

But the lights continued to appear as usual. It became apparent that the lights could not be reflections from locomotive or automobile headlights.

The Guide to the Old North State, prepared by the W.P.A. in the 1930s, states that the Brown Mountain Lights have "puzzled scientists for fifty years." The same story reports sightings of the lights in the days before the Civil War.
Cherokee Indians were familiar with these lights as far back as the year 1200. According to Indian legend, a great battle was fought that year between the Cherokee and Catawba Indians near Brown Mountain. The Cherokees believed that the lights were the spirits of Indian maidens who went on searching through the centuries for their husbands and sweethearts who had died in the battle.

The lights can be seen from as far away as Blowing Rock or the old Yonahlosse Trail over Grandfather Mountain some fifteen miles from Brown Mountain. At some points closer to Brown Mountain the lights seem large, resembling balls of fire from a Roman candle. Sometimes they may rise to various heights and fade slowly. Others expand as they rise, then burst high in the air like an explosion without sound.

Late in 1919 the question of the Brown Mountain Lights was brought to the attention of the Smithsonian Institution and the United States Weather Bureau.

Dr. W.J. Humphries of the Weather Bureau investigated and reported that the Brown Mountain Lights were similar to the Andes light of South America. The Andes light and its possible relation to the Brown Mountain Lights became the subject of a paper read before the American Meteorological Society in April 1941. In this report Dr. Herbert Lyman represented the lights as a manifestation of the Andes light.

The second U.S. Geological Survey report disposes of the cause of the Brown Mountain Lights by saying they are due to the spontaneous combustion of marsh gases. But there are no marshy places on or about Brown Mountain. The report also states that the lights from foxfire would be too feeble to be seen at a distance of several miles.

The report rules out the possibility that the lights are a reflection of mountain moonshine stills. "There are not enough such stills and they probably would not be in sufficiently continuous operation to produce lights in the number and regularity of those seen at Brown Mountain."

St. Elmo's Fire, that electrical phenomenon familiar to sea voyagers, was dismissed by a scientist from the Smithsonian Institution. He stated that St. Elmo's Fire and similar phenomena occurred at the extremity of some solid conductor and never in midair as in the case of the Brown Mountain Lights.

Some scientists have advanced the theory that the lights are a mirage. Through some peculiar atmospheric condition they believe the glowing balls are reflections from Hickory, Lenoir, and other towns in the area. The only drawback to this theory is that the lights were clearly seen before the War between the States, long before electricity was used to produce light.

In recent years scientists have been more concerned about exploring outer space. Perhaps they have forgotten that there are mysteries on our own planet still unsolved. The Brown Mountain Lights are one of them.

The Brown Mountain Lights





It has baffled pioneers and scientists alike. The old-timers would shake their heads and say that there was a spell on Brown Mountain. The old hunters told stories of how their dogs would come whimpering back whenever they got to a certain spot on the mountain. The Brown Mountain lights are balls of fire that pop up over Brown Mountain. Fall is considered the best time to see the lights and Wiseman's View is one of the favorite spots to come and watch for these mysterious lights. As you look towards Brown Mountain a light will pop up on the horizon. It will shine steadily for a few seconds. Then it will rise into the air and waver and then wink out.



The phenomenon first gained national attention in 1913 when the U.S. Geological Survey became interested in the mystery and sent scientists to study what the cause of them might be.

Over the years there have been many scientific theories, but the mystery still remains unsolved. One legend has it that the light is the soul of an Indian maiden searching for her brave warrior killed in a bloody battle. Another legend was made famous by Scott Wiseman in his song about the Brown Mountain Light.




The Brown Mountain Ridge