All language subtitles for On.The.Trail.of.UFOs.S01E06.Let.It.Shine.1080p.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-squalor_track3_[eng]

(Suspenseful tones)

(Suspenseful electronic music)

(Suspenseful tones)

- Where are we going right now?

- We are heading up to see
the brown mountain lights,

well hopefully see the
brown mountain lights.

We are in north Carolina,

and the brown mountain
lights is a phenomena

that has been seen since,

basically, man could
think about them.

We are actually here in
a peak point of the year,

so we are really crossin'
our fingers and toes

that we actually will, not
only be able to see them,

but capture them
on film, for ourselves.

(Suspenseful music)

- Earth lights,
orbs, spook lights.

Whatever you want to call them.

Nearly every place on
earth has some sort of legend

revolving around mysterious
nighttime illuminations.

Unlike the typical uap
descriptions, however,

these glowing
objects tend to be seen

close to the ground, and
they seem to gravitate

to one geographical area.

Places like brown
mountain, or joplin, Missouri,

have a history of
these phantom lights,

that goes back centuries.

And are so commonly
witnessed that even scientists

have spent decades trying
to get at a root cause for them.

If a ufo is a simply an
unidentified flying object,

then the subject encompasses
a number of folklore elements

that often get overlooked.

And mystery lights
are one of them.

These orbs are an ancient
observable phenomena

that falls just outside the
boundaries of the topic.

But, that's the thing about
me, I'm not a fan of labels.

And the longer I look into
various fortean subjects,

the more I began to wonder
if they aren't all connected

to begin with.

Who am I to leave
something like spook lights

out of the discussion?

So what can we learn
from these strange lights,

and how do they play a role
in the ufo topic, as a whole?

- Spook lights are a
tradition usually attributable to

small town folklore,
related to lovers' lanes.

- Michael huntington is a
ufo enthusiast and blogger,

who takes a scientific,
skeptical approach

to the subject of ufology.

He also loves to celebrate
the bizarre topics he has studied

for most of his life, by
cataloging unusual legends,

folklore, and places
around the United States,

and you're unlikely to find
anyone more knowledgeable

about small town
legends and lore.

- Generally, the
story of spook lights is,

there's a rural road
where something occurred,

like maybe an Indian
Princess committed suicide,

or a rail worker
had been beheaded,

and he's looking for his lost
head, after some accident.

So, traditionally, spook
lights have been ghost stories.

- So there are
several theories for the

origins of the spook lights.

One of the ones that you find,

throughout the different places

where the spook lights are seen,

are that they're attributed
to a native American legend,

particularly very often
the death of either

a pair of lovers, or
the death of a woman

who was betrothed to
a native American man.

For example, the Oklahoma
spook lights are often attributed

to the trail of tears,

where thousands of native
Americans were killed,

as the result of that march.

So these moments of death
are what lead to these lights

being seen in the night sky,

as a continuing tribute to
the native American peoples.

- If you take it just as it is,

it's a ufo phenomena; It's an
unidentified aerial phenomena,

in that spook lights are
generally described as

glowing balls of light,
usually about basketball-size.

Generally white,
sometimes they're Amber.

I guess some people
would describe them as orbs,

but we're not talking
orbs from photographs,

we're talking objects
that move around,

that are illuminated, that
interact with the environment,

will disappear if lights
get shone upon them,

will cause automobiles,

their electronics to
be interfered with.

When you start talking about
spook lights and earth lights,

then you have to begin
reckoning with lobes,

balls of light, and
the orbs that are

typically talked about, today.

Various sizes and colors,
but that seem to defy

the normal laws of
physics, regarding electricity

or lightning, for example.

- They're described
as lights in the night sky

that move around,
that seem to dance.

They can join
together, or split up,

they can change colors, they
move around really drastically,

picking up speed, slowing
down, really moving at

speeds that are not
capably understood

by most of today's
contemporary aircraft.

And the frequency by
which they're sighted

also undermines
the idea that they

are contemporary aircraft,

because of what type of
maneuvers would occur

almost every night.

- Spook lights have
been around forever.

And they've been recorded
ever since people have

decided to write down histories.

- So some of the places
that have a variety of

ufo or unexplainable light
stories related to them,

are often referred to as
areas where spook lights

or orbs occur.

Because, in fact, what they
are are unexplainable lights

that occur over various regions.

So, for example, brown mountain,

as well as U.S. 181, in
Oklahoma, and marfa, Texas.

All these places are
home to the spook lights,

among some others,
but these are some of the

really famous ones.

- They've taken
a variety of forms.

I think there are
various categories

of mysterious lights.

The bottom line is that,
various times and places,

people have seen
lights, either in the sky,

or lights in close
proximity to them.

In some cases, even
entering their own dwellings,

entering into
vehicles that they're in,

seen along Ridge lines,
mountainous areas,

along railroad tracks.

Whatever is being
seen has the property of

being a light, typically
in a dark place.

- In Oklahoma, they're
called the hornet lights,

and what they look like are

lights in a variety of colors

that appear in the night sky.

They're often attributed
to drivers' headlights,

or to campfires in
the place of marfa;

however, that's been
pretty heavily debunked,

because these places have
such a variety of reports,

throughout history, some
of these reports go back to

the 19th century, so it's
really hard to accredit them to

contemporary technologies,
when they have such

a historical presence.

- You can look at
folklore of the past,

and there are many
parallels, at the very least.

Going all the way back to
things like mystery lights,

spook lights, will-o'-the-wisps.

Going far back into
European folklore,

there've been
countless stories about,

don't follow the
lights into the woods,

or something bad
may happen to you.

(Suspenseful tones)

- Matthew shang grew up in
the town of ashville, New York,

in chautauqua county.

Ashville's mysterious lights
haven't gained the same

sort of prominence
that areas like marfa

or brown mountain have,
but that doesn't mean anything

to those who've witnessed them.

What makes Matt an
especially useful witness

is that his sighting wasn't
simply of an illumination

glimpsed at a distance.

- So, in the town of ashville,
which is in New York,

western New
York, there is a lot of

interesting stuff that happens.

Mass ufo sightings,
ghost stories.

People were seeing mystery
lights, just giant spheres.

I've heard people talk from

one foot to five
feet, in diameter.

It's very isolated.

You feel very
isolated in that town,

and it's only like
one thousand people.

So I would take night
hikes with my friend,

anytime it was nice out.

So what we would do is we would

start at 9:00, and then
pick a direction and hike.

And we would go until
we just got tired, really.

We hiked maybe five
miles, and hit this field.

And we were gonna
set up in the field,

but decided against it, and
broke through the treeline

on the other side,
and continued hiking

into the forest, again.

We went underneath
the horse fence.

Soon after that, we saw a
soft, blue light in the distance,

and we thought
that it was a person,

because there are
backwoods people in ashville,

that kind of, they
stay to themselves.

This light was just
getting closer and closer,

and it was just
waiving back and forth,

going in a zigzag motion.

It got maybe 25
feet in front of me,

and it was maybe
three feet in diameter.

It was just a ball of
energy, and it was very soft.

Darker towards the center,
and it would get bright

and go out, and then
it'd go out like that,

and it just did this ring thing.

The closer it got, I
kind of fell into this

dream state.

I remember looking
and seeing my friend,

and he was in the
same kind of state,

he was just in awe.

And I snapped out of it,
and I started saying that

we need to go, because
my body was just like,

'yep, now it's time to run.'

both of our adrenaline's
were pumping.

We were running, and we
hit a farmers plot, eventually.

We waited 'til sunrise,
and just waited on his land

and then asked
him where we were,

and we actually ended
up in the town over from us,

we just kept running.

So we walked home after that.

- Will-o'-the-wisps
might be one of the

oldest examples of a uap.

They were seen quite
frequently around the moors

and bogs of england, and
were typically said to be

simply a floating light.

By the time the first settlers
began setting down roots

in the Americas, they
were almost immediately

recounting sightings of lights
moving through the forests,

and across prairies
of the new world.

These phenomena seem
to have far more in common

with what we know
as spook light or orbs,

than the typical flying
saucers reported in the 1940's.

From the '40s into the 1960's,

sightings and legends
began to grow up

around phantom lights.

Joplin, Missouri is home
of the ozark spook light.

A mysterious glowing orb
that was frequently encountered

on back roads, late at night.

In marfa, Texas, a
near-hysteria mounted around

the enigmatic eliminations,
spotted in the forests

around highway 90.

Like brown mountain,
there's even a specific

pull-off to head to, if you
want to catch a glimpse

of the mystery lights.

Micah Hanks lives
near brown mountain,

in the city of asheville,
north Carolina.

Micah has made a name
for himself in the field,

by writing for various websites

and hosting radio programs
about fortean subjects.

He's also spent days and
nights combing the forests

around brown mountain,
for answers to the mystery

of the lights.

- It's behind us here,
at brown mountain,

north Carolina, in the
black mountain range,

just outside of
the linville gorge.

And, off in the
distance, you'll see a

very flat mountain
Ridge, that tapers off,

presumably toward the
direction of Boone, north Carolina.

And that rounded Ridge line
marks the end of brown mountain.

I've camped over there
many times, over the years,

and I'll tell ya, it's like
any other wilderness,

there's nothing really
peculiar about that terrain.

But, this is ground zero for
where these lights appear.

People see them, and I've seen
some really good photographs

from over here,
in the linville gorge,

but I've spoken with
firefighters, locals,

campers, hikers,
most will tell ya that,

where you see the
most of this is literal

brown mountain proper,

which is what's
right behind us, here,

and of course we're
at the viewing location.

There are a lot of
different interpretations

of what they might be.

Goin' all the way
back to the 1920's,

when George r. Mansfield
comes up here with the usgs,

and he does his survey from
over on gingercake mountain.

His idea was that it had been

oncoming lights
from locomotives.

Way off down toward
lenoir, and off in the distance,

but the problem
with that theory is that

there are a lot of photographs

that I think are credible
photos, from over the years,

that showed these things
coming up over the Ridge line,

and into the air.

Which railroad lights don't do.

Even counting in things
like atmospheric refraction

and mirages,
that still seems like

a far out explanation, for me.

Some of these lights do
appear to actually be airborne,

they're very much like what
we'd call a ball of lightning.

Which we also can't
explain, completely.

You've got a circumstance
where, whatever these lights are,

they appear and they do so
with remarkable frequency.

And they're such that people
come up here every weekend,

looking for these lights.

There is one story from
right here at the main

brown mountain overlook,
where a man had said, years ago,

he and his family
were up here observing,

it'd begun to rain
slightly, just like this,

one of the lights
come across the valley,

a lot of people described this,

but he said it came close enough

that he was able to touch it.

Now, maybe that's
true, maybe or not,

but what he said was,
that when he touched it,

it gave him a good jolt,
like an electrical shock.

Which would be
consistent with some sort of

electrical phenomena,
but the question, then, is:

What kind of mechanism
allows for that kind of an

energetic presence to form?

I think I've heard
more stories, though,

where right after a heavy
rain, they tend to appear.

And I think that, if
we were to speculate

as to why that might
be, it's probably because

a good rain storm's
gonna cause an ionization

of the atmosphere that
charges, again, the atmosphere,

and it's gonna be conducive

to plasma formation,
hypothetically.

But, if that's the case,

that doesn't explain
the entire phenomena.

- Greg Cannon is a
paranormal investigator,

with a military background,

who lives in Marion,
north Carolina,

just down the road
from brown mountain.

Having grown up in the area,

Greg was vaguely aware
of the brown mountain lights.

But, it wasn't until recent
years that he began

looking into the
subject, for himself.

- We always heard stories,
or I always heard stories,

from my cousins and
my parents and family,

about brown mountain lights.

The phenomenon didn't
really mean a whole lot to me,

when I was a little kid.

As I got a little
older, (Chuckling)

Well, I wanted to go
check 'em out and kinda see

what the brown mountain
lights were all about.

So, when we moved
back to Marion,

and got settled in, we
started trying to go to see

the brown mountain lights.

We actually met some
people who would go see 'em

all the time, it wasn't a
matter of timing, necessarily,

so it was sort of like the
environmental conditions

had to be right.

You need to have a
period of wetness, like rain,

for two to three days,
and then once that dried

for a day or two, if
there was a 30 degree

shift in temperature, roughly,

you could go and actually
see the brown mountain lights,

and that's what we did.

We showed up, and
went to the pull-off area.

We actually pulled off,

and we went and stood
by a bunch of people,

brought a bunch of camera gear,

'cause we were gonna take
pictures and document it.

Had no luck, so, actually
went back to the vehicle

and dropped our camera gear off,

started to shut things
down, a little bit,

and there was a nice couple
standing in front of our Van

and they said,
'are you here to see

'the brown mountain lights?'

I said, 'well, yeah',

'well, you're lookin'
the wrong way.'

(chuckling) So we turned,

and looked the opposite
direction, and there they were.

Just whizzin' around.

It's kind of a strange
movement that they were makin'

and, to me, it
reminded of an Ember,

that comes off of a fire,

so if you're out there and
you're doin' a campfire,

you got the
embers flyin' around.

Except they would
just float and fly around,

and then just whiz
off to another direction,

then come back again.

It's like it had intent
and purpose behind it,

and that's what
really freaked me out.

Some would just
fly by, pretty fast,

I seen about 11, all together.

They were different colors,

more like phosphorescent colors.

Phosphorescent yellow,
you'd see, sometimes, orange

and the blue.

And that's what I was seeing.

And they were about
the size of a basketball.

From our Van's point, you're
about five to six miles away,

so, to see somethin'
the size of a basketball,

it had to be really large.

My wife was tryin'
to take pictures,

and she stayed at it,
tryin' to take pictures,

and had no luck, I just
put everything away

and just started watchin'
'em through binoculars,

it was pretty impressive.

- The similarities
between traditional

flying saucer reports,
and those of uap-like orbs

and mystery lights, are
more apparent the further you

delve into the topic.

While there are a number of

nuts and bolts
craft descriptions,

there are just as many
reports of simply strange lights

in the sky, and, often,
the behavior of these lights

seem to mirror those of
phenomena like the one you'll find

at brown mountain.

One of the strangest
observations by witnesses of both

ufos and mystery
lights, is that, so often,

they claim that the
object or illumination

was being intelligently
controlled by something.

While the joplin spook light
might seem to be little more

than a ghost story, its been
observed by numerous people,

over the course of decades,

and its behavior
has never changed.

The same can be said
for any number of odd,

luminescent objects, or
beings seen over the centuries.

While, on the surface, phantom
lights and traditional ufos

might seem to have
nothing in common,

these rarities do actually
inform one-another,

and possibly even offer
insight into one-another.

Certainly, if nothing
else, opening the door

to examining folklore
in a new context.

- But I think the one thing
that seems to characterize

the spook light phenomena,
which, the whole idea

of the spook light,
or the ghost light,

seems to be very north American,

is the idea that there
is an intelligence

to the light, itself,
and that it seems to

want to, and even delight in,

interacting with human beings.

In some cases, the
description is even given

of that light seeming to
dance, with a participant.

So that there is
this interaction,

and it's not just a random
bolt of lightning, for example,

but it's a form of light
that seems to recognize

when it's being observed, and
respond to that, in some way.

Within ufology, there's a
lotta different theories as to

what is the unifying
phenomena, at work,

with a lot of the
different paranormal

stuff that's going on.

Perhaps there is something
in the environment.

Perhaps there are
little cowles where

the environment, the conditions,

perhaps in the
electromagnetic fields,

perhaps in the mineral content,

that allows for
these things to occur.

Maybe they're natural,
maybe there's some sort of

quantum, or even
metaphysical thing going on,

where, maybe
these things are real,

and they come from
a different reality,

a different dimension,
a different realm,

and from time to time, these
things can cross boundaries.

- Why has there been this
change in the terminology,

from ufo to uap, and
what does that relate to?

Is that just because of
all of the lights in the sky,

like the orbs and all that,

so it can encompass
everything, or?

- If we go back to when the
term ufo was actually created,

it was created by the air force.

They were the ones who called it

'unidentified flying objects'.

And that's because
of the high strangeness

that was being reported

by the public.

They were seeing the
weirdest stuff, in the skies,

and the government,
and the U.S. air force

had no explanation for it.

So when they decided to
finally investigate these things,

they created the acronym ufo.

And this was to downplay
the more weirder aspects

to all this.

It's just an object in the
sky, that's unidentified.

'Don't worry, we got this,
we'll identify it eventually.'

I think, as the
years have gone on,

and the phenomenon
has evolved as well,

and become
possibly more elusive,

and possibly much weirder,

the term uap is a lot
more, I think, appropriate.

It encompasses a
lot more than just

a solid object in the sky.

I didn't see a solid
object in the sky,

I saw weird lights in a
triangular formation, so, for me,

that's an aerial
phenomena, it's not a ufo.

- A lot of investigators,
now, within ufology,

are looking at spook lights.

Mostly, they're looking
at spook lights because

they are localized,
and they are frequent,

and they are a constant.

You can set up equipment,
you can monitor a location

for a long period of
time, and attempt to

document the anomaly, and
try to figure out the causation.

Unlike, say, a flying
saucer sighting, which,

comes and goes.

- If we haven't figured
out what the hell ufos are

in the past 70 years,
it's time to look at it

with a new lens.

Change the vocabulary,
if you have to.

Whatever is gonna
make us find answers,

and ask new questions
of the phenomenon,

I think, is important.

- So when ufos arrive
on the cultural scene,

by the late 1940's, '50s, and
they're rising to prominence,

in that period, through
the '50s and '60s,

popular magazine
articles begin to depict

the brown mountain lights
as the brown mountain ufos.

But, prior to that, again, if
they were anything other than

prosaic,
misidentification of things,

or maybe some kind of
unidentified natural phenomena,

if anything, they were
called ghost lights.

Now, I will say this,

a friend recently brought
to my attention something,

she'd been listening
to my podcast,

and she had heard
me on the show say

that there were no
native American legends

that recount stories of
the brown mountain lights,

even though, by
the 1950's and '60s,

popular articles began to say
that native American legends

among the cherokee tell of
the brown mountain lights.

And so I'd mentioned
that, she said,

'actually, I found something
that you'll find interesting',

and there was an account
given by James mooney,

the anthropologist
who truly chronicled

the myths of cherokee, here
in western north Carolina.

The story talked about,

this was almost like
a cosmological story

about the origin of
stars, is what it was,

but the way it
describes the stars,

it tells that a couple of people
had seen these two lights

moving across the
mountain, up in the sky,

above the mountain
Ridge, one night.

And so they say they
go up on the mountain

and they find these
two furry creatures,

with faces kind of like
ducks, protruding out of it,

and they take a couple
of 'em back to their camp,

and they say that
these creatures

stayed with them by daytime,
but that they glowed at night,

and that finally, they let
'em go, and when they did,

they Rose back up into the
heavens and became stars.

And so this was a myth, clearly,

describing where
stars come from.

The way it described the stars
moving over the Ridge line,

it very least implied
that there could've been,

at some time, some sort of
an observation of something,

which, again, in
prehistoric times,

if that indeed is where
the legend comes from,

this would have to entail
something moving through the sky

that clearly isn't a star.

Other celestial phenomena
alike, meteors, comets,

might not be ruled
out completely,

but, at very least, the
way that it was described

in that legend, it was
suggestive of how

the brown mountain
lights appear at times.

(Dramatic instrumental music)

- Like most of
my journey so far,

I didn't manage to actually see

the brown mountain
lights, for myself.

Despite the weather conditions
being, essentially, perfect,

this phenomenon just
didn't feel like coming out

to visit with us.

Even this far into my
trek across the U.S.,

in search of answers,
I'm reminded, again,

that you can't simply
walk out your front door

and encounter the unknown.

Places like brown mountain
seem to serve as little more

than further proof that
simple trying to find the pieces,

let alone assemble them,
is going to be the most

difficult part of the
puzzle of ufology.

(Dramatic tones)

- Coming up on
the next episode of

on the trail of ufos:

- It's one of those
things where it's like,

you always look
back and you're like,

'did it really
happen, was it real?'

- but, one morning, I woke
up and there was dry blood

coming out of my nose.

Scoops in the back
of my neck, here.

- I've avoided looking too
deeply into the abduction side

of the subject, maybe
because, deep down,

I'm aware there's
something so primal

and terrifying about it.

(Suspenseful music)