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Ghost Lights of Marfa,
Texas
The town of Marfa, Texas makes no bones about their "ghost-lights." Why they even have parades to celebrate them. Most of the 2,440 residents in some manner are supported by the tourists attraction. The town was founded in 1881 as a water stop on the Texas and New Orleans Railroad. It is located about sixty miles from the Mexican border in very rugged high desert
terrain.
The earliest record of the lights occurred in 1883. One night, while out working with a herd of cattle a sixteen year old boy and his friend saw the lights. They thought it was campfire lights of the Apache Indians, and made plans to investigate the next morning. They continued watching the herd in Mitchell Flat and waited for dawn. When it finally came the boys took to their horses and rode towards where they had seen the lights. They found nothing. No signs of Indians or a campsite, nothing. Since that time, the sightings of the lights have been observed and recorded numerous times. Most of the reports include the sighting of one or more lights in the sky. The color seen is usually greenish-yellow, though blue, white and red have been reported as well. The lights appear to float gracefully through the sky then suddenly zip off into another direction.
One man reported seeing the lights from his car. The lights appeared at first in his highlights as if they were an oncoming car. But suddenly they changed their shape, becoming a cantaloupe size ball of light and stopped and hovered outside his car window, which he had rolled down. Though the man drove faster and faster, the lights remained with him for at least two miles.
Though the lights do seem to appear more often when there is a cold front, rather than during warm weather; science can not explain how or why they are there. The Apache Indians have a legend that tells of the lights. So the explanation of some scientists that the lights are nothing more than reflections of headlights seems unlikely. The legend goes that the lights have always been thought of as, by the Indians, to be the phosphorescent souls of Apache warriors slain through treachery. Another theory being that the lights are the souls of a group of Apaches that were killed by
soldiers from Fort Davis. The legend dates back in time long before car headlights were invented. Whatever they are, the people of Marfa have a great deal of evidence placed before them to make them continue their belief of the lights being "ghost lights."
Marfa is in Presidio County in the S.W. corner of the state of Texas. Near the Mexican border. The
official viewing sight of the ghost lights is along highway 90, nine miles east of Marfa.
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