The Marfa Lights
In the vast stretches of far west Texas even a coyote can get lost and never find its way home. The tumbleweeds blow relentlessly on the hot summer breezes, with no particular place to go; a place where water is as scarce as palm trees in Alaska, and where the native folks in this far strech of America are as friendly as the people you've known your entire life; the neighbors next door!
With a population density less than most parts of the world, you have to drive many-a-mile to find the next inhabited track of land; vast ranches spread from horizon-to-horizon in never ending array. It's a world all to its own; lonely, yet magnificent in its desolation and desert splendor. What little traffic that does travel down its open highways seldom stops, for there's not really many places one would want to stop, except, perhaps, for roadside relief.
Yet near the town of Marfa, Texas, many a car and truck has come to a dead halt at night, pulling to the side of the road or just stopping in the middle of the highway, to watch the famous eerie Marfa Lights that often dance across the far horizon like fireflys at play.
Just what the lights are and why they can't be scientifically identified is anyone's guess. They can generally be viewed only at great distances, though there have been isolated reports that some have actually encountered tiny fireballs of light just outside their car or truck window.
In trying to describe just what these strange lights look like is difficult, some describing a single round ball of light, greenish or yellow in color. Others have noted multiple and similar lights.
On a lonely stretch of U.S. Highway 67/90, there's an area made for pulling to the side of the road and viewing the often occuring event. Here you'll find a plague erected by the Texas Highway Department commemerating this unexplained phenomena. If you use this roadside area for viewing, chances are good you'll find you aren't alone, so popular and wide known are the Marfa Lights. It has been estimated that the lights can be seen from as far away 30-40 miles. In this arid stretch of land, there are small hills and mountain ranges that dot the horizon in every direction. The lights can best be seen looking southwest across Mitchell Flat, in the direction of a low range known as the Cuesto del Burro mountains. Most often, the light (or lights) are visible just in front of Chinati Mountain.
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