The Marfa lights Are Still an Unsolved Texas Mystery until now with my prediction.
So my prediction is that each mineral have its own wavelength and color . These lights seen at night .mainly white color and sometimes yellowish and may be orange. During the day, desert temperatures rise to an average of 38°C (a little over 100°F). At night, desert temperatures fall to an average of -3.9°C (about 25°F). At night, desert temperatures fall to an average of -3.9 degrees Celsius (about 25 degrees Fahrenheit).
Given the dry heat and changing temperature at night in Texas desert the hottest place in the USA. Statics electricity play a big roll in creating the sparks and flickering light , But when sand grains start to bounce across the surface, they strike other grains and shake loose the dust, which then rises into the air just above the ground. All that bouncing and jostling also generates static electricity—the geological version of shuffling your feet across the carpet. I believe that underground and on the desert floor sand frictions creates statics and dusty plasma clusters that are the energy source for the Lights] we see, then of course another phenomenon called the superior mirage or the “Fata Morgana,” phenomenon do the rest of the work and show these lights in the horizon.
The different colors depends on the mineral compound that we have in that area , hill, or place ,etc. To me that combination of led, Titanium, zirconium, and magnesium alloys make silvery white color. while sulfur can give bright yellow color. So the U.S.A should use those hells and desert area to harvest those minerals , it will benefit the region and towns in that area with multi millions of dollars wealth of minerals. Other mineral which is abundant in Texas and that is Calcium carbonate , it is considered a soft, nonabrasive filler. Its natural color is white, however, it can be easily colored.
he Marfa Lights, mysterious glowing orbs that appear in the desert outside the West Texas town of Marfa, have mystified people for generations.
According to eyewitnesses, the Marfa Lights appear to be roughly the size of basketballs and are varyingly described as white, blue, yellow, red or other colors.
Reportedly, the Marfa Lights hover, merge, twinkle, split into two, flicker, float up into the air or dart quickly across Mitchell Flat (the area east of Marfa where they’re most commonly reported). There seems to be no way to predict when the lights will appear; they’re seen in various weather conditions, but only a dozen or so nights a year. And nobody knows for sure what they are. To me they are static electricity caused by the desert sand that contains different chemicals that produces these lights.
The Native Americans of the area thought the Marfa Lights were fallen stars.
The first mention of the lights comes from 1883, when cowhand Robert Reed Ellison claimed to have seen flickering lights one evening while driving a herd of cattle near Mitchell Flat. He assumed the lights were from Apache campfires.
Ellison was told by area settlers that they often saw the lights, too, but upon investigation, they found no ashes or other evidence of a campfire, according to the Texas historian society. During World War II, pilots from nearby Midland Army Air Field tried to locate the source of the mysterious lights, but were unable to discover anything.
My explanation is the refraction of light caused by layers of air at different temperatures. This optical illusion, sometimes called a superior mirage or a “Fata Morgana,” this occurs when a layer of calm, warm air rests above a layer of cooler air, and we know that Marfa town HAVE THESE KIND OF TEMPRTURE CHANGES.
A Fata Morgana is sometimes seen in the ocean, causing a ship to appear to float above the horizon. The temperature gradients needed to produce this optical effect are common in the West Texas desert. So as I discovered that when those grain of sand in the desert floor rub and move against each other and creates sparks by the friction , creates static elect city and the color depends on the mineral composition of that area, mostly white as per eye witnesses , and that is the color of Calcium carbonate which in the that desert area. U.S.A army lab should take samples from different spots of that desert, hills and mountains and try to find the compound and the types of minerals that causes the spark close to the desert floor and then the superior mirage or a “Fata Morgana,” phenomenon do the rest of the work.
Off a stretch of empty west Texas highway some 400 miles from Austin, crowds gather every night to experience the inexplicable. Come nightfall in Marfa, bright orbs of white, yellow, pink, blue, and red dance just above the horizon of the Chinati Mountains: twinkling, darting, hesitating, and disappearing back into the darkness of the Chihuahuan Desert.
Some claim they’re UFOs. Others believe they’re Mexican ghosts. Everyone just calls them the “Marfa Lights.” But what are they really, and why have people been wondering about them for more than a century?
The first historical account of the Marfa Lights dates back to 1883. A cowhand named Robert Reed Ellison thought he was seeing the light of an Apache campfire in the distance. But upon investigation the next morning, there were no traces of humans. And ever since that fateful day, locals have been passing down eyewitness accounts of these glittering desert orbs.
The once-dying town of Marfa eventually embraced its local mystery, throwing the first Marfa lights Festival in 1986, and erecting a Marfa Lights viewing platform in 2003. Now, thousands flock to this spot in El Despoblado to catch a glimpse of the strange phenomenon.
I HAVE MY OWN Theory for these lights , or should I say the colorful light, so the secret is in the color itself, in the light wavelength. let me show you each color for some chemicals and when can go step by step.
| Wavelength (nm) |
Color | Complementary color |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 400–424 | Violet | Yellow | ||
| 424–491 | Blue | Orange | ||
| 491–570 | Green | Red | ||
| 570–585 | Yellow | Violet | ||
| 585–647 | Orange | Blue | ||
| 647–700 | Red | Green | ||
This can only be used as a very rough guide, for instance if a narrow range of wavelengths within the band 647-700 is absorbed, then the blue and green receptors will be fully stimulated, making cyan, and the red receptor will be partially stimulated, diluting the cyan to a greyish hue. phosphorus color is blue, coper also gives blue color.
The vast majority of simple inorganic (e.g. sodium chloride ) and organic compounds (e.g. ethanol) are colorless. Transition metal compounds are often colored because of transitions of electrons between d -orbital of different energy. Organic compounds tend to be colored when there is extensive conjugation , causing the energy gap between the Homo and Lumo to decrease, bringing the absorption band from the UV to the visible region. Similarly, color is due to the energy absorbed by the compound, when an electron transitions from the HOMO to the LUMO.
Lycopene is a classic example of a compound with extensive conjugation (11 conjugated double bonds), giving rise to an intense red color (lycopene is responsible for the color of tomatoes tend to have very intense colors for different reasons.
THE LIGHTS SEEN AT THE SIGHT MAINLY WHITE LIGHT, LED CAN PRODUCE WHITE COLOR, AND YELLOW LIGHTS SO IT MUST BE LED MIX WITH Vanadium as it gives yellow color, or Chromium hydroxide also give yellow light, the red color it can come from Manganese , While Iron gives yellow brown color. Monochromate, gives yellow light, Dichromate gives orange color, Cobalt number 3 gives yellow orange light, copper chloride give yellows green light , iron 3 chloride give yellow brown color, Nickel between light green to lavender blue depends on the electrons in it 2,3, and so on. Coper chloride gives blue green color,
Dig deep enough into Marfa’s mythology and you’ll find everything from legitimate academic studies to homespun websites in Comic Sans devoted to debunking the lights. In 2004 and 2008, teams from UT–Dallas and Texas State, respectively, studied the perceived phenomenon. Both concluded that the Marfa Lights could be explained by headlights off Highway 67. Thats wrong because this phenomenon was recorder 180 years ago before we have cars, what a stupid scientists.
“When car headlights are seen through 15 miles or so of West Texas air that is unevenly heated by the ground, the light rays are bent and scattered slightly so that the headlights are fuzzy and wavering, even when viewed through a telescope,” explains Karl David Stephan, a professor in the Ingram School of Engineering at Texas State University. “It’s the same reason that stars twinkle.”
They stopped the cars for one night on that road and the lights were still flickering, Now some say flash lights, balloon with remote control lights or small drawn with light controls so they can bring tourist to the area and that is what I believe, how about 180 years ago, well in that time it was fire, Indians used fire to dance, cook, do thier ceremonies and keep warm.
This bending and scattering also affects the lights’ perceived size, another tally in the column for “everything’s bigger in Texas.”
But, Stephan cryptically adds, “the ‘real’ Marfa lights are not headlights.”
Most locals you ask about the lights will give the same caveat: The “usual” Marfa lights are indeed car headlights—but somewhere around two dozen nights a year, the “real” Marfa lights show up. Tourists will spend hours watching headlights, and not just because they came on the wrong night: The official viewing platform seems to suggest looking straight at the highway. The “real” lights usually appear further east, dancing above the cacti on the desolate Mitchell Flats, away from the roadway.
But if not headlights—which weren’t exactly common when this all started in 1883—then what? Multiple theories abound, with some insisting the Marfa Lights are essentially ball lightning, stirred up by underground electrical energy. Others say swamp gas, aliens, or the ghosts of conquistadors.
How to see the Marfa Lights
The viewing platform nine miles east of Marfa on US–90 is the go-to stop. Arrive there before the sun sets to get your bearings, note the faraway line of the Chinati Mountains, locate the radio tower, and study the highway. You won’t be alone. Despite Marfa’s remote location, the funky, artistic town of 1,700 attracts an outsized number of visitors (and has a surprisingly good food scene). So local who creates this myth using it to sale food , drinks, gifts, and it is an opportunity that kept this town a life. Alternatively, head out to the Shurley Ranch, 22 miles south of Marfa, where Mike Shurley invites travelers to gaze from his open land, where a hard-to-miss sign reads “Starlight Gazing — Parking.”
Back in the one-traffic-light town, stay at the Hotel Paisano , where James Dean obsessed over the lights while filming Giant here in 1955. Dean, it’s worth noting, tragically died shortly after leaving Marfa. Maybe he knew too much?
Forget what the believers and the skeptics say. Forget what you’ve seen, or think you’ve seen, with your own eyes. There’s no way to know if the Marfa lights are real—and that’s what’s so great about them.
YEAH,” I’VE ALWAYS TOLD anyone who asked me about the Marfa lights, “I’ve seen them. I’ve been to far West Texas my brother Sam used to live near by , and I lived in Indio– California back in 1988.
I’ve seen them at dusk and at midnight, by myself and with other people. They appeared in the darkness south of U.S. 90 between Alpine and Marfa: yellowish-white lights that glowed, faded, disappeared, and returned in different places. Sometimes they changed colors, other times they split apart.
The best place to see them has always been a little half-moon of paved road off U.S. 90, about nine miles east of Marfa. You pull over and park as if you’re having a nighttime picnic (there are even tables) and wait for the lights to appear.
In 2003 the town used $720,000 from the federal government and the Texas Department of Transportation to expand that area into the Marfa Mystery Lights Viewing Center, one of the oddest roadside monuments in the state, a giant, circular adobe restroom with mounted binoculars and bronzed plaques.
The main one reads “The Marfa Mystery Lights are visible on many clear nights between Marfa and Paisano Pass as one looks towards the Chinati Mountains. The lights may appear in various colors as they move about, split apart, melt together, disappear and reappear. Robert Reed Ellison, a young cowboy, reported sighting the lights in 1883.” Another says that O. W. Williams, the grandfather of former gubernatorial candidate Clayton Williams, “first wrote of the mysterious lights in the 1880s.”
Driving to that spot, there is blue roadside sign that said “Marfa’s Mystery Lights Viewing Area: Night Time Only.” Well, duh. But the truth is, you have to see the landscape in the daylight to take in the full measure of this mystery. The terrain between Marfa and Alpine is downright otherworldly; you’re in the desert, yet you’re also almost a mile high, surrounded by all these stark, lonely mountains. And you’re gazing out over this wide plain, the Mitchell Flat, that empties southward into the dark mountains of Mexico far away. There is something magical about the Flat, as if it were a stage.
Steve Ramsey, PhD. Okotoks , Alberta.