Marfa Lights Optics Experiment

A demonstration of the optics that create the Marfa Lights, using a facial mirror and a flashlight. Includes video segments, aerial photos, and 3-D images illustrating the phenomenon.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• Marfa
• Lights
• optics
• experiment
• science

[lowlandpark]

Don't dismiss temperature inversions so easily. Very shallow inversions occur, only a few feet deep, when the ground stays warm and air above it cools. Ag pilots know that you have to wait until these things mix to spray, or the spray will drift on the cushion of warm air for miles. They form at night. They can persist into the morning.

That's why the videos at my site were taken at about 11:00 in the morning and not at 6:00 a.m.

[telluricfields]

dear lowlandpark,

Sorry for slow response. The guy from Skeptoid hangs his hat on mirages, but then he says they appear about 12 times/yr. Reasoning is sound.

Problem is, that I have been present before, during and after a thunderstorm has saturated the area and evened out the temp. Yet, the lights were visible throughout -even appeared a little brighter - consistent with wet soil.

Anyway, that's why I favor reflected soil over mirages. But clearly, you can't discount mirages.

[wood13118]

are you a freshman in high school? you proved nothing about the marfa lights.

[telluricfields]

Dear Mr/Ms. wood13118,

No, thank you, I am a junior in High School. The time I spent as a freshman was the best 29 years of my life. Look over the complete data set, including the hyperspectral analysis, in Parts I and II. FAQs can be found in the latest video.

The Travel Channel recently included some of the footage from these videos on one of their programs. Models (like the mirror example) are essential to understanding science.

telly

[telluricfields]

Dear rlmarr,

I sincerely appreciate your interest in the Marfa Light analyses that I posted on YouTube. It is not necessary to reply to each one (of the 5). I think you're missing the point that the research design was appropriate to study the Marfa Lights. Buzzwords like "brain storming," "note taking," etc. are useful when data are involved. Anecdotal stories are ancillary at best.

In science hard measureable data and experiments that can be repeated trump everything.

T.F.

[telluricfields]

Dear Rimarr,

Well, uh, thanks for reviewing the site and the science. While I can't argue about your own observations, I can tell you that there is no record of Native Americans, ranchers or pilots seeing and documenting the Lights.

To date, this study is the only source of hard information. Please look at the most recent video ["FAQs..."]where many of your comments are addressed.

Telly Fields

[schmelonball]

Why have Marfa Lights been seen for over 100 years. Long before cars where even invented. They also change colors. People have been trying for years to explain the lights. Good try!!

[attovishnu]

Doesn't explain the sightings of the lights from way before the highway was ever there.

[KeMoniito]

@IESigma If your stupid "car lights reflections" theory had any real substance and truth to it, we would've have this same phenomena going on everywhere beacause there are thousands of locations with this very same topography and highways conditions as to make or produce the same phenomena in different locations. so i don't care how many universities have done studies and come up with the lamest simplest explanations to justify their incompetence to come up with some real answers....

[KeMoniito]

Your explanation theory is good... to bad is not what causes the Marfa lights... the Marfa lights pre-date the invention ot the car, the light bulb and the construction of the highway that you claim is in oposition to the viewing area where the lights are seen..... good try though.... ( car lights...?....LMAO....)

[IESigma]

@stexwhisperer Thanks for your note. Yours was one of the many ideas that I had hoped to answer when the hyperspectral aircraft sensor flew over the region. Each light source would give off a characteristic spectral pattern. But no one saw anything from above, and the 215 channel sensor (UV-TIR) recorded nothing. Yet the ground observer recorded the lights clearly. Review the "Marfa LIGHTS FAQ" YouTube. The first written record of the MLs was in 1957.

Warmest,

Telly

[stexwhisperer]

The Big Bend region was part of my thesis area. Professors from Sul Ross/SFASU propose that the fault lines have quartz lining them, heating from the day releases pressures when night falls, quartz crystals have A,B,C axis, like with any quartz light, when energy is propagated along the B axis, light is generated. The 40 years I have spent in the area, I have heard of the lights being sighted by the Native Americans, long before cars.

[stexwhisperer]

The Big Bend region was part of my thesis area. Professors from Sul Ross/SFASU propose that the fault lines have quartz lining them, heating from the day releases pressures when night falls, quartz crystals have A,B,C axis, like with any quartz light, when energy is propagated along the B axis, light is generated. The 40 years I have spent in the area, I have heard of the lights being sighted by the Native Americans, long before cars.

[IESigma]

@sandosrules Once again, Sandosrules, you have completely, yes completely missed science methodology. All your tales of indians, cowboys, military, etc. are folklore UNTIL you back it up with a published report. By the way, the Discovery Channel used one of my segments in some story of theirs. Publish your references or go to some site about chupacabras, ghosts, UFO sightings. These undocumented claims are really getting old.

[IESigma]

@sandosrules NVanWendy is correct. Again, I cannot emphasize strongly enough that it is the person making the claim WHO MUST PRESENT THE EVIDENCE. PUBLISH YOUR SOURCE, or quit wasting our time. I've heard stories like yours for 20 yrs. And so far: NADA. The proof is YOUR responsibility, not ours.

Actually, the 1986 Unsolved Mysteries episode supports the reflection theory, and does so quite plainly. The ML "FAQ" and "ML 1996" videos, with me in them have been up for years.

[NVanWendy]

@sandosrules I am not going to fly down from Vancouver and rent a car and hotel room for god knows how long, just so I can see what thousands of others have seen.

I'd rather see my idea for an experiment tried out by locals: on a night when the lights are showing, get 3 or 4 cars and tape a colored theatre gel over one headlight. Drive them in a line down the hill in question - past the white cut and all that - and see if any Marfas are red or green that night. You'll have proof either way. 8-)

[NVanWendy]

@TroyLFullerton Actually, the bit about the 1880s is popular lore and isn't backed up anywhere. The first recorded reports were in the automobile era. (Or so says the science show I saw on TV; they could be wrong, but I can't believe they wouldn't research it.)

[sandosrules]

@NVanWendy I have a better idea. Go see for yourself them come tell me what they are. I've seen them for myself on two separate occasions and if it is reflections why aren't they appearing every night.. Just cause you want to see the lights doesn't mean you will. After seeing them for yourself then come talk to me about optics