Mystery and the Marfa Lights
The line between mystery and the mundane is fairly thin. We live in a world of human construction, where mystery is relegated to the edges, and sometimes missing from the map altogether. Yet, in the larger world, especially in the world of nature, mysteries abound—meaning, those elements of reality that fall outside our explanations and normative conventions exist. I experienced one such mystery this week in West Texas.
I saw the Marfa lights this past week with my own eyes for the first time. I had heard about them, and from credible witnesses who had seen them, but now they are part of my own lived experience. Amazing! Twelve of us on a trip to the Davis Mountains drove to Marfa and after visiting the “must see” bookstore and the Judd modern art museum, went to the viewing location beside Highway 90 five miles West of town.
The sun had set, but it was quite light out. No sooner had we adjusted to the location and the direction of viewing, the lights appeared and continued in profusion throughout the next forty-five minutes and the deepening darkness.
Cast against a backdrop of low mountains twenty-five miles away, and an empty plain except for a lone railroad track, the globes of bright white (and sometimes red) light would appear alone or in groups, drift together, split apart, fade or wink out, and then suddenly reappear again. Sometimes they were as many as five-to-ten at once, sometimes one or two. Their intensity varied. They seemed to move about staying close to the horizon. At times they would blink on, appearing in the mountains, at other times they appeared to arise from the earth, but they were active, obvious and bright.
So what are they? Though scientific studies by various professionals and physics departments as well as the government have been made, there is no consensus. Some believe them to be an anomalous form of electro-magnetic energy, yet they continue to defy explanation. Known by the native peoples and the early settlers, they have been observed from airplanes as well.
We all went not expecting to see much. The sight overwhelmed our expectations as we burst into a chorus of exclamatory amazement. The world at times exceeds our conceptual norms. On the unassuming plains of West Texas, it pushed them to the edge and beyond.
I saw the Marfa lights this past week with my own eyes for the first time. I had heard about them, and from credible witnesses who had seen them, but now they are part of my own lived experience. Amazing! Twelve of us on a trip to the Davis Mountains drove to Marfa and after visiting the “must see” bookstore and the Judd modern art museum, went to the viewing location beside Highway 90 five miles West of town.
The sun had set, but it was quite light out. No sooner had we adjusted to the location and the direction of viewing, the lights appeared and continued in profusion throughout the next forty-five minutes and the deepening darkness.
Cast against a backdrop of low mountains twenty-five miles away, and an empty plain except for a lone railroad track, the globes of bright white (and sometimes red) light would appear alone or in groups, drift together, split apart, fade or wink out, and then suddenly reappear again. Sometimes they were as many as five-to-ten at once, sometimes one or two. Their intensity varied. They seemed to move about staying close to the horizon. At times they would blink on, appearing in the mountains, at other times they appeared to arise from the earth, but they were active, obvious and bright.
So what are they? Though scientific studies by various professionals and physics departments as well as the government have been made, there is no consensus. Some believe them to be an anomalous form of electro-magnetic energy, yet they continue to defy explanation. Known by the native peoples and the early settlers, they have been observed from airplanes as well.
We all went not expecting to see much. The sight overwhelmed our expectations as we burst into a chorus of exclamatory amazement. The world at times exceeds our conceptual norms. On the unassuming plains of West Texas, it pushed them to the edge and beyond.
posted by Lynn Bauman at 8:38 AM
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