The Story of The Brown Mountain Lights

Not far from Morganton, North Carolina, there is an overlook you can pull over for with a sign titled “Brown Mountain”. It’s a great view no matter what time of day you stop by, but you’ll notice a lot of people pulled over at this spot during the nighttime. These people are trying to get a glimpse of the legendary lights of Brown Mountain. In today’s post, I will be giving you an eyewitness account along with some evidence they sent over. For more evidence check out Ark Adventures on YouTube.

I’ve been up there probably 7 or 8 times and have seen the lights every time I’ve gone. I first went as a teenager with my father and friend on a camping trip. My father knew about the lights and told me and my friend. So of course we wanted to see for ourselves. On that first trip, I didn’t have a camera, but all three of us saw many strange lights down in Linville Gorge. We even saw a bright orange light hovering off the left side of Table Rock Mountain.

After this initial trip and experience, me and my friend went back several times specifically to try and see the lights. During these next few trips, I came prepared with a Canon DSLR camera, a 75mm to 300mm telephoto lens, and a tripod. We would hike around the area in the evening to kill time till it got dark out, then head to the Wiseman’s View Overlook to try and catch a glimpse of the lights.

At about 9:00 p.m. (or when it was dark out) I would set my camera up on the tripod and wait for a light to appear somewhere in the gorge. Whenever we would spot one, I would try and frame it in my viewfinder, zoom in as far as I could, and focus on the light. Then I would typically take a 20-30 second exposure. The exposure had to be this long to get any amount of light due to how dark it was outside.

I would repeat taking pictures until the light disappeared or a more interesting one popped up somewhere else. There were a couple of occasions where later in the night, I took a picture and waited 30 seconds for it to complete. Me and my friend would look at the picture on the camera and get so spooked that we freaked ourselves out and left for the night. We would be very excited to get home and look at the pictures in detail on the computer though.

There is one story that stands out above all when it comes to experiences at the gorge though. It’s one of those stories that sounds too crazy to be true but me and 3 friends all witnessed the same thing so I know it happened.

On one trip to Wiseman’s view, me and 3 friends went to see the lights as we’ve done multiple times. Unfortunately, the night was very inactive, and we just weren’t seeing any lights at all. What a bummer. After a couple of hours of looking and waiting, we decided to pack our stuff up and go home. As soon as I turned my camera off and went to take it off the tripod, what can only be described as a spotlight shot up into the sky out of the middle of the gorge. Way too powerful to be any flashlight. The light moved around quickly and then turned and shined directly on the four of us standing at the overlook. Just as quick as it was there, it was gone. We all froze in shock for a couple of seconds, then grabbed our stuff and got back to the car as quickly as possible. It’s an event I will never forget and will swear by its truth till the day I die.

Wow, that was a great story, and the photos are incredible! Thank you Ark Adventures for the story and photos!

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