They Mysterious Marfa Lights of Texas

[Cowperson]

Science can't explain everything . . . . including the Marfa lights appearing in the desert in Texas which have baffled observors for more than a century.

The Marfa lights—spontaneous bursts of illumination that materialize, year-round, on clear nights over the Chihuahuan Desert in west Texas—are a bona-fide unexplained natural phenomenon. They've defied scientific rationalization for more than a century. Are they swamp gases? Bent light? Electrostatic discharges? Signal lights from alien spacecraft? Nobody knows where they come from or why they appear when and where they do.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6390119/

Cowperson

[Maritime Q-Scout]

come on now Cow

didn't see you that HomeHardware commercial... they're Canadian Christmas Lights

[Lanny_MacDonald]

I read someplace that they were found to be natural combustion of surface methane deposits.

That or an alien lighting his farts.

[Looger]

just think how long northern lights were a mystery, and these sound like a far more area-specific phenomenon.

the explosion over tunguska in the early 20th century lit up the sky over northern europe for nearly a week, in fact england and scotland had all-night golf tournaments.

that was a once-in-a-while thing, but illustrates how much of the sky gets lit by a localized occurrence.