[SPEAKER_00]: For more than a century, people near Marfa in West Texas have described distant lights that seem to hover, split, vanish, or move in weird ways.
[SPEAKER_00]: Today, nine miles east of Marfa on the shoulder of U.S. Highway 90, visitors can gather at a viewing platform facing open desert.
[SPEAKER_00]: People wait.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes for minutes, sometimes for hours.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes nothing happens and other times on the horizon.
[SPEAKER_00]: A point of light appears.
[SPEAKER_00]: It might be singular and might be multiple.
[SPEAKER_00]: and they can be white, yellow, orange, red, or blue.
[SPEAKER_00]: Modern experiments have shown that many lights visible from the official viewing area are almost certainly automobile headlights seen through unusual distance, darkness, terrain, and unique atmospheric conditions that distort lights by extreme temperature radiance in the desert air.
[SPEAKER_00]: Simply put, this creates an optical illusion.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that may not explain the entire phenomenon.
[SPEAKER_00]: Other investigations have pointed to more geological explanations while others simply don't have an explanation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Interestingly, many other locations around the world experience their own unexplained ghost lights.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some similar to Marfa, some with their own unique quirks and legends.
[SPEAKER_00]: Today we're lucky to sit down with filmmaker Adam Stowell who has been to Marfa and has tried to follow the lights himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a study of strange.
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome back to the podcast, I am Michael and it is a special day because Adam still well is back on the show.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hi, Adam.
[SPEAKER_00]: How you doing?
[SPEAKER_00]: Returning guest.
[SPEAKER_00]: Returning guest feels good.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm really excited you're here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't have a guest on as much anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm thrilled to have a guest in the first place, but I'm glad it to you because I haven't seen you in a while.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, this is nice.
[SPEAKER_00]: But also, you have actually been out to the Marfa region and seen things, which I'm going to wait before I ask you specifics about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You got it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you're about to go film a movie.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can we tell people that or do I need to do it?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've got to head up to Montana to shoot a feature or my next horror feature.
[SPEAKER_01]: So very excited.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's a scatterbrained, but excited to get in here and talk about, you know, some real kind of mysterious stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: Real mysterious stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, when your movie's back out, you should come back on the show to tell people about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, lunatic.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's going to be a blast.
[SPEAKER_00]: Awesome.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, Marfa, just to give the listeners here a little bit of like historical context, I'm going to go over some of the history and feel free to interrupt me at them if you've heard something different or have your own input.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going to obviously go over everything, but just kind of some basic stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: Cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the Texas State Historical Association identifies the earliest recorded marphal lights as being reported by a guy named Robert Reed, Ellison in 1883.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's apparently a young cowhand that was passing through the Pizano pass.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you know if I'm saying that right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Pizano pass?
[SPEAKER_01]: Not sure, but that sounds good.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just going to say, I like it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, he saw a flickering light in the distance and initially wondered whether it was a campfire made by a patchy.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he described it as more of like a distant fire with some flickering, which is a little different than some of the videos and photos and descriptions I hear nowadays.
[SPEAKER_00]: According to later tradition, he also had learned to talk to local residents that had also seen interesting strange lights that no one could explain.
[SPEAKER_00]: The I will mention there are no contemporaneous 1883 newspaper articles.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no like direct evidence that this Robert read Ellis and actually have these experiences.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just kind of like local legend local legend.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then in 1945, a investigation by a reporter in Michael Hall led him to write an article for the San Angelo Times titled Ghost Light Appears in Marfa area.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is one of the earliest newspaper treatments that people are aware of, it's sort of shared the story.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if it's okay at him, I'm actually going to read some of that article because it is really fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: Love it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ghostlight appears in Marfa area.
[SPEAKER_00]: Defying detection of its sorcer location, a mysterious light has blazed periodically in the heaven's southwest of here for more than 40 years.
[SPEAKER_00]: The first reigns of April or May usually bring out the ghostly light, plainly visible from highways around Marfa, and it remains to lightly confound the citizenry until the dry spells in the fall.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love the language of this article, everyone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: The elusive light often changed in color and shaped frequently disappearing for a few minutes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Searching parties have in the past sought out to hunt the light source after a few miles, the light fades for those hunting, although those back on the highway continue to see it in all of its brilliance, which is actually a question I have for you a little later.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Elusive to the Instagram, it just won't be found.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, hold on, what's the last thing I wanted to say here?
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, the light supposedly was first seen more than 40 years ago by Dr. Monroe Slack, one of Marfa's old timers.
[SPEAKER_00]: And since then it has flashed and blazed to confound travelers in the local citizens and probably always will.
[SPEAKER_00]: By the way, I looked up Dr. Rump Monroe Slack to see if I could find some sort of quote, I couldn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: But he is real like this isn't done.
[SPEAKER_00]: sensational piece.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's a real guy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was able to find information about him.
[SPEAKER_00]: His kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think he was in a Thomas wrist.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I could be, I could be just remembering that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But he had been, he definitely was like an old timer of Marfa.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had been in that area since at least the early 1900s that I could find.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, he had said 40 years prior when was this written?
[SPEAKER_01]: So when would that make that happen?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that he had been like okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's important to my story.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I just wanted to clarify.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when we get there, I'm going to have some questions, too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nice.
[SPEAKER_00]: So another one of the biggest sort of breakthroughs in this story spreading more nationally than just like local was an article in a magazine called Corinette by a guy named Paul Moran in 1957.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this helped really spread the story of these strange
[SPEAKER_00]: And it resembled other ghost lights, because I'm sure you've heard that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, there are other weird lights all around the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll make some of them later on.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is kind of similar to that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm sure people around the world relate and take an interest in it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then in 1976, Folklorist Eaton.
[SPEAKER_00]: excuse me, Elton Miles published tales of the Big Bend through Texas A&M University Press, and that also then started to kind of put it in more of the modern I suppose I can call it that and spread the story.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then in the 2000s there's been a lot of investigations of which I'm not going to mention now, but we may get to those later on, which have also been really interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, Adam,
[SPEAKER_00]: When did you go to Marfa when was this?
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, this is actually cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a couple years ago when so the solar eclipse, the path of totality was going right through Austin and San Antonio.
[SPEAKER_01]: And my girlfriend wanted to go and I was like, Hell yeah, I've never seen it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So have you ever seen the full totalities or no, I didn't always wanted to.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm going to do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the movie Apocalypse, though, they kind of have it and it's pretty amazing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it is that in real life.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like a special effect.
[SPEAKER_01]: It gets dark, like, and the birds start chirping because they think it's night.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the mood, like, there's this glow around.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like nothing you've ever seen before.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like a special effect.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was awesome.
[SPEAKER_01]: But also on the way there, we're in LA.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd heard of that Marfa was a little drive, you know, a little off the beaten path to get to.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I wanted to go on the way out.
[SPEAKER_01]: I met a friend out there.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were like, you got to go to Marfa.
[SPEAKER_01]: This burger is delicious and the place is awesome.
[SPEAKER_01]: They didn't go to the Marfa lights either.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, did you go to Marfa?
[SPEAKER_01]: They're like, no, and I'm like, well, we're going on the way back.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are going.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to go get the burger.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to see the town because the town's really cool too.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like worth the trip.
[SPEAKER_01]: even for my buddy who didn't even go to see the lights, but also in my opinion, I'm still going, okay, they say that there's lights, but you know, I mean, so yeah, it's a couple years ago, I'll preface by saying I'm from Montana.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's very clear skies up there.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of open land, and I've seen
[SPEAKER_01]: Plenty of UFOs, plenty of crazy things in the sky just out of nowhere.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is, so this is something I've heard, you know, is you go to the certain rest stop and you look in a certain direction and so we did a little research I don't know if you want me to go all the way in or if you have a question, a preface or do you want me to just go right now?
[SPEAKER_00]: You can dive in, you're doing it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so
[SPEAKER_01]: So, okay, and we see this path, the solar clips, then we head to Marfo, we have the burger.
[SPEAKER_01]: Night, we got it, there's a little camps, great little camping area right by where apparently the rest stop that you need to go to and look towards Mexico.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's very, very close to Mexico.
[SPEAKER_01]: That comes into play here in my story a little later, too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: So,
[SPEAKER_01]: We have the burger.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, okay, cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: And let's go.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's go to the rest stop.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's let's see what's up.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, and we had just driven in.
[SPEAKER_01]: I saw the rest of it didn't look like anything special.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we start driving out and we start getting close to the rest stop.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's campers.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's car.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's tons of people at this rest stop.
[SPEAKER_01]: We pull up right away.
[SPEAKER_01]: We get a little, no good parking spot.
[SPEAKER_01]: I step out and I look and everybody's looking in the direction the lights are there.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're happening.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not like, yeah, it's not like, oh, we're waiting and maybe it'll happen once.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, it's constant.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was going.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was like a fireworks show that went off.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we finally, you know, we're there and we finally had to leave after being there for a couple of hours going, well, it's not going to change, but I'll describe to you what it looks like, what I saw.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, so what I saw immediately, I was like, what are they all looking at?
[SPEAKER_01]: That just looks like cars in the distance or a reflection of headlights.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's just like, you know, far in the distance, you're looking to maybe the side of a hill and and that's
[SPEAKER_01]: bridge, and you can see headlights going across, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, the weird part with the marphalites is it looks like that, but the headlights, if you look really carefully, it looks like it's going across the, you know, there's like hills in the horizon.
[SPEAKER_01]: It looks like, oh, maybe it's just a highway there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, then the lights go off into the sky for a little bit, and then they fall off.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: So immediately, I'm like, what are all these fools looking at?
[SPEAKER_01]: It just looks like it's just reflection of, it's the highway, it's cars.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's immediately what I felt.
[SPEAKER_01]: But then when you, like I said, upon looking closer and that the lights went off into the sky a little bit, just a little, but they did and it was constant.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm like, there's not enough people down here to make this constant traffic.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really interesting because a lot of the descriptions are exactly what you're describing.
[SPEAKER_00]: But also a lot of the descriptions can be different.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what I think I find fascinating about this case.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because there are theories.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's been studies that have actually proven some of the lights are from a highway.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's highway.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wrote it down somewhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's 67 or 47.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a highway and it has to do with the atmosphere at conditions and it creates these weird like reflections and changes and how the light bounces around and travels.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then there's people there like, well, but the high like people are on the highway today and it's the right atmosphere at conditions and it doesn't appear or the lights sometimes come at the people or away from them instead of that line you're talking
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that's one of the interesting weird things is that it's sort of been disproven, but at the same time not proven.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, this is what I'll say.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, I know I like that you do this because you're skeptic and you want to get to the truth.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a little bit of the opposite.
[SPEAKER_01]: I like the not knowing and I want it to be, I want to believe, you know, kind of stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: But this in particular, I was like immediately on your side, like, no, no way.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is just exactly what you just said.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it never really changed, and it was pretty constant.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what I did is we were there for a couple hours, and I'm like, I'm going over there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, yes, I see where the lights are coming, and I'm going right towards it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I'm gonna see it for myself.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I go drive back through Marfa, my girlfriend, probably fall on a sleep, she's like done, but I'm like, there's no way we're here.
[SPEAKER_01]: I see this, it looks totally plausible that it's just cars.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know how it goes off in the horizon, but thinking like you said, I didn't have done that research, but I'm like, maybe it just is some weird reflecting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So...
[SPEAKER_01]: I go and I start I drive you have to turn like left in Marfa and there's really not a lot of roads out there.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're at the bottom of the country and you there's not a lot.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I just kind of go off in the direction and there is indeed what you know I start going going and I'm like there's not enough traffic coming back this way right to.
[SPEAKER_01]: this constant thing that we were watching.
[SPEAKER_01]: Number one, that's number one weird thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Number two is there was, in the distance, I don't know what it is if it's for planes or whatever, but tall, blinking lights, it's like a tall tower and it has like three-binking lights.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not...
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not sure where you call it either, but I know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and what's funny is that first I saw that and like that's what they think the thing is and like, no, no, that's, that's, that's, that's not it, that's these weird car lights.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I drove by that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I knew, I knew where I was.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was like, I'm on the right track because I knew where that was.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was headed towards the area.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I kid you not, I kid you not.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't even know how or what happened.
[SPEAKER_01]: All of a sudden I'm in Mexico and I'm driving and I look and the border station is there and I'm like this is not good number one.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't I haven't been to Mexico driving in a while.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know how hard it is to get back in.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, but.
[SPEAKER_01]: the marphalites tricked me into Mexico.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me check for one second because it's really cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the article I was reading from earlier, I skipped some of it to not take forever.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there is a, I want to read one sentence.
[SPEAKER_00]: So here it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess fixes the light about 50 to 75 miles southwest of Marfa.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some say it is across the river in Mexico.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's one of the interesting things about this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Dude, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is what sucks that it thwarted my research.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because then, I mean, it's two in the morning at this point.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I'm not going to say I didn't sit there and have a beer, watching the marfa lights.
[SPEAKER_01]: And now I have to get back into the country.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then, and what do I tell them?
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I was just, you know, looking for this, yeah, I was looking for this mysterious light.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, am I girlfriend's asleep?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, what, like, and yeah, what were you doing?
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, so I immediately abandoned and luckily it was pretty easy to get back in and I don't know what I told them.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't tell them that because I just, you know, didn't want to answer more questions than I had to.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, but yes, there I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it may be the secret lies in Mexico.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: This secret lies in Mexico.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's something I don't honestly besides that article in your story.
[SPEAKER_00]: I haven't really heard that come up a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know it's sort of, you know, this is Western Texas, and it's near the border.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I haven't heard people been like, oh, maybe it's something deep in Mexico or what I should think deep in Mexico.
[SPEAKER_00]: But
[SPEAKER_01]: No, it's right on the it's so strange, man, because I don't like I've never been over the like I've been down to San Diego or San Diego and went down into Tijuana like I know that border situation I've been up to Canada playing times there's a border this I was where I thought the lights might be and immediately on I looked and I'm all in looking at that so I'm not paying attention to all my left on the other side of the freeway or not freeway it's like small like small roads.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a border station and I've already driven past it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm in Mexico, like there was no, like you're in Mexico.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was like, no, you just got tricked into going into Mexico by the Marfilite.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe they're just there is like a tourist thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I like it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, come on in.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to grab the border.
[SPEAKER_01]: Honestly, I wish I had more, but immediately when that happened, I had to abandon ship and go, OK, go and home.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I swear, we went back.
[SPEAKER_01]: Those lights were still going at like two and a morning, too.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's also interesting because there's so many people I've read about that go out and don't see it.
[SPEAKER_01]: that strange and unless we hit a really good time this this seemed like something that was constant every night you could go see yeah and that's it also kind of relates to that article too which talked about a certain time a year do you remember what time a year you were out there the solar clips I could look it up um
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's all right.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's all right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll ask, yeah, I got, I'll get it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, but also, here's another question.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if it was anything to do with cars, I looked up, there were no cars in 1905.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's one of the things people point to with that this is something that's unexplainable and you can't just say, oh, no, it's the highways and light bouncing around.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just a lot of the early accounts say that this area, they didn't have the same highways first of all, so even if when they're weird.
[SPEAKER_00]: around the early 1900s.
[SPEAKER_00]: The road situation was different.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if people had been seeing it even before then, like 1883, there's that story.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't necessarily believe that story just because I encounter how these local legends kind of grow from nothing, or grow from little bits and pieces of stories, and it's like a game of telephone and changes.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I don't necessarily believe that one story, but maybe people were
[SPEAKER_00]: So just for fun, do you want to hear about some of the investigations that have happened?
[SPEAKER_01]: I do, and I do want to tell you when I did see it was February 2026.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's when I was there.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was February, probably February 20th, because the eclipse was on the 17th.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's interesting because I think the newspaper article was talking about more of like the summer time so you were there not at the time there's a newspaper said interesting and it was a good good cheeseburger great great burger It's go to Marfa in Marfa
[SPEAKER_00]: If I ever go and I do want to go, if I always wanted to go, I'm going to remember that and be like, I'm going to touch you and be like, much please, myself and Matt Mercer, I don't know if you know Matt, but I have that Mercer movement.
[SPEAKER_01]: Matt is my buddy.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is the one that told me about the burger and didn't go see the lights.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, he's that kind of guy, I guess.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, but yes, I'd love to hear.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so I won't go over all of these, but I just think these are interesting little tidbits of this story.
[SPEAKER_00]: So in 2002, there was an investigation by a John S. Janks.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that name.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wrote for the Earth of Observation Magazine, and he did airborne hyper spectral
[SPEAKER_00]: he was proposing that the Marfa lights behavior could be explained by automobile headlights.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the normal theory that's been popping up around basically since early days.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he, if there was aircraft observations that he took into account all sorts of stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, essentially he came to the conclusion that it was headlights.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like it was, and it was again, you have to have the perfect atmosphere of conditions because I don't think you're looking directly at the highway.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the highway is kind of like off to one direction.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not in that specific direction that everybody's looking from from the observation area.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it has to do with heat and air and other scientific things that I do not fully understand.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, it's definitely hot and dry down there.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: The next investigation that I think is really interesting is in 2005, the University of Texas at Dallas had physics students go out and actually study this, and this is like a handful of people, it's not just one person.
[SPEAKER_00]: They saw lights that appeared.
[SPEAKER_00]: from the viewing area to Correspond closely with vehicle traffic on Highway 67.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it is Highway 67.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had that number almost correct.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the light movements matched those from the highway.
[SPEAKER_00]: They even used controlled vehicles to test and reproduce this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so essentially that's that was their conclusion as well, then there have been other researchers in 2008 to 2009 there were more people that did a study for the American Journal of physics.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they put out that anomalous incidents, and hopefully I'm not misunderstanding their study.
[SPEAKER_00]: Essentially, they could explain it away from headlights and other things like that, except for about 0.9% of the time, they couldn't explain the lights.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what I found so interesting about that is like, wait, all of this seems to make scientific sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can be skeptics and study this, except wait a second.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know it's a small percentage, but,
[SPEAKER_00]: we can't explain that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just I love those.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those are as much as I'm a skeptic.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love those a little bits of history.
[SPEAKER_00]: They get left.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then there's another guy James Bennell.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mentioned his name earlier.
[SPEAKER_00]: I read one of his books, probably three years ago now.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he's done a number of studies out there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And
[SPEAKER_00]: he pretty much says a similar thing where like it's mostly automobiles except there's some unexplained things going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So as again, I sort of as much as we can debunk things, you can't debunk all of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's one of the fascinating things about the marfa lights.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then again, there's things like this all around the world and all of those places that have these ghost lights, you can't explain in the same way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they can't all be, they can't all be automobiles.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of them are will of the whisp have you heard of that?
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Will of the Wisps, I think it has to do with swamp gas, but it is lights that typically appear in these like hot humid swampy areas that people have not been able to explain over time, except from like gases and weird atmospheric things, but those lights tend to be almost almost really like ghosts.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're more as it's with Will of the Wisps, so it is kind of wispy, which you're describing is not that at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, it wasn't.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was very much the car thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, but they it was there was a certain slight strangeness to it and it did go into the sky a little bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: It went off the horizon into the sky.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so yeah, well, you know what?
[SPEAKER_01]: I would be super interested if anybody, you know, listening
[SPEAKER_01]: would has been there.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if it is constant, like, you know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, yeah, that's what I want to do too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it just felt that way.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, yeah, there were so many people there.
[SPEAKER_01]: It felt like a, like, yeah, this happens all the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like going to a fireworks show that happens all the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't think it was like a weekend or anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I'm curious about that, too.
[SPEAKER_00]: So please write in, you can email me a study of StrangerGmail.com with your experiences there, because part of me in my research, I tend to go to different blogs and stuff, because I want to hear what people have to say about their personal experiences, even though I don't always trust blogs.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: But a lot of people that have been, there aren't a lot of people that say like they didn't see anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I don't think it is constant.
[SPEAKER_00]: I really feel like you got to be a good one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah lucky or unlucky.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was drew me into Mexico and never to come back.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think you're lucky because I'm lucky during your direct experience.
[SPEAKER_00]: And personally, it was a great thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I did look and it says, yes, I was US Highway 67 runs through Marfa, ultimately reaches the Mexican border at Presidio, Texas, about 60 miles south of Marfa.
[SPEAKER_01]: I even feel like I drove that long, but I'm sure I did.
[SPEAKER_01]: From there, you can cross the Presidio, Ocean Naga, International Bridge into Ocean Naga, and I definitely did that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_00]: Man, there's so many movies that start that one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, believe me, I thought that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I thought that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, this might be one with not a good ending.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was worth it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So now that you've had a few years now to think about this, do you have any theories
[SPEAKER_01]: Man, the car thing, it is the only, the only thing that makes sense because it was so constant.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it is hard because it was so constant and when I was driving, it was pretty late and there wasn't as many cars I don't think that could make that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the certain reflection thing, and then seeing that they were happening before cars were even a thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: That you never,
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the it's the only thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I've seen so many crazy things in the sky.
[SPEAKER_01]: This was not it's not it's not it's not crazy except it's it's not like seeing you have over you whole the shit that was a crazy like changing direction green light in the sky like mind blowing thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is seems so it's so close to normal, but just I just figured it's like tweaking reality just a tiny bit enough to go wait a second.
[SPEAKER_01]: Which is really cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's super interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and some people have brought up it's I like that you brought up the UFO thing is I I don't think I would be a host of a show like this without at least mentioning there are people that do think this could be related to UFOs.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was an airfield built in 1942 I believe that was used a lot in that time again near near when that article was first written.
[SPEAKER_00]: But people have kind of debunked the airfield thing because I think it's still in use.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's still like a small airport.
[SPEAKER_00]: Should they've like done studies and whether there's planes and stuff there aren't the same lights.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, it is so un-UFO-like that I don't think it is a UFO myself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that it is an interesting thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what I just thought is if it is a car thing, then I have been a Marfa Light.
[SPEAKER_01]: My car, and myself, if it...
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow, so now I really hope it is a car thing because then I mean, how cool is that how close I mean, you know, I've all the podcasts that have probably talked about the marphalites.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm the first one to say I have a marphalite I am marphalites and you can, too, if you want to go bumble into Mexico on Highway 67 Go down in history
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I really want to go and there are some ones.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's one and there's one go slide in Arkansas.
[SPEAKER_00]: I forget where exactly it is and I think it's the Hestalin lights are also one of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, there's a number of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would love to go.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it would be interesting to see like the if it's similar or you know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because once you it's so hard to explain, because once you see it, it's burned into your mind, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you can go see other things and go, no, this is different.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that would be interesting for sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, good.
[SPEAKER_00]: And also, we supported the local economy of Marfa.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, it's not a big town.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think they rely on these tourists.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's important.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what do you go check it out?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a really cool little town, really weird little art galleries and stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's worth like a nice side trip if you're just like Austin or something.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: For sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: Totally worth it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, thank you, Adam.
[SPEAKER_00]: I really appreciate you coming on to share this story.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, yeah, best of luck when you're when you're out of town filming this summer.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll see you some weird shit.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we'll talk about it and hopefully come back and I'm going to get some more of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I could work with you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks a lot, Adam.
[SPEAKER_01]: See you soon.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for listening to a study of strange.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Additionally, if you've experienced something strange unusual, unexplained, scary, we want to hear about it.
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