Hello and welcome to the program UFO Warning.
In this episode, we're talking about the Marpha lights.
That's correct, the Marpha lights.
Now the Marpha lights are mysterious glowing orbs that
appear near Marpha, Texas. They've intrigued observers for
over a century. These lights often are described
as floating and darting across the night sky.
They sparked numerous theories in They've drawn countless
visitors to this remote region. The Marfa Lights are typically
observed on clear nights between Marfa and Bisano Pass in
northeastern Perseda County, facing the Chinati Mountains.
Witnesses described them as glowing orbs, sometimes collared
a twinkle. Move about, split apart, merge
disappeared, reappear. Now if you want to look at the
map, you'll see this is an extreme West southwest of Texas,
kind of right there in the middle of of a desert area
between Texas and and Mexico and really out West.
The first recorded sighting dates back to 1883 when a young
cowboy, Robert Reed Ellison, noticed a flickering light while
driving cattle through Pasano Pass.
He initially thought it might be Apache campfires, but upon
investigation, no evidence of a campsite was found.
Other settlers, including Joe and Sally Humphreys in 1885,
also reported seeing these unexplained lights during World
War One. Locals fear the lights might be
signals for telling a possible German invasion through Mexico
in World War 2. Pilots training at the nearby
Midland Army field attempted to locate the source from the air
without success. You can see that these things
I've been around for quite a while.
Over the years, the Marfolites have become an integral part of
local folklore. Residents have observed them for
generations, often attributing personal significance to the
phenomena. For instance, Missus WT
Giddings, a long time observer, recounted at her father,
believed the lights led him to the shelter of a cave during a
Blizzard, potentially saving his life.
In recent decades, Marfa has embraced the mystery, hosting an
annual Marfolites festival that attracts visitors worldwide.
Texas Department Transportation constructed A roadside viewing
area 9 miles east of Marfa on US 90, providing an optimal spot
for enthusiasts to observe the lights.
It's a calling. I guess the state found
something good to do with your taxpayer money.
Numerous explanations have been proposed for the Marfa lights.
Some suggest they are an unusual mirage caused by atmospheric
conditions where layers of cold and warm air bin light, making
distinct objects appear close. Others proposed geophysical
phenomena such as piezoelectric charges from underground coarse
deposits or seismic activity generating electrical
discharges. However, studies have provided
more grounded explanations. In 2004, the University of Texas
sent the Society of Physics students to investigate the
lights. Their report.
Their report found a correlation between the appearance of the
lights and the headlights of cars traveling on nearby
highways, suggesting that lights are the result of vehicles
headlights distorted by atmospheric conditions.
Of course, that or that result came from Skeptoid magazine.
Now let's think about it. How many cars do you think we're
driving around in 1833 when a cowboy saw those lights selling
us? Despite scientific efforts to
demystify the Marfa lights, they continue to captivate and
intrigue 1. Whether viewed as a natural
anomaly or supernatural occurrences, the lights remain a
symbol of the pneumatic allure of Texas desert, drawing curious
minds to small the small town of Martha in search of answers.
Yeah, you can look at this on the map and the idea that these
are car headlights. I don't think car headlights zip
around the desert at 60-70 hundred mile an hour back and
forth and changing on a dime. It just goes to show people will
make up any kind of a silly excuse they can when they can't
explain something. Now that just kind of gives you
a little bit of a of an intro there from ChatGPT.
It it does decent work on some of this stuff, but I'm only look
at a couple of other articles here talking about the Marshall
lights. This is just a kind of a quick
overview from lifescience.com. It's got a pretty cool picture
here. You can see these lights kind of
a line of them. They're they're not they're
they're not at an even level. I mean clearly these are not car
lights, it says. What are the Marfa lights?
Written by Mark La Canalia, published June 19th 2013 goes on
and says the Marfa lights, mysterious glowing orbs that
appear in the desert outside the West Texas town of Marfa, have
mystified people for generations.
According to eyewitnesses, the Marfa lights appear to be
roughly the size of basketballs and are varyingly described as
white, blue, yellow, red, or other colors.
Reportedly, the Marfa lights, however, merged twinkle split
into two, flicker, float up into the air or dart quickly across
Mitchell Flat, the area east of Marshall where they're most
commonly reported. There seems to be no way to
predict when the lights will appear.
They've they're seen in various weather conditions, but only a
dozen or so nights a year and nobody knows for sure what they
are or if they really or if they really even exist at all.
The Native Americans of the area thought the Marvel lights were
falling stars, the Houston Chronicle reports.
Well, think about that there again.
I mean, the Native Americans are seeing these things before cars
were invented. Don't think they're headlights.
And I think skeptoid needs to try harder.
The first mention of the lights comes from 1883 when Callahan
Robert Reed Ellison claimed to have seen flickering lights 1
evening while driving a herd of cattle near Mitchell Flat.
He assumed the lights were from Apache campfires, Ellison was
told. The area was told by area
settlers that they often saw the lights too, but upon
investigation, they found no ashes or other evidence of a
campfire, according to the Texas State Historical Association.
During World War 2, pilots from nearby Midland Army Airfield
tried to locate the source of the mysterious lights were
unable to discover anything. Lovers of the paranormal have
attributed the Marfolites to everything from space aliens to
wandering ghosts to Spanish conquistadors.
Academics, too, have tried to offer scientific explanation for
the animatic lights. A group of physics students from
the University of Texas at Dallas concluded that the
headlights from the vehicles on nearby US Hwy. 67 could explain
at least some of the reported sightings of the Marfolites.
I don't even know why they bother, because if you can't
explain the whole thing or how it works, if you can't replicate
them, then what do you do on offering this silly explanation
slash excuse slash debunking narrative?
Another possible explanation explanation says is a refraction
of light, and we've been through this.
Still others speculate the Marfolites may be caused by the
same gases that create the glowing lights associated with
swamp gas. You know, I've been around some
swamps. I've never seen swamp gas.
I guess I'm just not there often enough.
Phosphine, Phosphine PH3 and methane Chapter 4 Under certain
conditions, these gases can ignite when they contact oxygen.
This glowing phenomena, sometimes called will of the
wisp, ignace fatuity, or Fools fire, has been observed around
the world, especially in the marshy areas where the decay of
organic matter can create pockets of phosphine and
methane. Though the Marfolites are
nowhere near a marsh, there are significant reserves of oil,
natural gas and other petroleum hydrocarbons in the area, which
include methane and quantities capable of producing an effect
similar to that created by swamp gas.
I got to tell you though, I'm looking to pictures of these
orbs and they don't look anything like what swamp gas
would look like to me. Retired aerospace engineer James
Burnell chanced upon the Marfa lights while visiting the
viewing platform constructed east of Marfa by the Texas State
Highway Department. I just got lucky.
Burnell told the Chronicle. The lights are rare, but I got
one of the really good displays. Burnell believes the Marfa
lights are the result of the Ignis Rock under Mitchell Flat
that creates a visioelectric charge, IE electricity produced
under the pressure by solid matter such as minerals,
crystals or ceramics. So I guess this is just kind of
like ball lightning, they think. Carl Stefan, an engineer
professor at Texas State University, has considered
Venal's hypothesis but hasn't endorsed it.
It may be geological activity that creates electrical
activity, but it's all speculation to this point.
Stefan Hilda Chronicle There are no proven facts.
Well, that's true. We haven't been able to
replicate it and they haven't been able to really totally
analyzed the saying. So they just had their theories
and some seem more plausible than others.
Now this articles from bbc.com dated January 17th, 2018 written
by a letter Fumi and Elliot Stein says that mysterious ghost
lights of Marfa, Texas. Got some good pictures on here.
Looks like a really flat area with some kind of rolling hills
in the distance. Very dry, a very desert, not
seeing too many trees, got some brush.
And this little town here kind of a quaint little towns around
the deserts. And then this kind of a low, a
low lying mountain range off of the distance 50 miles from the
Mexican border and 200 miles from the nearest major airport.
Martha is a dusty dot of a town with one traffic light and fewer
than 2000 people in remote reaches of far West Texas known
as El Despolado, the uninhabited, almost like the
disposable. Beyond the town's steel water
tower, the Chuan Desert unfurls toward the horizon, and an
endless, expansive cactus scrubs scorched Prairie and tangled
tumbleweeds amid one of EU s s Last Frontiers.
Yeah, this stuff does look remote.
Since the 1970s, a wave of hipsters, artists and urban
transplants have blown in with the winds and turned this
unassuming ranching town into an unlikely avant-garde Mecca.
Today, Marfa is a quirky collision of salons and espresso
bars, 10 gallon hats and berets, and feed stores and vegan
restaurants. But long after Marfa began
attracting the unconventional, people were coming to witness
the inexplicable. For more than 135 years,
mysterious glowing orbs have appeared here in the night sky.
Known as the Marfa Lights. These otherworldly wonders
remain one of the most unexplained mysteries in the
United States. The first sighting was in 1883,
when a young Cowan named Robert Reed Ellison saw a mysterious
dancing light as he was driving his cattle through the plains
and was so spooked he told everyone in town about it.
Since then, farmers, World War 2 servicemen and high school
sweethearts have reported seeing pulsating, colorful balls of
light along an uninhabited stretch of the Prairie southeast
of Marfa known as the Pissano Pass.
The actor James Dean was rumoured to be so obsessed with
the lights that he kept the telescope in his Marfa hotel
room during the filming of the movie Giant in 1956.
That's pretty cool. Today, on clear nights is the
sunsets. People from all over the world
descend on the roadside marked the lights viewing area near
this one horse town and stare out across the district scrub
toward the Gennada Mountain in hopes of catching a glimpse of
this bizarre phenomena. There's no way to predict when
or where the lights will appear, but the glowing orbs generally
form fewer than 30 * a year, usually just after the sunsets
or rises. Now that's interesting that
there would be some consistency to the time of day if this
happens. Some say the lights are roughly
the size of basketballs and dart wildly across the desert or
hover as they pulsate. Others say the spheres appear
colored as they twinkle in the distance.
Sometimes they're red, other times they're blue, yellow, or
white. Often a second orb will appear
to split, merge, float, or melt into the 1st.
That's orb behavior that we see a lot of times in these UFO
sightings. The supernatural streaks are
believed to be everything from UFOs to lost ghost to Spanish
conquistadors to distant car headlights.
In addition, nobody is quite sure what they are or if they
even exist at all. Well, if something can't be
explained, then you just claim it doesn't exist, right?
Perhaps no one is more familiar with the Marfa lights.
And James Bunnell, the retired NASA aerospace engineer, grew up
in the area, attended Marfa High School and returned to 2000 to
witness a shocking light display for which I could find no
reasonable explanation. During the next 12 years, Brunel
set out on a scientific mission to investigate and solve the
mystery of the Marfa lights. He installed 10 wide spectrum
and infrared cameras on neighboring ranches, poured
through footage of the lights movements and hoped to
understand their patterns. No patterns emerged, he said
four books later, but now has a few theories involving how the
Earth's underground friction produces an electromagnetic
light show above the Martha planes, but no definitive
evidence or proof that answers his original question.
What the heck are these things? For all their mystery, the
Martha Lights somehow makes sense here.
Perched nearly a Mile High in the desert, the sweeping plains
that stretch away from Martha's 2 main streets have long served
as a stage for arts and the surreal.
Marfa's unlikely transformation from a sleeping ranching outpost
to a desert chic Oasis for contemporary creatives began in
1971 when Donald Judd, an artist in Major Minimalist, relocated
from New York City. He required the talents
decommissioned World War 2 Army base, fill the two old artillery
sheds with more than 100 pieces of art and scattered 15 giant
concrete box art installations in a lonely pasture.
Today, Judge, the 340 acre Shiani Foundation has inspired a
slew of surreal desert escape art installations that seem to
defy logic, such as Prada Martha, a faux boutique filled
with faux designer handbags and heels in front of a desolate
feel. Yeah, I guess if you're into
that kind of thing. When Judge began converting
Martha's abandoned buildings into galleries in the 1970s,
visitors begin trickling in. Yet or not, for 92 year old
Armando Vasquez, the legend of Martha's mystery lights may have
never spread beyond the Chianti Mountains.
The first time I saw the lights was in 1971.
That was amazed. It seemed like a fairy tale.
Vasquez said. Business in Martha had been
slow. And I can see the potential of
these lights could bring to our town.
So for the next 20 years, Vasquez began taking visitors
from Martha's to motels, out to a dusty bluff at dusk and see
the lights. For years, we didn't have anyone
here except the people who wanted to see the lights,
Vasquez said. I was afraid Marfa would turn
out to be a ghost town, but this was very good because it helped
to keep our town alive. Ask us petition the Marfa
Chamber of Commerce to help promote the phenomena for years,
to no avail. Then in 1986, they finally
organized the inaugural Marfa Lights Festival. 32 years later,
the annual festival is still held each September and now
attracts thousands of spectators.
It's kind of a neat way to promote your little town.
My parents and grandparents saw the lights.
It's always been here, said 80 year old Ori W, whose family
helped settle Marfa in the 1880s.
I hope they never find out about what's out there.
Mysteries make life interesting. Isn't that cool?
I did a looking around and just to see if I can find any kind of
UFO sightings related to the Marfolites and there's some
scant stuff out there. I found this over in Reddit.
I think the user's name was called a chicken nugget.
This is. This was not the famous
Marfolites by the way. I think this was unrelated, but
who knows and I think maybe it was related.
This happened on Friday, May 21st, 2023.
I wish I posted about it when it happened, but I didn't because
quite frankly I didn't think it would change anything.
I'm also sure these things are relatively common so I don't
believe this was a one off incident.
However, I'm curious if anyone else has seen what I saw.
My girlfriend and I were in Marfa, Texas, lying on a blanket
looking up at the sky. There was virtually no light
pollution and we had been watching the sky for a good
three to four hours, which is the only reason I believe we saw
this thing. A large object, which I
estimated was around 50 feet long and a few 1000 feet in the
air, about as low as a low flying airplane, flew over our
heads in just one or two seconds.
It was by far the fastest thing I've ever seen.
The object was Oval shaped, kind of like a fish oil pill.
It may have looked slightly translucent or like it was
reflecting the sky around it. It's hard to say for sure.
It also seemed to have a faint orange glow around it.
Most notably, it made no noise whatsoever.
It took me a few seconds to process what I'd seen.
I looked over at my girlfriend and asked, Did you see that?
Thankfully, she did. We discussed what it could be.
It was definitely not a plane, definitely not a drone or a
shooting star. It made no noise.
I briefly considered the possibility of a low flying bug,
but that looked distorted. But there's no way.
It looked nothing like a bug, and my girlfriend agreed.
This was also not in the direction of the famous Martha.
Martha Lights is we were looking straight up.
So the thing I can really say is that it was a flying object and
I certainly can identify it as. Anyone else seen something
similar? Curious.
This would happen right down there where these Marfa lights
are at. You have to wonder if these
things are somehow UFO related or just a natural phenomena.
Or maybe they are a natural phenomena and there are UF OS
down there messing around with these things.
Who knows. This one over at Newport says it
happened on July 19th, 2018. Duration 20 minutes.
Observers. One Marfa Texas shaped triangle
characteristics lights on objects.
I witnessed 2 silent large crafts flying over the Marfa
lights viewing area east of Marfa, Texas.
Each craft had three white non blinking lights at the tips of
an equilateral triangle with a blinking red light in the
center. They flew from north to South,
maneuvered toward the South, and then began following each other
close to the horizon at a high rate of speed, heading east.
I captured video and screenshots of one of the craft.
I checked an app on my iPhone X which indicated that no
commercial aircraft was in the vicinity at the time of the
sighting. There is a strong possibility
that this was some kind of advanced military aircraft.
I don't know why you would assume that.
That being said, it matched the classic detail of the widely
seen and reported black triangle UFOs.
Isn't that weird? This one's also Marfa, Texas and
right down there where these lights are at.
Dated April 3rd, 2015. Observers 5 shaped triangle
lights on object. Silent unknown triangle craft
with white and red lights seen near Marfa, TX.
We were at the Marfa Lights viewing platform between Alpine
and Marfa, Texas on April 3rd, 2015 at about 9:30 PM.
After having no luck seeing the famous Marfa lights, we were
about to return to our hotel in Alpine. 1 member of our group,
while turning back N to walk to the car, noticed something
flying from north to South just to the east of us.
There were no stars visible as the sky was cloudy and the
weather was windy and cold. As the craft passed, even with
our position, we noticed it had three white lights forming a
perfect equilateral triangle. These white lights never
blinked. Directly in the center of the
three white lights was a blinking red light flashing
about once per second. The craft continued S flying
below the cloud deck. After about 5 minutes it turned
West and began accelerating. Finally it turned back north and
appeared to disappear into the clouds.
There was absolutely no sound produced by the aircraft as it
flew over. I have an iPhone app that tracks
commercial flights and none were in the area at the time.
Another odd aspect of the craft was that it seemed to move in a
perfectly straight line, showing no signs of being affected by
the wind except when it turned. It also made no sound
whatsoever. I live in the landing path of a
major International Airport and regularly see planes landing
both day and night. I have never seen anything like
what we witnessed that night. I don't imagine you have.
Isn't that something? And we'll do a couple more here.
This is dated 8/22/2007, duration 10 minutes.
Location Martha Texas shaped Cigar Steady cigar shaped light
cruises under the moon at high speed with no sound or blinking.
I was looking toward the moon at sunset when I noticed a light
beneath it, travelling from east to West.
It was cigar shaped, a thin rectangle with rounded edges.
At first the speed and angle seemed comparable to those of an
airliner, but there was no contrail behind it.
No sound was heard, even after accounting for the time delay
typically associated with hearing a jetfly overhead.
I pointed it out to a friend and we both consider the possibility
that it was a normal aircraft. However, out here, if you can
see it, you will hear it. I went inside and checked the
website that tracks aircraft flights.
The only flight near our area was heading South, not WI.
Grabbed a camera, zoomed in as much as possible, and took a
photo. The object continued moving
quietly and steady until it was no longer visible.
That's pretty neat. This one is dated 10/28/2000 and
three says photo capture but there's no picture with it.
Observers 1 Martha, Texas shaped triangle In 2003, I was in
Martha, Texas and took several digital photographs of the
stunning sunset. Yesterday, while while reviewing
these photos on a much larger computer screen, I noticed
something I had initially missed.
Among the clouds, there appeared to be a triangle of evenly
spaced round circles. Due to their uniform spacing and
shape, they did not appear to be natural cloud formations.
This formation of circles was adjacent to two very bright
cloud formations, which seemed noticeably brighter than this
running clouds. I found no other reported
sightings from this area during the time period, so I'm hesitant
to conclude that this was actually a flying triangle.
However, when looking at the photo, it is difficult to
dismiss the possibility. I guess so we'll finish up with
this last UFO sighting down there in Marfa, Texas.
I think it's cool to look at these, look at these different
places. You know, there are other places
like this where you have these orbs that are consistently seen.
And I think sometimes too much time is spent on trying to blame
these things on car headlights, and not enough time is spent on
exploring the connection between UFOs and these things.
And I'm just going through this and looking at some general
examples, but we are seeing UFO activity in that area and you
have to ask yourself, and is there a connection here?
Now this last one that we're looking at, it says the data on
this was July 20th, 1974. It wasn't reported until June
9th, 2006. Duration 3 minutes Observer 0
Location Martha Texas shape Oval, Mysterious Oval shaped
craft near Martha, Texas. In 1974 I was living in El Paso
and was unemployed. I heard about a tire recapping
company so I decided to visit and ask if they were hiring.
The manager told me they needed the driver to operate a tractor
trailer loaded with gravel for extra weight.
The trailer had newly recap tires for testing on a long haul
freeway route. I was given the job along with
keys and a map. My route consisted of driving
from Van Horn, TX to Marfa, TX and through the Pecos Mountains,
exceeding the speed limits on curves by 15 mph.
The company's name was 3T Fleet Tire Testing Company.
I was instructed to stop at an abandoned airfield on the
outskirts of Marfa, Texas, when I found the airfield had to
unlock and open a large gate, then drive onto the taxiways
where a fuel tank was located. I was to refuel there before
continuing my route. As I unlocked the fuel tank
containing diesel, I inserted the nozzle into the truck's tank
and walked to the front of the truck.
Leaning on the bumper, I looked up at the stars.
It was a very clear night. Suddenly I heard a high pitched
vibration. To my surprise, a large Oval
shaped craft emerged from the ground at the far end of the
taxiway, no more than 100 feet from where I was standing.
The craft hovered about 10 feet above the ground.
Then to the left of it, another identical craft also emerged and
hovered. Why, I don't know.
Are these things just coming up out of the ground?
I don't know. Both objects emitted a pale
yellow glow, but no visible light bulbs or external sources
of illumination. They were each about the size of
a small house. The vibration grew louder, and
suddenly the craft on my right took off at an incredible speed,
disappearing into the sky at a right angle, far beyond anything
imaginable. About 3 seconds later, the craft
on my left followed the same trajectory, accelerating into
space until I could no longer see them.
I walked along the taxiway, expecting to find holes in the
ground where they had emerged, but there was no evidence they
had come from below. Strangely, the next thing I
remember is suddenly finding myself driving back to El Paso
with no recollection of getting back into the truck or leaving
the airfield. Confused, I pulled over to the
side of the road, unable to remember how or why I was
driving back. After regaining my composure, I
continued to the Three Tire Fleet headquarters and explained
what I'd seen. They dismissed my story, they
calling me crazy. However, when I told my wife,
she believed me. For all these years I have kept
this experience to myself, but now I feel it's time to share
it. I swear before our Heavenly
Father that this is a true story.
I will never forget the details. It seems pretty serious to me,
and you know, this is the kind of person I think would be
eligible for being checked out for an implant.
Sounds like he's got missing time.
Sounds like a possible abduction to me.
And all this stuff happening down there right around the
Marfa lights. Until next time, this is UFO
warning over and out.