Essays

Moseying: Locations of Interest

Calvinites, Campbellites, and Marfa Lights
May 15, 2002

Not long ago, Deborah and I cruised down to Fort Davis on a moonlit Friday night to attend a landscape seminar at the Chihuahuan Desert Research Institute. She slept while I drove -- or so I thought until the silence was broken by her pouty and putout "I guess I’ll have to live my WHOLE life without ever getting to see the Marfa Lights." I cackled as I always do when she uses that semi-serious tone. Somehow, I think she knows I’m a pushover when she challenges me to do something I have never done before.

"Marfa Lights? They are just figments of the imagination. We are not now, nor are we ever going to see them." My folks were strict rationalists. Deborah made up the term "Calvinite" for them, in part due to their strict adherence to believing only in that which could be proven to their satisfaction, and also in recognition of their Methodist background. As a child, I only asked to go see the "ghost lights" once, and their disapproval was loud and final. As birdwatchers traveling from Christmas Count to Christmas Count, or volunteering to act as route observers on Breeding Bird Surveys, our family traveled many times on Trans-Pecos highways late at night. We never did see anything different and strange.

My dispassionate attitude about the Marfa Lights grew from a childhood spent participating in keeping records of bird sightings. In order for such sightings to be accepted as an official record, they must be documented by two unrelated people. Some folks have been insulted when the rest of the bird watching group expresses skepticism over local sightings of a bird endemic to an area 2000 miles away. The observation is suspect. More data is needed. Photographs or specimens are necessary.

Deborah was raised in the Disciples of Christ church -- a “Campbellite.” The followers of Alexander Campbell were restorationists who believed that the dogmatism that arose after the Lutheran Reformation had caused a departure from the simplicity of faith of the first Christians. In the minds of Campbellites, arguments about the numbers of angels that can fit on a head of a pin and other issues of metaphysical speculation are left to be settled within each individual’s soul. As a result, Deborah does not often encumber her thinking by trying to force the manmade construct of logic upon the mysterious doings of the world. I told her that MAYBE we would go look for the lights on Saturday night -- IF we had time.

While having breakfast the next morning in the Ft. Davis Drugstore, another Midland couple came in and sat with us. After a brief chat about the seminar we all planned to attend, they told us of seeing the Marfa Lights the night before. Sandy and Al spoke of single lights splitting into two or three as they made their jumpy paths across the horizon. Deborah nudged me with her foot under the table as she said “Burr just can’t wait to see them tonight – he’s been wanting to his whole life.” She winked at me, secure in the knowledge that her plan was working.

After the seminar, we drove over to Marfa and spent the afternoon hanging out at the Marfa Book Company – an upscale bookstore, replete with coffee table books, a small art gallery, and an espresso/wine bar – before heading on to Alpine for dinner with friends at the Longhorn Steakhouse. Back at the house over a game of Scrabble, Deborah again brought up the Marfa Lights. I groaned a little inside because John is a biologist with the Nature Conservancy and Kaylin is doing research on aquatic entomology. Both have been trained with the same detached, scientific observational perspective that I experienced under the tutelage of my folks. There’s not much that Deborah hates more than losing a game of Scrabble, so I hoped that she was merely trying to distract attention from the fact that Kaylin was beating us soundly. Unexpectedly, however, we were rewarded with tales of their own sightings of the Marfa Lights. And when John said that the hair stood up on the back of his neck the first time he saw them, I knew that I was on the hook for a drive later that night.

Traveling from Alpine, the official viewing area is located on the other side of Paisano Pass nine miles east of Marfa. The historical marker at the sight states that the Lights have been seen in the area for over 100 years, with the first recorded sighting made by a rancher named Robert Ellison in 1883. John told us to look within 30 degrees of either side of a tall radio antenna with red lights. When we arrived at about 9:00 p.m., twenty or so other cars were already parked, their passengers standing along the chain link fence surrounding the visitor area that is still under construction. We listened in on several conversations as fellow watchers recounted tales of the Lights.

"I knew this one lady who was going down to Presidio and got chased by the Lights all the way down the highway," we heard one local say. “Everybody’s heard that one” Deborah whispered in my ear. “Well, that's nothing," we heard an inebriated woman answer. "I knew this one lady that had ‘em get right in the car with her!" We laughed out loud.

"There’s one – look! It’s moving up and down!" An excited kid stood atop a big rock, pointing and yelling. Deborah leaned over and whispered again. "That is one of the ranch lights we were told about." I was about to answer something about people's imaginations when she nudged me again and pointed at two small glowing balls just to the right of the tower's red lights. They separated, as one remained stationary and the other moved further to the right. Another one appeared below, and joined the stationary one. We turned to each other and shook our heads in wonder. During the thirty minutes we watched, many variations of the theme were repeated as the lights bounced, glowed, separated and faded.

The next morning with the Chinati Mountains looming before us, we returned to the viewing area to see if we could discover a logical explanation for what we had observed the night before. But the road where cars with headlights might have traveled just didn’t line up right. Maybe they really are swamp gas, or static electricity, or some other perfectly natural phenomenon that could be easily measured if we only had the proper equipment to do so. All I know is we saw them, we can’t explain them, and we are humbled and awed by them. I pondered the mystery in silence as we drove home. Deborah napped beside me – or so I thought. "I guess I’ll have to live my WHOLE life without ever getting to see the Loch Ness Monster." Lordy, what had I gotten myself into?