Brown Mountain lights

From about 1912 and 1913 newspapers reported mysterious lights rising over Brown Mountain near Morganton, a story that has since accreted invented pre-electrification legends. In 1913 U.S. Geological Survey employee D. B. Sterrett found the lights matched the schedules of westbound Southern Railway locomotive headlights, and in 1922 USGS geologist George Mansfield mapped the sightlines with an alidade and showed the lights were locomotive headlights, car lights and brush fires in the valleys beyond. Later reports continued without establishing any unexplained source. The case is a long-running example of distant terrestrial lights read as anomalous.

Distant train, car and fire lights seen across the valleys (Mansfield, USGS 1922)

• Wikipedia: Brown Mountain lightsen.wikipedia.org