Marfa lights

Since at least the twentieth century, and by local legend since an 1883 cowhand's account, visitors to the plateau east of Marfa have reported distant orbs of light that brighten, split, merge and move above the desert scrub to the south-west. The town promotes the phenomenon and built a viewing centre. A May 2004 University of Texas at Dallas student group, using traffic counters, video and chase cars, matched the lights they recorded to vehicle headlights on U.S. 67, and observers studying the lights from 2000 to 2008 concluded they were headlights distorted by the large temperature layering of desert air. James Bunnell, who ran automated monitoring stations from 2003, still logs a handful of lights a year that he does not attribute.

Headlights and ranch lights distorted by atmospheric layering (mirage)

• Wikipedia: Marfa lightsen.wikipedia.org