Perth Amboy evening news., 1923-03-08
GOVERNMENT GETS AFTER
GHOST. SAYS HASKIN
Daily Letter by Frederic j. Haskin

| WASHINGTON, March 8.-Tht
influence of United States senators
| and the scientific skill of the United
| States Geological Survey were re
| quired to lay ghost which has been
| haunting a North Carolina mountain
| for half a century. The ghost haS
| just been laid. its manifestations
have been ascribed to the most COM
| monplace causes, and another fine
old myth which gave an elusive air
of legend to romantic region has
been coldly explained and bereft oi
its supernatural interest.
1t is the ghost of Brown Noun
tain and it took the form of curious
| lights.
There are shadowy records run.
| ming back to the Civil War of the ap-
| pearance of the Brown Mountain
light. Brown Mountain is a sort o.
sugar loaf ACTIVITY in the northern
part of Burke County. N. C. The
mountain rises out of Catawba VAL
ley. The valley itself is encircled
by ranges somewhat higher than the
Brown Mountain on the west and
lower on the east.
To the westward of the mountain
are the little towns of Lovens and
Sprucepine. To the north is Blow
ing Rock. These places are higher
than the summit of Brown Mountain
and therefore a man at any of these
towns can look to the eastward, his
line of vision extending over the top
of Brown Mountain rising from the
valley, and over to the hills beyond
Brown Mountain is a rather desolate
mass, tree covered and haunted by
game. There Is no settlement upon
it's slopes but there are a weather
observatory, forest fire watch tow
er and, here and there, lurking IN
its wilder ravines, the secret stills
of moonshiners.
Edgar Allen Poe, Wilkie Collins,
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, nor any
other apostle Of the weird and super
natural could find more fitting
place for the scene of some strange
and alarming occurrence. The col
superstitious whites and, as will ap-
population, have found Brown
Mountain full of creepy thrills.
Never Did ANY Harm
AS time passed the people OF the
region became accustomed to the
Brown Mountain light and paid only
occasional attention to 1t. 1t was
remarkable and inexplicable but
there was no record of its having
done anyone harm. 1t merely was a
series of curious lights which glowed
over Brown Mountain with quite
punctual regularity every night OF
the year. Now at one spot and now
at another, a luminous sphere would
rise from behind Brown Mountain,
hover in the air imponderably for a
few seconds or, in some cases, min
utes, and then abruptly disappear.
The Brown Mountain light had a
different appearance from anything
with which the people were familiar.
Frequently, the nebulous ball of light
would have the seething appearance
of a newborn star; sometimes 1t
would glow as f1tfully as a FREELY,
then it would be an angry red, then
cold blue.
1t came from nowhere and 1t went
nowhere. 1t was the Brown Noun
tain light and that was all anyone
could say about it, There was nc
valid explanation.
Explanations offered and rejected
with good scientific reason were that
il was a gigantic manifestation OF
the will-o'-the-wisp, phosphorus, ra-
diun emanations, mineral chemical
reaction, st. Elmo's fire, mirage or
Andes light. For a long time the
latter explanation was received with
considerable confidence. The An
des light is an electrical phenome-
non which occurs in the Andes
Mountains in South America. 1t is
produced by fugitive electricity
dancing between the sky and the
mountain peaks. In North Carolina
this was discovered to be the wrong
theory because all the conditions
were wrong for such manifestation
of electricity. The various theories
based upon phosphorescent exhala-
tions had to be rejected because
these invariably occur in marshy
! places and never in the mountains
| 1t was suggested that the Brown
Mountain light might be produced
| by the fires of moonshiners, busy a.
| Illicit stills, but Investigations show
| ed that this could not be true.
| To some observers the light seem
| ed to rise from the top of Brown
Mountain, ascend into the air ant
| vanish. Others were certain tn
lights rose from behind the noun
1 tain. merely spQsaZing above It a