For hundreds of years, people have reported mysterious lights floating above Brown Mountain in Burke County, North Carolina, visible from this spot and from places farther west such as Rattlesnake Knob near Cold Springs and Wisemans View on the Burke and McDowell County line. Thousands have witnessed the phenomenon, and accounts dating as early as the year 1200 say that a single light or hundreds of lights may appear, floating up the ridge, hovering above Brown Mountain, drifting about, changing color, blinking, and then disappearing. The U.S. Geological Survey, the U.S. Weather Service, and the Smithsonian investigated the lights and proposed explanations including burning marsh gas, reflected train or automobile lights, city lights, or radium rays, but none of these theories has been proven as the actual cause. Legends offer other explanations: according to Cherokee tradition, after a great battle near Brown Mountain in 1200 against the Catawba Indians in which many warriors died, the lights are the spirits of Cherokee maidens searching in vain for their loved ones; another legend says they are caused by the spirit of a heartbroken woman searching the mountain at night by torchlight for her fiancé who failed to come for her on their wedding day; still another tells of a young mother-to-be murdered by her wicked husband, with the lights appearing to help neighbors find her body and continuing to appear as a reminder that crimes will be revealed. Whether attributed to spirits, reflections, or some geological oddity, the Brown Mountain Lights continue to draw visitors hoping to see them.