Skeptoid 4: Astronauts, Aliens, and Ape-Men

by Brian Dunning

  The long, even-crested mtn. in the distance is Brown Mtn. From early times people have observed weird, wavering lights rise above this mtn., then dwindle and fade away.

  If you tried to observe a hovering light above Brown Mountain from Wiseman’s View, it would be lost in the city lights. Modern reports of the lights from Wiseman’s View are, as mentioned earlier, a very different manifestation. People point their video cameras instead directly at the face of the hills across the gorge, looking not into the sky above the ridge, but straight at the hills. They report flickering lights under the trees, like people waving flashlights around. What’s over there?

  The right side of that dip looking across Linville Gorge is Table Rock, the most popular rock climbing destination in North Carolina. It’s a dramatic rocky outcrop atop the hill across from Wiseman’s View. Table Rock has its own parking lot only a couple hundred meters away, so it’s not necessary for climbers to camp out on the slopes with their lanterns and flashlights. Nevertheless, it is approximately along the prominent hiking trails around Table Rock where the appearance of lights seem to be reported from Wiseman’s View.

  One explanation that’s been offered, but not well received, is that these lights appearing on the face of the hills are reflections off of illegal moonshine stills, of the moon or other lights, or even the fires from the stills themselves. This is something that could be easily verified, but never has been. In any case, around the slopes of the state’s most popular rock climbing destination, in plain view of the most famous overlook in the state, would not be a very clever hiding place for the shrewd brewer.

  This type of light — a flicker directly visible on the hillside, as opposed to a probable refraction apparently hovering above the ridge — also contradicts local legend about the Lights’ origin. According to modern locals, the Cherokee natives of the region believed 800 years ago that bereaved wives wandered the skies above the hills with lanterns, looking for the souls of their brave warrior husbands killed in battle. I say “supposedly” because I was unable to find any reference to such a belief outside of publications about the Brown Mountain Lights. That doesn’t mean the Cherokee did not actually have such a legend; it only means I couldn’t find it. I don’t, however, recall the ancient Cherokee having lantern technology. Perhaps they meant torches, I don’t know. But the retellings of this legend that I did find are unanimous in that the Brown Mountain Lights are specifically the type that appear in the sky above ridges, not flickering through the trees on the face of the hill.

  This is also supported by one of the early “scientific” explanations of the Brown Mountain Lights. In 1771, the most prolific cartographer in Colonial America was the Dutchman John William Gerard de Brahm. He was appointed Surveyor General by the British and traveled throughout the Colonies constructing fortifications and bridges. He was also something of an amateur mystic. While in the southern United States, de Brahm is said to have published the following hypothesis (more on this in a moment):

  “The mountains emit nitrous vapors which are borne by the wind and when laden winds meet each other the niter inflames, sulphurates and deteriorates.”

  This is essentially the same “swamp gas” explanation used today to answer everything from ghost lights to UFOs. As a serious theory, it falls short of credible. Swamp gas never been found to spontaneously ignite in nature, as it would require a highly improbably mixture of gases in critical proportions. When these conditions have been created artificially in the lab, the gas burns bright bluish-green with a sudden pop, producing black smoke. Under no conditions does it burn slowly, or hover, or in any way resemble the reports of the Brown Mountain Lights. Although it sounds scientific and convincing, the swamp gas hypothesis is almost certainly not the explanation.

  By studying the oldest literature, we find that the Lights have been at least partially explained. Often cited as one of the earliest print references to the Brown Mountain Lights is a 1913 article from the Charlotte Observer entitled “No Explanation” that described how the light appears regularly at 9:30 or 10pm nearly every night. In 1922, the US Geological Survey produced a special report based on an exhaustive investigation of the Lights, and found that since 1909 a regularly scheduled locomotive on the plains beyond had been casting its headlight in precisely that direction every night at that same time. In fact it was due at a stop along there at 9:53pm every night. The locomotive’s headlight was visible in a direct line of sight from a hill six miles beyond Brown Mountain, and certainly would have been from other locations as well. If it was not the source of the light described in the 1913 article, it would have been in direct competition with it; but witnesses reported one light, not two. Moreover, back in 1909 the USGS had actually made an earlier report in response to sightings of the Brown Mountain Light, and the investigator found that the sightings were all of this same train.

  One member of the 1922 USGS team, a Mr. H. C. Martin, initially found geographic conditions in the region to be completely unsuitable to produce superior mirages of the sort that could refract distant lights from over the horizon and make them appear to hover in the air. But upon further investigation, he found that such refraction was taking place, nearly every night, above the basin now occupied by Lake James, and around which were numerous settlements with plenty of electric nights. From all observing stations, these lights were routinely seen above the horizon. The report noted:

  “As the basin and its atmospheric conditions antedate the earliest settlement of the region, it is possible that even among the first settlers some favorably situated light may have attracted attention by seeming to flare and then diminish or go out.”

  This fits well with modern reports from Wiseman’s View and the other overlooks that if you move up or down the mountainside, the lights vanish. Martin noted a narrow 3-4° angle in which such refracted lights would be visible.

  The USGS also included historical research that found that it was not until 1910, when a Reverend C. E. Gregory moved into the area and began making reports, that the Lights became generally known. Even the belief that the Cherokee and Catawba natives had legends did not appear until about this time. Sightings that predate this period seem to all be apocryphal, with no actual print references known to exist. Even the often-cited 1771 report from de Brahm is suspect. It’s always given out of context, and is, in fact, misquoted. De Brahm was not talking about any lights at all, he was giving his mystical and somewhat alchemy-centric opinions on how thunderstorms work and why the air is so clear in the Great Smoky Mountains. Here’s what he actually said, and it was in his undated Report of the General Survey in the Southern District of North America:

  “Although these Mountains transpire through their Tops sulphurueaous and arsenical Sublimations, yet they are too light, as to precipitate so near their Sublimitories, but are carried away by the Winds to distant Regions. In a heavy Atmosphere, the nitrous Vapours are swallowed up through the Spiraculs of the Mountains, and thus the Country is cleared from their Corrosion; when the Atmosphere is light, these nitrous Vapours rise up to the arsenical and sulphureous (subliming through the Expiraculs of the Mountains), and when they meet with each other in Contact, the Niter inflames, vulgurates and detonates, whence the frequent Thunders, in which a most votalized Spirit of Niter ascends to purify and inspire the upper Air, and a phlogiston Regeneratum (the metallic Seed) descends to impregnate the Bowels of the Earth; and as all these Mountains form so many warm Athanors which draw and absorb, especially in foggy Seasons, all corrosive Effluvia along with the heavy Air through the Registers (Spiracles) and thus cease not from that Perpetual Circulation of the Air, corroding Vapours are no sooner raised, than that they are immediately disposed of, consequently the Air in the Appalachian Mountains in extreamely pure and healthy.”

  Taken in context, it’s clear that de Brahm’s quote has nothing whatsoever to do with the Brown Mountain Lights. This leaves us with no documentary evidence that the Lights existed at all prior to the arrival of electric ligh
ts and people in the area in the early 1900’s.

  So let’s wrap up what we’ve learned about the two different manifestations of the Brown Mountain Lights. Regarding those that appear in the sky above a ridge, it’s apparent that the 1922 USGS report solved it as described in the following conclusion. Today, nearly 90 years later, the lights are coming from different sources but this analysis probably still holds up:

  “In summary it may be said that the Brown Mountain lights are clearly not of unusual nature or origin. About 47 percent of the lights that the writer was able to study instrumentally were due to automobile headlights, 33 percent to locomotive headlights, 10 percent to stationary lights, and 10 percent to brush fires.”

  As for the lights appearing on the faces of the hills, we find there are no historical references to such a thing, and only a few recent YouTube videos and modern claims reporting it, in this age of LED flashlights, lanterns, headlamps, and iPhone screens. So I’m confident calling this one unexplained, but also not especially interesting or surprising.

  It is all too often that we eagerly accept wild and sensational phenomena, which causes us to shut out the real science behind what’s going on. I find real wonder in mirage refractions, and I find great excitement in such perfect solutions as the correlation of the locomotive with the 1909 Lights reports. This wonder and excitement are lost to those who replace science with sensationalism.

  REFERENCES & FURTHER READING

  Caton, D. “See the Lights.” The Brown Mountain Lights. Appalachian State University, 15 Mar. 2005. Web. 30 Sep. 2010.

  De Brahm, J. Report of the general survey in the Southern District of North America. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1971.

  Editors. “No Explanation.” Charlotte Observer. 24 Sep. 1913, Newspaper: 2.

  Johnson, R. Hiking North Carolina: A Guide to Nearly 500 of North Carolina’s Greatest Hiking Trails. New York: Globe Pequot, 2007. 149-150.

  Mansfield, G. Origin of the Brown Mountain Light in North Carolina. Washington: United States Geological Survey, 1971.

  Norman, M. Haunted Homeland: A Definitive Collection of North American Ghost Stories. New York: Macmillan, 2008. 308-310.

  Sceurman, M., Moran, M. Weird U.S.: Your Travel Guide to America’s Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets. New York: Sterling Publishing Company, Inc., 2009. 103.

  Toomey, M. Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture. Nashville: Tennessee Historical Society, 1998.

  39. BOOST YOUR IMMUNE SYSTEM (OR NOT)

  Is “boosting your immune system” for real? Is that possible, and can you really buy it in a bottle?

  In this chapter, we’re going to point our skeptical eye at one of the most popular marketing gimmicks from the past few years: the sales of products and services with the claim that they will “boost your immune system”. It sounds simple and desirable. Who wouldn’t want a superpowered immune system capable of fighting off anything from a cold to cancer? Is such an ability really something you can buy in a bottle?

  It’s an easy claim to sell to people, because it’s so clear and seems to make such obvious logical sense. The stronger your immune system, the greater its ability to fight disease. It sounds like it should be just like building muscle: A stronger bodybuilder can lift heavier weights, and a boosted immune system can fight off stronger diseases. Doesn’t that sound right?

  It may, but it’s a completely invalid analogy. A healthy immune system is more accurately represented by a balanced teeter totter. If your immune system is compromised or otherwise weakened, one side of the teeter totter sags, and your body becomes more easily susceptible to infection. Conversely, if your immune system is overactive, the other side of the teeter totter sags, and the immune system attacks your own healthy tissues. This is what we call an autoimmune disease. Conditions like lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, and multiple sclerosis are all autoimmune diseases caused by “boosted”, or overactive, immune systems. You’re at your healthiest when the teeter totter of your immune system is balanced right in the center; neither too weak, nor too strong.

  If you could boost your immune system, it would automatically and immediately be harmful.

  So what do these companies mean when they claim their products boost the immune system? Fortunately for your body, they generally mean nothing at all. In recent years, the Federal Trade Commission and the Food and Drug Administration has been trying to crack down on products making unsubstantiated health claims, such as boosting the immune system. This is difficult for a number of reasons. First, “boosting your immune system” is medically meaningless; there is no such thing, so the assertion does not constitute a medical claim all by itself. You may recall that the supplement product Airborne was fined by the FTC and ordered to refund the money of everyone who had ever bought their product, but this was only because they went farther and specifically claimed their product could treat and prevent colds. Second, regulators are hopelessly outnumbered by the hordes of mail order and Internet businesses that can literally pop up overnight, to say nothing of the many well established companies like Airborne. Third, it’s a very simple matter for such companies to subtly change their wording to make it even less specific, and thus escape prosecution. Today it’s popular for products to say they “support a healthy immune system”, and so they do, in the same way that any food or even breathing keeps your body alive and thus “supports” all its functions. They could just as honestly say their product supports body odor and aging.

  Up until about ten years ago, nobody had invented the marketing term yet, so nobody ever thought to buy special supplements or specially grown produce to boost their immunity. Without such products, one wonders how the human race could have survived hundreds of thousands of years. Or even the 1980s or 1990s. Were we really less healthy then? Did we all truly have compromised immune systems?

  You see, health is not the result of a superpowered immune system. Health is simply the absence of disease. Good health is the baseline. You can’t be healthier than baseline. Once you’re at the baseline, anything that happens to your immune system in either direction is bad. For a person in good health, who watches their diet and exercises, to walk into a smoothie store and order the special immunity-boosting supplement, would be harmful to their health. Would be, if that supplement actually did anything.

  It would be easy for companies to demonstrate that their products work as advertised. The immune system is a surprisingly complex collection of structures and processes throughout the body. Many of these are types of cells that can be found in the blood. If a product actually boosted your immune system, it would have to increase the counts of one or more of these cell types. That’s something that we could measure directly, and prove or disprove the claim. The problem with doing such a test is that it would be unethical, since you would have to give someone an imbalance likely to result in an autoimmune disease.

  Let’s take a quick look at what some of these systems are:

  The most obvious parts of your immune system are the external physical barriers: Your skin, saliva, tears, and processes such as coughing and sneezing. When we catch a cold, our immune system responds by increasing production of all of these responses. It’s not the cold that gives you a running nose and makes you cough and sneeze, that’s your immune system. Do you really want to boost that and walk around sneezing and drooling? Because that’s what a “boosted” immune system means.

  Inflammation is another important immune response. Damaged cells release several types of triggering molecules that do such things as attract leukocytes or tell your body’s blood vessels to dilate. These molecules can also hamper protein synthesis, which is intended to harm any viruses nearby that might have caused the damage. Inflammation is not a good thing. It’s like a fireman spraying water on your house. You do it when you have to, you absolutely do not want to artificially stimulate inflammation when you don’t have to.

  White blood cells, or leukocytes, a
re what most people think of when they hear “immune system”. But what many people don’t know is that there are many different types of leukocytes, not just those in our blood, but also other types in most of our other tissues as well. Leukocytes include macrophages, neutrophils, dendritic cells, mast cells, killer cells, and basophils, and others, all of which do different things.

  All of those systems together comprise our “innate” immune systems, and they’re just the half of it. We also have “adaptive” immune systems, and these are the systems that react to specific pathogens, multiply, and then become long-term guards against a recurrence of that same pathogen, becoming a sort of “memory” for your immune system. The adaptive immune system grows every time you challenge it with a specific germ, and it’s also what reacts to a vaccine and becomes a prophylactic against a specific disease. The adaptive immune system is made up of special cells called lymphocytes, which include:

  Killer T cells, which do the dirty work, binding to and killing cells that match their specific receptor. Each killer T cell recognizes only one specific antigen, so we all have many, many, many different populations of killer T cells.

  Helper T cells are those which recognize pathogens, and express new T cell receptors for the killer T cells; in effect, creating new types of killer T cells designed to fight that specific pathogen.

  γδ (gamma delta) T cells perform a function similar to helper T cells, but are not necessarily triggered by new pathogens. Their function is pretty complex.

  B cells come between pathogens and helper T cells. They have a vast array of receptor proteins on their surfaces, and when a pathogen binds to one, the B cell divides millions of times. Each copy then finds a helper T cell to transfer the information about the new pathogen to killer T cells.