In a Nutshell

Marfa Lights of southwest Texas, at least the most mysterious variety, are seen only a few times each year. They appear only at night, but at any season, with little regard for weather, with one exception: They prefer glowing on those nights that are not too cold.

Temperatures During Marfa Light Sightings

If the Marfa Lights predators often sleep in a cave in the Big Bend National Park, they would be expected to spend less time hunting around Marfa on the coldest nights, for it would be more difficult to find prey. This coorelates very well with the data compiled by Bunnell over many years.

Are Pterosaurs Warm-Blooded?

According to the book The Pterosaurs From Deep Time, by David M. Unwin, the metabolism and physiology of those flying creatures was closely tied to their body temperature. Were pterosaurs warm-blooded like mammals and birds, or cold-blooded, like reptiles?

Some cryptozoologists, including Jonathan Whitcomb, suggest that some pterosaurs still live in various parts of the world. Although Whitcomb avoids direct reference to the warm-cold-blood controversay, he suggests how pterosaurs can presently survive the winters of North America.

According to National Geographic, regarding the Marfa Lights (Texas), “Reports often describe brightly glowing basketball sized spheres floating above the ground, or sometimes high in the air.” (Word-for-word National Geographic correlates with Wikipedia here.) Wikipedia adds that skeptics attribute the lights to “mistaken sightings of ordinary nighttime lights, such as distant vehicle lights, ranch lights, or astronomical objects.”

According to Jonathan Whitcomb, author of the nonfiction book Live Pterosaurs in America, some of the America ghost lights may be from bioluminescent pterosaurs, similar to the ropen of Papua New Guinea. Those flying lights are sometimes seen above mountains, sometimes with a mountain background, and sometimes moving too fast to be from any human source; they are not from vehicle lights (especially where there are neither vehicles nor roads, especially in the sky), astonomical objects (with mountain background), or natives’ flashlights.

The British entomologist Evelyn Cheesman investigated the strange lights she saw deep in the mainland of New Guinea, in the 1930’s. She never was able to come to any conclusion about what caused the lights, although she was sure that they were not from any human origin.

See also “Pterosaur Interpretation of Chessman Sightings.”