The mysterious twinkles called the Brown Mountain Lights, for centuries the subject of folklore, scientific intrigue and starry-eyed fascination, are headed for the great crossroads of fact and fiction: the Web.

And Appalachian State University astronomer Dan Caton, whose real work is studying binary stars, hopes to shed his distinction as the world's foremost expert on something he's never actually seen.

Caton plans to install a webcam, a video camera that sends images to a Web site, in hopes of capturing the dots of light that dance across the dark hills on the Burke-Caldwell county line.

He reckons that 95 percent of the claimed Brown Mountain sightings are bogus. The few that interest him can't readily be explained by headlights, campfires or stray light from stars.

He suspects a phenomenon called ball lightning, a moving, glowing gas that's so poorly understood it can't be produced in a laboratory. Earth lights, as they're sometimes called, have been reported around the globe.

To investigate, Caton is turning to the technology that's used for Web sites dedicated to viewing everything from celebrities to panda cubs.

He hopes to mount a solar-powered webcam on a tower at Wiseman's View, which overlooks the yawning Linville Gorge wilderness. Brown Mountain is east of the gorge, about 75 miles northwest of Charlotte.

A transmitter would beam signals that would be relayed to a Web site that Caton bets would get plenty of hits from the public. Viewers would alert ASU to likely sightings.

At the least, Caton hopes, the setup would offer clues on when the lights most often appear. At best, he could use his astronomical equipment to learn what makes the light.

"Here's something that physics hasn't been able to explain," he said, "and could possibly have some (practical) application."

Because Wiseman's View is within Pisgah National Forest, the U.S. Forest Service has to agree to the webcam installation. The service wants to make sure the tree-height tower wouldn't mar the view, said district ranger Joy Malone, but will probably OK Caton's setup this month.

Written accounts of the lights date to 1771, but they're said to have been part of Cherokee lore for centuries earlier. Some legends say the lights come from the spirits of Native American warriors slaughtered in battle. Others say they're torches carried by the ghosts of grieving maidens.

A 1913 Observer account described fiery red lights, first seen by members of the Morganton Fishing Club, that are "still baffling all investigators."

In 1922, a U.S. Geological Survey study dismissed theories ranging from marsh gas to moonshine stills. It concluded that headlights, stationary lights and brush fires caused the sightings.

Current theories range from UFOs to a form of gas known as plasma that responds to electromagnetic fields.

Cindy Peters prefers to savor the unknown.

She owns the Parkview Lodge in Linville Falls, a village that staged the first Brown Mountain Lights Festival in June. She estimates she's seen the lights 30 to 40 times. They show up in a rainbow of colors, she said, sometimes looking like flashlights, sometimes like Roman candles.

"I'm not one who wants to know what they're about," she said. "I like the romance and the mystery of not having it explained."

After dozens of trips to see the phenomenon, Caton and the ASU students who sometimes accompany him documented nothing but street lights, airplanes and other common sources.

But e-mails he received after being interviewed last year revived his interest. The messages described glowing, soccer ball-sized orbs that have been seen all over the world.

Small grants from the university, totaling about $6,000, let him buy most of the equipment he hopes to install at Wiseman's View. With it, Caton hopes to gather data that will link the lights to weather conditions, a magnetic field or other conditions.

"My feeling is that when we finally see it," he said, "it's going to be real."

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