Autumn always offers an explosion of brightness in the N.C. mountains. Especially, some say, in the stretch of Pisgah National Forest off to the right of N.C. 181, some 10 miles northwest of Morganton.

That's the site of Brown Mountain, a ridge along the Burke-Caldwell county line that has experienced reports of inexplicable illumination.
A long-gone U.S. Forest Service highway sign pretty much summed it up: "The long, even-crested mtn. in the distance is Brown Mt. From early times people have observed weird, wavering lights rise above this mt., then dwindle and fade away."

The Brown Mountain Lights appeared in Cherokee stories told centuries before electric light and mountaintop moonshine stills. New tales turn up on the Internet.

The various accounts concur on a few points: small and bright bulblike lights, on haze-free and dark nights, particularly in cooler months. The lights are numerous at times but appear in no perceivable pattern. They don't move, and they disappear before anyone can hike to their particular location. Unimpeachable photographs of the Brown Mountain Lights do not exist.

Collisions among "nitrous vapors which are borne by the wind" was the scientific theory offered by G.W. de Brahm. That was in 1771.

Other explanations range from spirits of dead warriors to extraterrestrials to naturally glowing rocks.

Recent truth-seekers have tried videocams and GPS tracking. They're no closer to a definitive answer than de Brahm was.

Among the curious is Daniel Caton of Appalachian State University.

"It's an ongoing project," says the professor of physics and astronomy whose real-job research concerns the likes of "Acquisition of High-Precision Times of Minimum Light as a Probe for Extrasolar Planets in Binary Star Systems."

His Brown Lights sideline is on the back burner for the moment: He and ASU colleague Lee Hawkins obtained a low-light Web cam to observe the lights, but the mountain is in a federal wilderness area and their equipment isn't permitted there. The Web cam will probably be pointed at Brown Mountain from Linville Gorge.

In the meantime, Caton says, "I claim to be the World's Leading Expert on the Brown Mountain Lights Who Has Never Seen Them.' "

This, after 20 visits.

Skeptical? Oh, yeah. Caton believes things like ATV lamps and distant jets low on the horizon can explain away 85 percent of sightings.

It's the rest of the sightings that intrigue him - "the stories I've heard of lights spewing up like rockets in front of you, then disappearing. These aren't easily explained."

Hugh Morton can't explain the lights, either. He's the owner of Grandfather Mountain, about 10 miles to the north, and a noted photographer. And while he has never captured the Brown Mountain Lights on film, he says he's seen them dozens of times over the years: "They look like 40 mm tracer bullets in slow motion."

Feeling lucky? It's two hours from uptown Charlotte's bright and twinkling lights.

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Brown Mountain is northeast of N.C. 181, along the Burke-Caldwell county line, 10 miles northwest of Morganton. Area hiking/camping info: Grandfather Ranger District of the U.S. Forest Service, (828) 652-2144. Brown Mountain Lights on the Internet: www.brownmountainlights.org, www.brownmountainlights.com, www.ibiblio.org/ghosts/bmtn.html or www.dancaton.physics.appstate. edu/BML/SeeTheLights.

Illustration:Photo

DANIEL B. CATON PHOTO - SPECIAL TO THE OBSERVER. When dusk falls on Brown Mountain, some say the ridge is mysteriously illuminated. There have been sightings for centuries, but the lights elude photographers.