u/QumranEssene

Has anyone had experiences with the Pilot Mountain Lights (a.k.a. Andy Griffith's Mount Pilot)?

I know, I used to say you have your mountains mixed up. Didn't you mean the legendary Brown Mountain Lights in North Carolina?

https://www.visitnc.com/brown-mountain-lights

The lights on Pilot Mountain have been reported just as long as the lights on Brown Mountain. Maybe Brown Mountain has a better public relations firm working for them. In the 1800s they described them as floating lanterns at night among the trees right on Pilot Mountain.

Nearly 100% of the reported sightings of lantern to football field sized orbs are from the south side of the mountain. If you live on the north side I anticipate people saying "this is a bunch of bunk" or, like me, you will say "wrong mountain." Some have reported seeing the orbs come right out of the mountain like at Mt. Shasta.

https://surryliving.com/by-gosh-by-josh-24/

There is also a very well known oral history story about the Star Man Legend of Pilot Mountain that is told from the coast to the mountains of North Carolina and beyond.

At one time the area around Pilot Mountain was between #4 and #6 in the nation for UFO/UAP reports with MUFON. With Enigma Labs reports that isn't the case anymore but there are still a lot of reports.

https://app.enigmalabs.io/map?b_tl_lat=36.56096996&b_tl_lng=-80.98787720&b_br_lat=36.23596957&b_br_lng=-80.24789507

Last year in Sanford, NC I had a discussion with Chris Bledsoe at a Skywatch there. At that time he told me when the movie on his life comes out he'd like to do a nation wide tour. He'd like the first stop on that Skywatch tour to be Pilot Mountain.

The attached newspaper article is from October of 1973 and available online.

Has anyone had experiences with the Pilot Mountain Lights (a.k.a. Andy Griffith's Mount Pilot)?

I know, I used to say you have your mountains mixed up. Didn't you mean the legendary Brown Mountain Lights in North Carolina?

https://www.visitnc.com/brown-mountain-lights

The lights on Pilot Mountain have been reported just as long as the lights on Brown Mountain. Maybe Brown Mountain has a better public relations firm working for them. In the 1800s they described them as floating lanterns at night among the trees right on Pilot Mountain.

Nearly 100% of the reported sightings of lantern to football field sized orbs are from the south side of the mountain. If you live on the north side I anticipate people saying "this is a bunch of bunk" or, like me, you will say "wrong mountain." Some have reported seeing the orbs come right out of the mountain like at Mt. Shasta.

https://surryliving.com/by-gosh-by-josh-24/

There is also a very well known oral history story about the Star Man Legend of Pilot Mountain that is told from the coast to the mountains of North Carolina and beyond.

At one time the area around Pilot Mountain was between #4 and #6 in the nation for UFO/UAP reports with MUFON. With Enigma Labs reports that isn't the case anymore but there are still a lot of reports.

https://app.enigmalabs.io/map?b_tl_lat=36.56096996&b_tl_lng=-80.98787720&b_br_lat=36.23596957&b_br_lng=-80.24789507

Last year in Sanford, NC I had a discussion with Chris Bledsoe at a Skywatch there. At that time he told me when the movie on his life comes out he'd like to do a nation wide tour. He'd like the first stop on that Skywatch tour to be Pilot Mountain.

The attached newspaper articles are from October of 1973.

This is a really nice venue a few miles south of Hillsborough. Caught Jonathan Byrd and Wes Collins at this venue recently. Well worth checking out...

https://www.sonarkfarms.com/events

While I can only imagine it, just think about walking down the Great Warrior Path for weeks from New York or Virginia amid the mound culture and seeing Pilot Mountain in Surry County, North Carolina from thirty or forty miles away? Pilot Mountain is 140 stories high, has over a 1,000 acre footprint and is a truncated crystalline pyramid made of 99% pure quartzite. Yep, we are talking about Andy Griffith’s fictional Mount Pilot that is, in fact, a real place near where he was born at Mt. Airy.

When Pilot Mountain had an airfield on top in 1929 and again in 1944 the dust there was bright white and the planes would really stir it up. I passionately believe that Pilot Mountain is the elephant in the room in terms of the mound culture that remains pretty much hidden to this day. The railroad came very late to Surry County in 1888 so it was difficult to get to in those days for the early mound culture surveys.

From redacted archeology papers it is reported in ancient times they burned the 3,000 square mile area around Pilot Mountain to maintain a savannah that was a hunting paradise of woodland bison, deer, and bear. One wonders if they burned the mountain, too? If they had burned the vegetation on Pilot Mountain, it would have shined with a bright white hue for all to see. Because of all the minerals in the stone, when burned, the mountain makes its own Bio Char so it is a very fertile area. The last time the entire mountain burned was in 2021.

I am forever grateful to George Howard and Stephanie Mark of Cosmic Summit for putting the summer solstice celebration together on June 20, 2025, where many humans put their bare feet on Pilot Mountain quartzite for the first time! It was so great having so many people snap images of the pyramid shadow that evening. Hugh Newman posted on X that he thought it was the new Stonehenge after that visit and he is on to something.

Four days later Ebba P. Karlsson put together a hike with over a dozen folks that included Scott Wolter and Stefan Burns. For three hours we hiked around the Big Pinnacle of Pilot Mountain in 100 degree heat and their comments were fascinating.

Here is really good drone footage of Pilot Mountain in 4k that is simply stunning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYDDigtchg4