According to Apache legend, the ghostly flashes of light that appear in the night sky of West Texas are the incarnation of the wandering spirit of Apache Chief Alaste, who has haunted the Chinati Mountains since his execution at the hands of Mexican Rurales in the 1860s. White settlers first noticed these lights, now known as the Marfa Mystery Lights, in 1883 when rancher Robert Ellison was driving his cattle a few miles east of Marfa. He and his companions spotted flickering lights along the horizon and feared that they were Apache camp fires, but when they searched the area the next day, they found no traces of encampments.

Since that time, people have flocked to what is now Route 90, nine miles east of Marfa, to try to spot the lights, which have appeared in white, pink, yellow, green, and blue hues to the east of the Chinati Mountains. Sometimes the lights dance erratically, while other times they remain motionless, slowly brightening with intensity. Skeptics believe that the lights are simply car headlights skimming across the mountains, but that would not explain sightings in the last century, or the fact that the lights often move in circles or zig zag formations. Others have argued that the lights are nothing more than ball lightening, reflections, mirages, swamp gas, or static electricity, but scientists have not been able to prove that any of those phenomena could happen in West Texas terrain with such regularity. According to local folklore, the lights are believed to be many things: Alaste's spirit, the reflections of Spanish gold, the hidden treasures of Pancho Villa, "brujas" (witches) who are learning to fly, and most recently, UFOs.