As in Verne's novel, locals asked their Congressmen for a government investigation; in 1913 United States Geological Survey employee, D.B. Sterrett, was dispatched to the area and quickly found that the headlights of westbound Southern Railways locomotives would have been visible from Loven's Hotel, and the train schedules he consulted left him no doubt that these were the cause of the lights that were being reported. In July of 1916, a flood caused train activity around Brown Mountain to cease for several weeks, which provided an opportunity for some to doubt Sterrett's conclusions. George Anderson Loven, whose hotel was doing a good business from all the visitors keen to see the light, told the "Lenoir News" that September that it was still being seen nightly, although it isn't clear whether it was one specific light that he referred to, or many different lights, or possibly even every nighttime light visible from his hotel that he considered mysterious. It was never required that train headlights be the only mystery light source, as car headlights were another likely contributor, but this argument is often repeated today.