With Sterrett's investigation being considered inadequate by locals, the USGS sent Mansfield to investigate in 1922. As part of his investigation, Mansfield set up an alidade telescope near Loven's Hotel, at the former home of C. E. Gregory. Accompanied by members of the Loven family, he recorded a number of nighttime lights, one of which appeared to move and flare in brightness, making Joseph Loven call it a true Brown Mountain light, but which through the telescope proved to be stationary throughout the entire evening, despite repeated azimuth readings being taken. Another series of lights that were seen were found to plot on a map to a curve in a Southern Railways track, and the time of appearance of that light corresponded exactly to that of a scheduled train. At the end of the observing session, Robert Loven said that he didn't believe that the lights they had seen were bright enough to be genuine Brown Mountain lights, but Joseph Loven said that he considered the lights they saw to have been an average display of the phenomenon. After Mansfield's investigation found the lights to be distant car and train headlights, and brush fires, Joseph Loven, who had inherited the hotel from his father and had been one of the main commentators and local experts on the Brown Mountain lights in the newspapers, seemed to disappear from further commentary on the lights in print for the rest of his life. Ed Speer interprets this as a sign that Mansfield's investigation might have solved the mystery for Loven, as it did for most people.