Lunar Standstill Mystery at Pilot Mountain

This image of the moon was taken from the Little Pinnacle at Pilot Mountain on December 2, 2025. Within 48 hours the rising of the moon would be the furthest north of the 18.61 year Lunar Standstill.

Thank you Randall Carlson for the suggestion to compare Pilot Mountain with Chimney Rock on the summer solstice of 2025!

These two images above were taken looking south at Pilot Mountain from the Pilot Knob Inn as the moon set before the sunrise on the spring equinox of 2022. The similarity to Chimney Rock in Colorado is stunning! This area between the Little and Big Pinnacle is known locally as the saddle area. While books have been written about the Lunar Standstill at Chimney Rock the author has not found a word about this phenomena regarding Pilot Mountain. Even the Griffith Observatory in L.A. comes out to Chimney Rock to view the various stages of the 18.6 year Lunar Standstill cycle. A budding archeoastronomy student who wants to make a name for themselves could be a pioneer studying the sun, moon and star systems that rise and set on the unobstructed horizon at Pilot Mountain. From the Big Pinnacle at Pilot Mountain you have a 360 degree view of over 3,000 square miles so this made it a perfect location for smoke signals during the day, fire beacons at night and the use of mica for communication.

Note: This is based on a table done for the Newark Earthworks in Ohio that was published by the late great Judith S. Young (daughter of astrophysicist, Vera Rubin). Rubin, her mother, was an extraordinary woman whose fundamental work in physics and astrophysics is still reverberating throughout the field at a foundational level years after her death. How they used this information about the Lunar Standstill is still a mystery?

LIDAR

Where is the “Watcher’s Point” (Station Stones or Gnomon Point) on the Big Pinnacle or elsewhere to view the heavens?

Clearly, humans have been going to the top of the Big Pinnacle for hundreds of years which is documented in the “Faces of Pilot Mountain” book with footnotes.

Could the stone alignments from prehistoric times be found with LIDAR images already done by Wake Forest University of the Big Pinnacle or does a permit need to be issued to go back up on the Big Pinnacle by researchers to find the stones?

Image used with permission and courtesy of the Sabin Center at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

This image of the shadow moving toward the winter solstice extreme was taken on November 13, 2025 just before a meeting of the Friends of the Sauratown Mountain annual meeting. This shadow reveals the shadow of the Little and Big Pinnacle at this time of year. In a few weeks it will look like a pyramid just before the shadow fades because of the interference of the Sauratown Mountains northern side (see images below from 12/2/2025). In other words, the pyramid shadow moving toward the winter solstice is an illusion, but on the summer solstice and equinox does show a pyramid shadow from Pilot Mountain.

Image above captured the shadow of the mountain on December 2, 2025 that this time of year includes the Little Pinnacle plus it includes the moonrise in the final 24 hours of the Lunar Standstill.

Haze on the horizon had the fade about thirty minutes before sunset instead of the usual twenty minutes before the sunset.

See how the Sauratown Mountains make it appear this is a pyramid shadow from Pilot Mountain by cutting off the northern side of the shadow.

Those two turkey buzzards stood guard at the Little Pinnacle for over an hour while the December 2, 2025 research was being done for the Lunar Standstill and the shadow of PIlot Mountain as we approached the winter solstice extreme. It has become evident the turkey buzzards are a meme on Pilot Mountain. There was a lot of turkey buzzard activity the summer solstice on June 20, 2025 over the Big Pinnacle, then during the summer ceremony on July 7, 2025 at 11:11 A.M. on an overlook near the parking area they flew overhead in groups for over an hour and on the eve of the equinox/eclipse on September 20, 2025 one stood guard the entire time on the path to the ceremony.

December 2, 2025