Powerful spotlights Wednesday night dance to the music on top of Jason Mills’ home at 74 Warren Road in Monmouth. The lights have prompted questions and speculation from residents miles away. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

MONMOUTH — It’s not unusual, some evenings, for people to pull to the side of the road, get out of their cars and just start dancing in the street in front of Jason Mills’ house on Warren Road. 

“We’ve had people out there singing at the top of their lungs, too,” says Mills, “and it’s just fun and funny. We really enjoy seeing people out there.” 

These spontaneous displays of singing and dancing aren’t the work of lunatics. They are among the many who stop in front of Mills’ house in the early evenings to enjoy the elaborate Christmas light show going on there. 

And when we say “elaborate,” we really mean it. We’re talking 18,000 LED lights flickering, flashing and kind of dancing along in exotic ways in sync with the music. 

We’re talking computer controlled projectors beaming images onto the windows, where exotic swirls of light move in every imaginable way. Every once in while, you’ll see the ghostly image of a guitarist jamming along to the music of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra on Mills’ front door. The lights spin and throb and pulsate in such a wild variety of ways, it’s mesmerizing. 

The experience is almost psychedelic. It is, without question, hypnotic. 

Sheets of LED bulbs change with the music at Jason Mills’ home in Monmouth. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

And there are four moving spotlights atop Mills’ roof, as well. They shoot out beams of light and move every which way based on the music. The light dances playfully on whatever sky cover there happens to be that night, and people have reported seeing this phenomena as far away as Turner and Greene, Lewiston, Auburn and Poland, in some cases attributing it to UFOs or the northern lights. 

When it comes to his Christmas light show, Mills, an assistant chief with the Monmouth Fire Department, does not mess around. His show is carefully curated through computer software that allows him to adjust the timing of every bulb and get every flash and flicker in line with the beat of the holiday season songs on his playlist. 

This is not traditional Christmas decorating. The display is all encompassing. From the great spotlights on the roof to the animated Christmas trees and candy canes on the front lawn, Mills has used the latest in lighting technology to present one of the grandest displays one will find in the region. 

It’s a lot of work and none of it is cheap: The spotlights alone run about $1,000 apiece and the LED lights were at one time selling for about a buck a bulb. 

Yet, Mills has been doing this for years and his officially named Monmouth Lights show gets wilder with each new Christmas season.  

Jason Mills stands Wednesday night in front of his home at 74 Warren Road in Monmouth., where his ever-evolving light display is attracting people from across the region. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

“Inspiration for my light show came from a few places,” says Mills, in a way that is both modest and alive with childlike enthusiasm. “When I was a kid, my grandmother had an amazing Christmas light display every year and I see this as my way of carrying on that piece of her legacy. I am also a big fan of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra and started going to their concerts around 20 years ago. The lighting at those concerts is a show of its own and, as a bit of a tech geek, it garnered my interest immediately. So in 2012 I started Monmouth Lights with a few strings of traditional Christmas lights and some controllers that I put together. I had a couple different songs each year and we would see a handful of cars each night stop by. We did that for three or four years before work got in the way.” 

Things went along at that tempo for a few years. Then Mills stepped things up a notch or three. 

“In 2019, we moved to our current house and I started looking into smart lighting options,” Mills says. “I built a few small controllers and played around with some LED strips before stumbling across some information about connecting them into a Christmas light show. That’s all it took to throw me back into the hobby and I started putting together a small show. We didn’t expect a lot of visitors, but that was 2020 and a lot of normal Christmas events and traditions weren’t happening that year, so we had more than we anticipated and we ended up causing a few traffic problems.” 

Mills lives on a pretty quiet stretch of Warren Road. In order for someone to cause traffic problems there, people would have to be coming from miles around to see the show. 

That’s exactly what happened, and the show draws even more interest these days now that it’s bigger and brighter and more intense than ever. 

Viewers watching the light show from their cars can tune their radios to 91.7 FM to hear the music while the lights dance. The closer Christmas gets, the more Christmas music is being added to the playlist. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

The popularity of Mills’ light show got a boost recently thanks to a bunch of threads on social media where people — including Sun Journal photographer Russ Dillingham — reported seeing lights in the sky in far-flung places like the wilds of Turner. 

Some folks thought it was Elon Musk’s Starlink they were seeing up there in the heavens. Others thought UFOs were making regular stops to the area. 

When it was finally sorted out, many made the drive out to lonely Warren Road to have an up-close look at Mills’ fancy display. By then, Mills already had a pretty good following. There is rarely a time between 4:30 and 9 p.m. that at least one vehicle isn’t stopped in front of his house to enjoy the show — which takes an amazing 22 minutes to cycle from start to finish before beginning all over again. 

Mills gets help from his wife and two daughters, both with the setup and the computer controls. 

“My oldest daughter is just in high school,” Mills says. “Now she’s kind of getting into computer programming and stuff, so she’s starting to learn how to program the songs so she can pick some of her favorites and make some light shows from them.” 

The light show at the Monmouth home of Jason Mills includes thousands of LED lights, projects, spotlights and even a collection box for families to drop off their letters to Santa. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

Mills adds new songs to the mix every week. Right now, there’s a little bit of everything in there, but as it gets closer to the holiday, Mills will switch over to Christmas music exclusively. 

He also gets a little help from Maine Equipment Rental, which partners with Mills and made it possible for him to work safely and with a little bit of a break on his own costs. 

Mills said he’s never considered asking for help from the public to pay for his setup. He does this for them and all he wants is for families viewing the show to have a good time. 

Families can drop off letters to Santa and watch the light show choreographed by computer to an ever-changing playlist of music. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

“We do this show for the community,” Mills says, “and there is never a charge to come and see it. We do have a Santa’s mailbox where families can drop their letters to Santa and we will get them to the North Pole. If they include a return address, we do our best to make sure they get a personal replay.” 

Some folks will leave donations in a box at the roadside, but Mills gives 100% of anything collected to local youth STEM and arts programs, including Monmouth VEX Robotics and the Monmouth Community Players’ kids program. 

The show runs nightly and Mills plans to keep the display going until the new year. Those who stop to take in the grand show can tune their radios to 91.7 FM to hear the music or they can download the PulseMesh app on their phones. 

In spite of the breathtaking magnitude of his light show, Mills doesn’t consider himself any kind of local king of Christmas displays. In fact, he says that some spectacular light shows at nearby homes — on Small Road and on Hallowell Road in Litchfield — make it so that the drive to the area is three times as special for those out to enjoy Christmas decorations in the area. 

You can find more information about Mills’ work at the Facebook group Monmouth Lights, but take it from us. This is the kind of Christmas decoration that has to be seen to be believed.