We all know about Adam and Eve. But now scientists are wondering about the blue-eyed soul responsible for every blue-eyed person on the planet.

The Daily Mail reports on a study from that blue-eyed country Denmark, by the Copenhagen University, on the rarity of blue eyes. According to researchers, a gene mutation dating back to 6,000 to 10,000 years ago is responsible for all of the blue-eyed folks alive today.

The study, published in the journal Human Genetics, claims that a single mutation in a gene called OCA2 occurred in one lone person along the Black Sea coast about 8,000 years ago. The mutation caused the cessation of brown pigment in the eye, causing it to turn blue.

What happened next is the stuff of love songs and Hollywood. The pale, blue-eyed blonds were more attractive to the average brown-eyed, brunettes, simply because they were different. That means that all of the blue eyes today date from one ancestor, and it explains why they are mostly found in European and Eastern descendants. Yes, that one person, long ago, really did make your brown eyes blue.

And while Hollywood may still profess a preference for blue-eyed babes like Angelina Jolie, the fact is that blue eyes are a recessive trait, which means that eventually we may all go back to having brown eyes. Epidemiologist Mark Grant conducted a study a few years back that found that about half of Americans had blue eyes at the turn of the 20^th century. Today, it’s more like one in six Americans. And that’s enough to leave Willie Nelson’s blues eyes crying in the rain.