Kabris,
I am not sure if that wire is going into the basement. It is right at the level where if it's in the basement it is probably at the high part of the basement. And when looking in the basement near my panel and where the wire may be coming in, I cannot see anything because everything is covered up by insulation or a wall. So in other words I just can't tell.
I doubt that those lights were controlled by a switch in the garage. Reasons being are;
1)In the garage there are only 2 switches.
One for the internal garage lights. The second switch is for the floodlights at the rear of the garage. If I just wanted to turn on the front garage lights to light up the driveway all night, that means with the switches in the garage I would either have to have the interior lights or the floodlights at the back on all night also. That makes no sense.
2) I have only one other switch anywhere else either inside or outside the house/garage which does not seem to do anything. The only other thing that does not work and appears to have no control for it are those front garage lights. Also that suspect switch originally was a programmable timer switch. Since my porch light is a from dusk to dawn with sensor light and has its own switch, the only other reason why the original switch would have a timer was to control the front garage lights that light up the driveway.
3) I am not a genius nor am I an electrician, but knowing that I only have "one" switch that doesn't work, I also have "one" or in this case two fixtures that do not work. So even with my limited knowledge, my powers of deduction tells me that, that switch is for those lights. Until I can prove otherwise.
So maybe whoever installed it either they wired it wrong, or abandoned the project and it never worked in the first place. I don't know. At this point I just want to find out where the other end of the wire goes, either from the lights back, or from the switch forward.
Side note, I researched the circuit tracers that can do open/closed and in-wall checks, they are like $600+. So those are out of the question. So that means I am down to getting a wire tracer that does the tone but I am beginning to think that it won't be good enough.