Sailors Who Witness Northern Lights at Sea Reveal the Unsettling Thing They Notice: "It's Loud..."
Almost every person dreams of witnessing the northern lights at some point in their lives, young or old. Scientifically called aurora borealis, the natural spectacle can be observed in the northern hemisphere, including Alaska, Canada, and Greenland among other countries. People visiting nations that fall under the auroral oval– a band of latitudes between 60 and 75 degrees, per Discover the World– are most likely to see the sky painted in heavenly hues but there is a disturbing sound that accompanies it. A Reddit user (u/Myriagaon10000) directed a question at sailors and those working at sea asking them to share the most amazing or creepiest sight they had witnessed while on their voyages. The northern lights were the last thing anyone had expected.
The post derived over 6K upvotes and a dozen comments on the northern lights. One person claiming to be a sailor (u/Curbside_Hero) said, “The northern lights in the middle of nowhere Alaska.” The comment continued, “We were anchored in a remote cove, so the CO agreed to turn off all the exterior lights. Just a crazy, crazy thing to see.” While the user reminisced about its beauty, a follow-up comment talked about the eerie sound of aurora borealis. “Seeing them is absolutely spectacular. Hearing them though was unsettling for me,” the Reddit user (u/MostSeaworthiness) said. Someone else (u/ChiliConCarne44) recalled watching three natural marvels. “I got to see the northern lights, a meteor shower, and a blood moon,” they said adding that being at sea was one of the best Navy experiences.
One particular netizen (u/cookinthescuppers), however, attempted to explain the crackling sound emanating from the northern lights. “They absolutely do (make a noise), like very loud cracking cellophane and when they are at their best, it’s loud like thunder and the whole ground shakes and the colors can get very close to the ground,” the comment stated. The user compared the experience to being in a lightning storm that can be terrifying and inspiring simultaneously.
There is much debate on whether the northern lights truly make sounds or not. Canadian astronomer Clarence Chant first argued that the motion of the northern lights interacting with Earth’s magnetic field results in electrification of the atmosphere that produces a crackling sound near Earth’s surface, as many may have experienced, per The Conversation. The study gained momentum in 1923 but remained unsupported by the majority of scientists until the 1970s when two auroral physicists revisited his theory in a later study published in the journal Advances in Geophysics. According to the experts, aural sounds are only observed in only 5% of violent auroral displays.
In 2020, the BBC 3 radio program made it possible for people to actually listen to the radio signals of northern lights at home. They remapped the low-frequency radio recordings of the aurora into the audible spectrum to give a sense of the phenomenon’s dynamic nature. “The lights occur during times of intense magnetic activity and moving magnetic fields can generate electric currents,” Astrophysicist Carolin Crawford told Astronomy, adding, “One speculative possibility is that these sounds could be picked up locally to the observer through nearby metal (through a barbed wire fence or such) and broadcast like a radio signal.”
On the other side of the debate is Professor Donald Hampton from the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He debated that there is no possible explanation for the sound to directly emit from the northern lights the speed of light is faster than sound. There are ongoing studies to back the idea but still lack enough evidence.