Tour Guide Records Bizarre Noises In Sweden — He's Convinced It Came From Northern Lights

These unusual noises were documented while the man was touring with a group in an unusual location in the Nordic city.

PUBLISHED 7 HOURS AGO

A man sitting on an icy landscape looking at the aurora borealis. (Representative Cover Image Source: Pixabay | Noel_Bauza)

The northern lights have been long known as a visual spectacle but there have been accounts of reported noises emitting from the natural event. While scientists have disregarded the fact as mere hallucinations, rumors, or illusions, a tour guide in northern Sweden made sure he had evidence to prove it. He claimed to have repeatedly heard the northern lights but recorded its noise for the first time as the aurora borealis engulfed the sky with beautiful hues one fine day, as per Science Alert.

A person enjoying the northern lights. (Representative Image Source: Pexels | Tobias Bjorkli)

Tour guide and photographer Oliver Wright documented the noise of the aurora borealis, heard as a series of blips and cracks, on Christmas 2016. While the sounds could be coming from anywhere in the city, Wright claimed it was a result of the natural event. “On Christmas night 2016, I was standing beneath an intense display of auroras in Abisko, Sweden, when I heard something that sounded like Star Wars blasters," Wright told SpaceWeather.com. He said the bystanders also witnessed and heard it. “I rushed closer to the power lines and was able to record a sample using my iPhone,” explained the tour guide who works with Lights Over Lapland.

Engineers in Sound Studio. (Representative Image Source: Pexels | ThisIsEngineering)

Wright emphasized that the noise emanating from the northern lights was particularly intense near the power lines. Of all the three times he observed the sounds, the guide noted that the loudness and the softness of the sound were influenced by the brightness of the aurora lights. While this subject is backed with little scientific research, acoustic scientist Unto K. Laine from Aalto University in Finland has dedicated over 15 years of his life to recording the noises of aurora. He was also the first person to formally record the sounds by spending countless nights in the snowy landscape of his village and seemed to have decoded the mystery behind the sounds.

Aurora Borealis over mountains. (Representative Cover Image Source: Pexels | stein egil liland)

Explaining the physics behind the phenomenon, Laine said that the sparks of electricity discharge are created beneath the aurora in the inversion layer of the atmosphere typically occurring on clear and calm sunny days. "The sounds are diverse and can vary quite a lot, and it is very possible that there are many different mechanisms creating the sounds," he said. "I have been concentrating more on the clapping, popping, and crackling, because they are good for estimating the direction of the sound,” he added. In 2011, Laine finally captured the sound during an intense aurora overhead riddled with clap noises and eventually found that they were originating just 230 feet above the ground in contrast to aurora events occurring at altitudes of 300 kilometers.

Later, the scientist based his study published by the Nordic Acoustics Association on his first accounts of the auroral sounds. He explained that when an aurora occurs over a charged inversion layer of the atmosphere, geomagnetic disturbances cause the electricity buildup to discharge with sparks creating magnetic pulses and sounds. Laine opened up to Live Science on what piqued his interest in the phenomenon of “auroral acoustics.” About 25 years ago, he and his friends first heard the sounds emitting from an aurora while returning from a nighttime music gathering in Finnish Lapland. He claimed the experience shifted something within him and he could never move past it. “I could never forget this experience, it was so strange,” the scientist reminisced.