Finnish researcher describes sounds of northern lights following ‘crackling’ reports in the sky near Lake Superior

Many Cook County residents and visitors to the North Shore area had a chance to see northern lights Monday, Sept. 18. During the brilliant show, at least one Cook County resident claimed to have heard sounds coming from the aurora borealis.

A professor at Aalto University in Finland has spent years researching this topic. His name is Unto Laine. His hypothesis, in part, is that auroral light and auroral sounds share a commonality: fluctuating solar wind. This wind produces the geomagnetic storm, the auroral lights, and triggers the auroral sound during certain weather conditions, primarily when it is calm and clear in the sky above. This common background explains why the sounds are so well in synchrony with the northern lights, Laine explained during a recent interview with WTIP. The delay between the light movements and sounds is so small that we often perceive them simultaneously, Laine told WTIP’s Joe Friedrichs.

Laine is highly regarded as one of the world’s foremost experts on the sounds of the northern lights. His research includes a groundbreaking report published in 2016 on the sounds of the northern lights.

Laine spoke with WTIP from his cabin in in Fiskars Village in Finland. Also joining the discussion, to help with translation, and because she’s been to the Boundary Waters, Lake Superior and Grand Marais, was Finnish journalist Pauliina Grym. Listen to the full interview in the audio below.

Joe Friedrichs September 22, 2023