06/02/2024
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/uTWHLcogfhidRx5Z/?mibextid=Nif5oz
This isn’t about the Northern Lights, which made their way into the Ozarks on May 10th, or rather, the lights are only one sliver of ‘this’. I had intended to write this the following day, but wondered if the visual ad nauseum of photos from back-yards warranted accretion. But frankly, my observation is that the visual aspect was the totality of the experience being uploaded to the void. And, that, decidedly was not our experience on May 10th. So, I waited.
The digital void has flowed onward, turning to the meme of the hour, the ‘hey, aren’t I clever’ posts, and business as usual info drops in the ever-louder din of the void that we all take part in, to one extent, or another. But, my mind has turned back to May 10th, repeatedly.
It was not a back-yard experience for starters. Mid-afternoon we started talking about watching the anticipated northern lights. Within a few hours we were headed for the darkest spot within a couple hundred miles. Light pollution is not something we think much of these days, especially at night, but you become very aware once you get out of its line of sight. The Bortle Scale and Light Pollution maps strip away any illusion of our connection to the skies our ancestors experienced. We had to settle for a Bortle Scale 2 spot. Scale 1 spots are few and far between, in our backlit screen world. The trip was immersive as we turned from U.S. Highway to state roads, to county roads which, in turn, shrunk to one lane, gravel trails, the likes of which I haven’t driven in decades. We rolled the windows down to take in the lights, greens and whites and pinks enveloping all of the skies we craned our gaze to catch. I had to smile when the years of inattention resulted in our having to back-up a half-mile, to find a way around the gravel obstacle. Thoughts drifted to times when we were not perpetually tied to a digital map and people didn’t know where you were every minute; times too many have never experienced; nor known the freedom of, and the inherent, potential danger of; which in turn are reminiscent of the farther recesses of time, when the legends of the Northern Lights were new.
The center of that Scale 2 spot was mesmerizing, an untended gravel road with more rock than gravel, barbed-wire fence, remnants of a long-unused cattle shed and farm equipment, and a solitary, weather-worn radio tower that made me swear Wolfman Jack was about to walk up on us and say we needed to howl at the low-lying moon-a crescent that was 3-D light against the black sphere silhouette, blacker than the black ether in which it hung. And the stars, more than I can remember in one sky, as if thousands of meteors teetered on the edge of the atmosphere.
But the sound. In a moment infamous for light, the sounds had the most effect. The expected May night sounds were absent; no far-off cars, planes, animals, insects, nor wind, with two exceptions. First, an occasional coyote howl, which was very near, and drew my attention to the nearby rise in the land, mere hundreds of yards to my right, with the heavy crescent moon seemingly inches above it. In my imagination, Wolfman Jack laughed in response. Perhaps it wasn’t just my imagination: “The Eskimos thought that the celestial phenomenon represented deceased family members, but instead of fearing the light, they beckoned and invoked it. They were sure that the dancing souls could be talked to, and they conjured up the light through rituals to whisper messages to their closest deceased relatives. It is also said that their dogs would howl at the light, and this meant that the dogs recognized their former owners.” And then, second, was the creaking of metal, swinging from some suspended thing, the sound you instantly recognize if you lived in the country and farming was a part of your routine; except there was no wind, and the sound was very near, in the still air. Once those familiar sounds were catalogued, the other seemed to pour in and hold attention. An otherworldly cacophony, which intellectually I was told for years has no empirical basis, but recently science has conceded a caveat (read to the end for the spoiler); but when they wash past you they are undeniable. They evoke the images of the masters, illustrating medieval tellings of myths of the north. Legends are divided on whether it is good or bad to react to the sky’s whistling. Much like tales of Irish fairies and North American indigenous tales of the Little People, some tales hint that you may call the whistling to you, but you may or may not like what you get in response. Some legends go as far as saying the lights may cut one’s head off if summoned. If you were not sure you wanted that fate, it was also believed that clapping your hands might keep the lights at bay. For the Scots, my own ancestors, the Northern Lights were the “Merry Dancers”. Even though this seems innocent enough, the dancers were warriors who had died in battle. In the Scottish archipelago the Hebrides, bloodstones, or heliotropes are a common sight. The Scots believed the red spots on the bloodstones were drops of blood, fallen from the sky as the Merry Dancers engaged in battle.
Listening intently, we were still as well. Instinctively, there is a sense you are experiencing something touching upon the other side. The feeling grew that we were not alone, that others stood watching us. The sense grew until I heard “I’m done taking photos.” The car door shut and with a shake of the head, “Man. It’s creepier here than it should be.”
“Yeah, it is kinda creepy.”
A sideways look, “If you admit it’s creepy, you know it’s creepy.”
I smiled. Wolfman Jack howled with laughter in my imagination.
We finally left, reluctantly, closer to the witching hour than midnight, this spot having left more than just an impression. We talked, stopped at a welcome gas station, grabbed snacks, and talked and drove.
“I want to go back there again. There’s something about that place, lights or no.”
“Me, too,” I nodded.
Wolfman Jack winked and put his sunglasses on and leaned into the microphone in my imagination; not the Top 40 Wolfman, but the young DJ outlaw at a border blaster station, coming across the air like those Merry Dancers reigning blood down from the battle in the sky, voice finding its way to that weather-worn radio tower in the dark of a Bortle Scale 2 spot, and all across the US, until corporate interests shut it all down; a listening experience few remember these days, about as rare as hearing the Northern Lights calling. Candidly, I don’t remember the outlaw voice, but there were hints in the older Wolfman Jack’s voice, which was a backdrop to my younger days. Likewise, perhaps (the original) Kowalski* was Hollywood’s Merry Dancer to the fictional outlaw DJ Supersoul’s warnings, in a way only those staring down the whistling of the Northern Lights ages ago would understand our electrified world and shared electronic dreams on the screen. Maybe the old ones will forgive us our forsaking the night sky.
"At night the heavens are starry and black, up here on top of the world, across the sky northern lights dance, reds and greens a-twirl. The Inuits say don't whistle, when the northern lights are high, lest they swoop to earth and carry you up to the luminescent sky."
"Labrador in Winter", Kate Tuthill
On the other hand, in Scandanavia and Japan, it was said a child conceived when the Northern Lights were visible would enjoy good luck and prosperity. the Sami people of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia say the Northern Lights are the spirits of their ancestors, and are a sign of good fortune and that they have the power to heal and protect people from harm.
The solar storm that produced the May 10th Northern Lights was an unusually strong one, allowing them to be seen in the Ozarks. Similar storms allowed the lights to be seen as far south as Greece and Italy, affording the Northern Lights a spot in classical Greek and Roman mythology: “The Greeks held that Aurora (meaning wind) was the sister of Helios and Seline, the sun and moon respectively, and that she raced across the early morning sky in her multi-coloured chariot to alert her siblings to the dawning of a new day. The Romans also associated the Northern Lights with a new day believing them to be Aurora, the goddess of dawn.”
Many folktales associated the Northern Lights with otherworldly affairs, including:
“Many Inuit, the Arctic’s Indigenous peoples, believed they were spirits of the dead playing a game with a walrus skull as the “ball.” The Inuit of Nunivak Island in the Bering Sea had their own flipped take on this story, believing that it was walrus spirits playing with a human skull…Indigenous Greenlanders believed that the lights were dancing spirits of children who had died at birth…For Wisconsin’s Fox Native Americans, the aurora gave them a sense of foreboding—representing their slain enemies preparing for revenge…In Alaska, some Inuit groups saw the lights as the spirits of the animals they had hunted, namely beluga whales, seals, salmon and deer…The Inuit of Hudson Bay dreaded the lights, believing they were the lanterns of demons pursuing lost souls…In Finland, a mystical fox was thought to have created the aurora, its bushy tail spraying snow and throwing sparks into the sky…Some Algonquin peoples believed their cultural hero, Nanahbozho, relocated to the far north after he finished creating the Earth. He lit large fires, which reflected back to his people in the form of the northern lights. This let them know he was thinking of them, even from far away…In perhaps the best oxymoron in British folklore, Scottish legend refers to the lights as “Merry Dancers” engaged in bloody battle…Native Americans of the Great Plains thought the light display came from northern tribes cooking their dead enemies in huge pots over blazing fires…Inuit in Point Barrow, Alaska’s northernmost spot, believed the aurora was evil. They carried knives to protect themselves from it…In Estonia, one legend said the lights appeared when whales were playing games. Another said they were sleighs taking guests to a spectacular wedding feast…Wisconsin’s Menominee Native Americans saw the lights as torches used by benevolent giants to spear fish at night…Fishermen in northern Sweden took the lights as a good omen, believing they reflected large schools of herring in nearby seas.”
Marsea Nelson, Natural Habitat Adventures
Science has traditionally dismissed tales of the northern lights whistling as folktales, as people viewing the lights usually do not hear whistling, but folktales are often based in fact. Science recently confirmed this:
“[S]cientists set up recording equipment in the Finnish village of Fiskars and listened to the night sky. Most of the time the auroras were silent, but to their surprise they found that about 5% of the strongest auroras were associated with whistles, cracks and hisses. The researchers found that the noises always coincided with a temperature inversion (cold air trapped under a lid of warm air) and appear to be caused by the release of static charge, linked to changes in atmospheric electricity caused by the aurora’s disturbance to Earth’s magnetic field.”
***
Another reconciliation of the experiences of the Northern Lights and science, pre-recent findings is found here:
“Some say that if you whistle at the Northern Lights, they will dance for you. The more cautious argue that one should never whistle when the Northern Lights are low, as it can bring great misfortune, even death. One story from Hay River, Northwest Territories, tells of five hunters who died because the bells on their dog harnesses caused the Northern Lights to come close to Earth. The hunters saw the lights descending, but even though they lay flat in the snow beside the sleds, they inhaled some part of the aurora and all perished.
Another mystery of the Northern Lights is the sound that they are said to make. The noise generated by the Aurora Borealis has been reported in legend, folklore and in modern times. The phenomenon is a mystery to scientists, as the thin air of the ionosphere where the lights are generated cannot carry sound waves.
In 1995 [before the Finnish study confirmed the empirical basis for the whistling], science writer Ned Rozell, of the University of Alaska Geophysical Institute, wrote an article entitled "Straining to Hear the Voice of the Aurora." Rozel interviewed Tom Hallinan, a professor of geophysics at the Institute. Hallinan had studied the aurora for decades and claimed to have heard it himself.
‘There's something going on,’ Hallinan was quoted as saying. ‘It's scientifically unreasonable, yet people do hear it.’
One theory is that the brain may sense electromagnetic waves from the aurora and through some unknown process, convert them to sound. A different theory holds the aurora creates electrical currents on the ground, which might create an electrical discharge from nearby objects such as trees or buildings which the human ear can then hear.
A Canadian anthropologist, Ernest Hawkes, published an account in 1916 which gave a more traditional explanation. According to his research at the beginning of the 1900s, the Labrador Inuit believed the aurora to be the torches of spirits illuminating a pathway to heaven for souls of people who died a voluntary or violent death. Hawkes related an Inuit belief that the spirits could be seen in the aurora kicking around the skull of a walrus in a game similar to soccer.
‘The whistling crackling noise which sometimes accompanies the aurora is the voices of these spirits trying to communicate with the people of the earth,’ Hawkes added. "They should always be answered in a whispering voice.’
Danish explorer Knud Rasmussen wrote something similar about a Greenland Inuit belief in this celestial soccer match, in 1932
‘It is this ball game of the departed souls that appears as the aurora borealis, and is heard as a whistling, rustling, crackling sound. The noise is made by the souls as they run across the frost-hardened snow of the heavens. If one happens to be out alone at night when the aurora borealis is visible, and hears this whistling sound, one has only to whistle in return and the light will come nearer, out of curiosity.’”
Dale Jarvis, Saltwire.com
*”Vanishing Point”, 1971
Sources:
https://astrobackyard.com/the-bortle-scale/;
https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/ =4.00&lat=45.8720&lon=14.5470&state=eyJiYXNlbWFwIjoiTGF5ZXJCaW5nUm9hZCIsIm92ZXJsYXkiOiJ3YV8yMDE1Iiwib3ZlcmxheWNvbG9yIjpmYWxzZSwib3ZlcmxheW9wYWNpdHkiOjYwLCJmZWF0dXJlc29wYWNpdHkiOjg1fQ==;
https://optcorp.com/blogs/telescopes-101/the-bortle-scale;
https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/68989061 #:~:text=It%20was%20caused%20by%20the,including%20satellites%20orbiting%20our%20planet;
https://www.saltwire.com/newfoundland-labrador/opinion/whistling-at-the-northern-lights-135097/ #:~:text=%22The%20whistling%20crackling%20noise%20which,the%20earth%2C%22%20Hawkes%20added;
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/359861885_Sound_producing_mechanism_in_the_temperature_inversion_layer_and_its_sensitivity_to_geomagnetic_activity;
https://www.theaurorazone.com/about-the-aurora/aurora-legends/;
https://northernlightsyukon.com/myth-legends-about-the-northern-lights/ #:~:text=The%20Norse%20believed%20that%20the,giants%20would%20battle%20each%20other;
https://www.nathab.com/blog/fifteen-native-tales-about-the-northern-lights/;
https://www.norwegian.travel/inspiration/northern-lights-myths #:~:text=Grotesque%20Myths&text=More%20macabre%20legends%20believed%20that,and%20North%20America%20as%20well;
https://www.hurtigruten.com/en-us/inspiration/northern-lights/myths-legends;
https://www.npr.org/2021/06/10/1004859458/what-causes-the-northern-lights-scientists-finally-know-for-sure;
https://www.kcur.org/news/2024-05-10/northern-lights-kansas-city-missouri-aurora-borealis-sky;
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2023/jan/05/noises-of-the-northern-lights-weatherwatch #:~:text=The%20researchers%20found%20that%20the,disturbance%20to%20Earth's%20magnetic%20field;
https://airlinkalaska.com/blog/what-sound-does-the-aurora-make/ #:~:text=Auroral%20sounds%20have%20been%20described,Lights%20do%20indeed%20make%20sounds
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