Panic-clumping whale strandings induced by VLT radio waves.

Panic strandings are a slow process of mental pod breakdown or hysteria, and meteor showers seem to be the number one cause of this phenomenon. Usually, it is simply sheer bad luck, similar to a concussion, of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It's a trap caused by land being in the way. In the open sea, whales and dolphins can maneuver around obstructive noise; however, when land becomes an obstacle, it results in disaster.

Can meteors produce sound, and is it possible to hear them?

Meteors and bolides are a captivating sight, filling us with momentary awe and sometimes temporary shock. These fleeting streaks of light serve as reminders that numerous small rocky objects and even tinier icy particles, most no larger than grains of sand, enter Earth's atmosphere every hour, every day. Most of them burn up in Earth's atmosphere and never reach its surface. Witnessing them is an enjoyable and exhilarating experience. But can we also hear meteors? Sometimes, following a meteor shower, people claim to have heard meteors as they disintegrate in the atmosphere. Some describe a low hissing sound, akin to the sizzle of bacon, when witnessing exceptionally bright meteors. So, what exactly are people hearing? It turns out these sounds are related to very low-frequency (VLF) radio waves.

For years, professional astronomers dismissed the idea of sounds from meteors but that has now changed. Typically, a meteor burns up about 100 km above the Earth's surface. Sound travels much more slowly than light. Consequently, we shouldn't be able to hear the rumblings of a particularly large meteor until several minutes after sighting it. It's analogous to hearing thunder after the lightning flashes have already occurred.

A meteor soaring 100 km high produces a boom approximately five minutes after its appearance—a "sonic" bolide-type explosion. The noise it generates is reminiscent of the sonic boom produced by an aircraft breaking the sound barrier.

However, some meteors appear to emit sound simultaneously with their visible presence. Is this possible? Yes, such meteors are known as electrophonic meteors. The explanation lies in their emission of very low-frequency (VLF) radio waves, which travel at the speed of light. While we can't directly hear radio waves, they can induce vibrations in physical objects on Earth's surface. These vibrations give rise to a sound that our ears may perceive as the sizzling sound of a meteor streaking by. Since VLF waves travel at the speed of light, observers hear them at the same moment they see the meteors pass overhead. VLF waves can penetrate seawater to depths of at least 10–40 meters (30–130 feet), depending on the frequency and water salinity, making them useful for communicating with submarines.

These observations are crucial because Black Dolphins exhibit intriguing diving behaviour and so correspond closely to the sound behaviour of meteors. The dolphins typically take several breaths before diving for a few minutes, with feeding dives occasionally extending beyond ten minutes. Although they can dive as deep as 600 meters, most of their dives occur at depths of 30–60 meters. Shallow dives typically occur during the day, while deeper ones take place at night. When conducting deep dives, pilot whales often sprint to capture fast-moving prey, such as squid. So most of their behaviour, “relaxed day zone” is within the realm of the electrophonic meteor.

Electrophonic Fireball sounds manifest in various forms, including popping, whooshing, singing, crackling, and sizzling. If pilot whales were subjected to prolonged exposure to a meteor shower, these sounds could be disconcerting. Notably, these sounds are usually heard before the fireballs reach their maximum brightness. Their frequency falls within the 37 to 44 Hz range, which is near the lower end of the average person's audible range, typically between 20 to 20,000 Hz. If you've ever driven at high speed with your back window open, you've likely encountered a 30-Hz sound.

Interestingly, VLF sounds detected via their VLF signatures can identify 50 times more meteors than sight alone. This underscores the significance of these auditory phenomena in understanding and studying meteors. As stated below and worth repeating: An average meteor might only have a 25 db sting to the ears however when you start muliplying this over hundreds and then thousands over hours and ten of thousands over weeks you can see how a dolphin with highly tuned echolocation could get incredibly tormented. One observer counted over 200,000 an hour and another 20 a second. At 25dp each the calculation is astronomical. Now times this by 50 and the average dolphin would be in a state of panic whose measure would be impossible to comprehend.

Whale Strandings and easy food locations for concussed marine mammals

Why do whales strand at locations like Farewell Spit, Tasmania's west coast, Bass Strait and other weird locations around the world? Easy food. I realized that these locations are where whales are heading to and seeking out because they are already injured. A concussed animal is basically going to do two things. Die, float then sink or seek shallow water to feed until recuperated. They come out of their feeding grounds already in bad shape. Sometimes only a handful of individuals might be injured and the others we never see because they are already dead. The pod navigates poorly and anything out of the ordinary, that most times they could manage like a storm, sends them ashore. A cachalot that depends on diving deep for its food would be in great difficulty if it just couldn't do this, and seeking shallow water would be the only option. Black Dolphins would essentially do the same, following shoals of fish into locations they would never bother with if fighting fit. Given exhaustion, lack of food, stress, and having to keep juveniles nourished; this would be an incredible strain on the pod. These are families, intelligent creatures with bonds that are not easily severed willfully. At all these locations whales navigate through all the time safely. Blue Whales have even been seen rolling around on the sand in Victoria before continuing on their journey. It's not the shallows killing on mass as such, it's the last port of call for desperate animals. A concussed mammal would be hard to diagnose. In all honesty, they would look like healthy individuals. There could be one or two with ordinary natural health problems, however, this would be expected in large pods of mammals. My biggest question is how damaged? Do they get better? Can they get better? And what if any long-term effects do they carry with them.

So why certain times of year, and not others? It is due to the fact that let's say an incident happens. You could have many scenarios that could go from killing a pod outright to only a few individuals injured or surviving. They wander because of a concussion. This is probably why you see different species wash up together because injured individuals might very well be left alone sometimes, lone survivors or abandoned to circle aimlessly. Whales have been stranded at the same time as marlins and other fish species. There is a lot to unpick in these strandings. Why are sharks all over some stranding and not others? Has the event killed sharks? Leaving the carcasses to wash ashore. Sharks do wash ashore with strandings, large ones at times, showing these sky incidents are truly indiscriminate in the way they kill. It's usually an oversight not to notice these other fish because a large whale or dozens of them are more visually noticeable. Whales need to breathe and fight to do so, which keeps them on the surface, and if running yourself ashore to breathe is the only option open to you, then so be it. A fish on the other hand could simply suffer down in the depths, eventually being snapped up for food. However, as I said large species of fish have been washed ashore in split strandings, not clumping events.

So back in the Southern Ocean, you have dolphins or whales that can't dive properly but sustain themselves long enough before heading north. This journey is instinctive and necessary for pod survival. If they could stay down south, the group as a whole would never be stranded and individuals that are sick would naturally die never to be seen again but wouldn't take the whole pod down with them. This changes when they need to move north. Then bad navigation, seeking easy food, a slow steady decline they themselves are probably/maybe oblivious to and it all unravels. This is why whales usually don't strand heading south. Remember the Southern Ocean is their home for a greater part of the year. Bolides have been quiet to the north and apart from your yearly natural wash-up deaths, no great stranding has occurred. This however is changing and as a consequence, this sky harassment could see large split strandings, not pod clumping. This is a crucial point also, the panic stranding shows that pods flee into shallows, and it seems an instinctive thing to do. With a concussion, it's the same but for totally different purposes, however, the instinct is there. Whale strandings that we see are but a small glimpse of a much greater story being written down in the Southern Ocean. The stranding is a consequence for an animal already under considerable suffering.