Are Meteors playing a part in the bizarre fish behavior in Florida?

What is happening to the fish in Florida? Something, whether poison or some other disaster is making the fish turn very weird. They are exhibiting bizarre behaviour. Spinning around and stranding is far from normal. This could be due to disease or an algae-produced dementia. One reason that shouldn't be discounted is a meteor disturbance, whether a low-impact strike on the water causing concussion or an airburst that has produced VLF radio waves. The water in the region is shallow and has a delicate ecosystem. For a full explanation of the previous reasons please read my January 7 paper on Meteoroids and Whale Strandings.

What is causing the bizarre behavior in fish throughout the Florida Keys? Experts weigh in (youtube.com)

An example below are two meteor trajectories, two of many, in Florida over the last three months. 

29th January

4th of March

The Keys, a shallow and vulnerable marine world

Meteor Impacts and airbursts in Australia, and some in New Zealand, since 1862.

Meteor Impacts in Australia, and some in New Zealand, since 1862. Cameras such as Map – Fireballs Aotearoa are leading the way. There are now many others, with Australia...following? It seems unfortunate with so many whales stranding in Australian waters they aren't doing more to understand the environment they acquire as their habitat. With the advent of camera monitoring such impact events are found more readily after 2020. I've included violent airbursts close to the ground because of their destructive qualities. I have included meteorite falls as well. If it hits, it counts in my opinion. After mapping these events it seems a large portion of falls are yet to be found and a large number will never be found or located due to their airburst origin and remoteness. I haven't included violent sonic booms even though I think they can be linked to the deaths of sea mammals. Some events below have clearly been involved in the concussion deaths of Cetacean. I also have not included events that have resulted in bird deaths and possible mass fish deaths to simplify the list below. I'm always finding further events so will update when found.

1862, Late January, South Australia, Mine Hill, Kooringa, Meteor Impact/Fall, small.

1922, June 2, Western Australia, METEOR IMPACT, NW of Geraldton in Indian Ocean, 170 km from the coast. Tremor felt 230km at Geraldton rattling windows.

1927, February. Meteor impacts near Clarence River NSW. The witnesses saw it fall into the river, creating a large disturbance.

1930, February 27, (+-1 year), Victoria, BOLIDE BURST/METEOR IMPACT, Lake Tyrell.

1929, June 30, Western Australia, west of Bunbury just south of Perth, BOLIDE BURST/Possible METEOR IMPACT, Extreme, sonic boom heard, three explosions. It seemed to fall into ocean.

1929, October 8, New Zealand, Godley Head Lighthouse, BOLIDE BURST/ METEOR IMPACT, nearly hit lighthouse and impacted the sea.

1932, January 1, Peakhurst NSW, METEOR IMPACT, Extremely Violent. 3 x 4 feet diameter crater. A woman and daughter fled the house after the explosion broke windows. Heard in a 40 km radius. A stack of fencing posts was flung 100 meters. The farmer standing 200 meters away was knocked flat but survived.

1932, December 22, METEOR IMPACT off South Australia coast south of Adelaide.

1934, December 21, Western Australia, Manfred Station, 120 km north of Murgoo, METEOR IMPACT, sonic boom and tremor with two meteorites found.

1936, January 23. BOLIDE BURST/ METEOR IMPACT, 440 km south of South Australia – Victorian border region, SW of Warrnambool. Approximate impact point (-39.50, 139) off the continental shelf.

1937, March 29, New South Wales, BOLIDE BURST/METEOR IMPACT, Manley/Balmoral, impacted sea.

1942, August, New South Wales, METEOR IMPACT. 20 kg of meteorites fell at Forestvale.

1943, May 16, Tasmania, NW Coast and inland. The great Tasmanian fireballs. SIX EXTREME BOLIDE BURSTS. METEOR IMPACT. Violent. Coming in from Bass Straight. Exploded over land and sea. Tremor, sonic booms. Over 9 hours 6 bolides were reported.

1948, July 27, Queensland, BOLIDE BURST/METEOR IMPACT, two violent explosions two minutes after detonation causing the tremor. Entered atmosphere 30km inland over Brookfield. Travelled into Coral Sea.

1948, August 11, Western Australia, BOLIDE BURST/METEOR IMPACT, violent, Indian Ocean west of Geraldton.

1949, January 5, Western Australia, Mt Ida. Inland. METEOR IMPACT. Violent. Nearly hit a mining town in an arid region, caused trees to flatten, one was uprooted and flung 100 meters.

1950, Month unknown, Northern Territory, eastern Kakadu Park Area, METEOR IMPACT. The site never located. The tremor was felt over 100km away.

1952, December, Northern Territory, METEOR IMPACT, 112km east of Darwin. Trees were uprooted and the ground churned as though hit by an atom bomb. It had detonated above the ground completely devastating an area of half a kilometer square.

1954, January 28, New Zealand, METEOR IMPACT, west of Wellington in the Tasman Sea.

1954, September 6, New South Wales, METEOR IMPACT, bolide crashed into the sea just over 11km off Ulladulla coast. Extremely violent/almost natural disaster. A couple of seconds slower and it would have wiped out a city block at minimum. It entered the atmosphere North of Sydney. It started exploding at 5000 feet and an object the size of a large plane impacted the sea with tremendous explosion. A piece dissolved before impacting 100 meters from the Manly Ferry in Sydney Harbor.

POSSIBLE. 1954, October 28, Western Australia, BOLIDE AIR BURST, travelling ENE from GAB, impact point Oodnadatta in South Australia.

1959, March 23, New Zealand, METEOR IMPACT. Three huge bolides fall into see 150 km west of Wellington. First 5pm, second 5:58pm and third 10:23pm. The second was the largest, and was described as a impact of high detonation.

1963, July 23, South Australia, METEOR IMPACT, Witnessed. Off coast into Great Australian Bight. Massive roar and explosion at sea in Great Australian Bight off west South Australian coast.

1969, The Murchison meteorite, which fell in 1969 near Murchison, Victoria. It belongs to the carbonaceous chondrite class, a group of meteorites rich in organic compounds.

1994, December 5th, South Australia, METEOR IMPACT, Mt Wedge. Violent impact on the hills of a farm. Pictures taken of ground impact. Violent tremor.

2008, June 28, New South Wales, METEOR IMPACT, hit sea 4 km off the breakwall and Point Plomer, Port Macquarie.

2012, June, Western Australia, METEOR IMPACT, Violent. Roughly 100km off the coast of Perth. Traveling NW. Witnessed.

2022, A meteorite that fell near the remote cattle station of Forrest in April 2021, which was recovered by Seamus Anderson and his team.

2022, Northern Territory, A meteorite that fell in Central Australia in 2022, which was captured falling to earth by Northern Territory Police CCTV cameras.

2022, Queensland, Fragments from an asteroid that fell in the Queensland Gulf region in 2022, which are being searched for by citizen scientists.

2022, Queensland, A meteorite that is believed to have landed near the tiny Gulf town of Croydon in 2022, based on data collected by citizen scientists.

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.

Forces behind Bolides: Natures Ramjets. Extract from upcoming report on Bolides and Whale Strandings.

Forces behind Bolides: Natures Ramjets

A simple overview: Asteroids are large objects found throughout the solar system. They are enormous, with some reaching hundreds of kilometres in diameter. Occasionally, these asteroids break apart, giving rise to smaller meteoroids that enter Earth's atmosphere. These meteoroids come in various sizes and shapes. Their chemical makeup can vary, but typically consists of two main components: Iron/Nickel and Stony Irons, for simplicity's sake. Bolides can approach from almost any angle, with speeds varying significantly. However, a common scenario involves a meteoroid entering Earth's atmosphere at a 45-degree angle. Some meteoroids bounce off the atmosphere and reenter space, disappearing forever. There was a case where scientists believed a procession of bolides encircled the Earth at varying altitudes. I refer to these long-lasting airborne bolides as "Nature's Ramjets." Others get destroyed upon entry, while some descend like slabs (as I term them). You can find these events and historical incidents on my Twitter account.

Some meteors streak in rapidly and are deemed noteworthy events. The distinction between a meteoroid shower and a meteor shower is a technically misunderstood and underrepresented field in earth science. Meteor showers, like the well-known Perseids, are caused by comets. These showers consist mainly of benign dust particles and pea-sized objects, occasionally including larger ones. On the other hand, meteoroid showers are unpredictable and can occur at any time. Their origin lies in the asteroid belt, where they typically reside until external forces act upon them. Jupiter's gravity and other planets play a role, as do internal collisions. Another factor, not yet discussed, is the perturbation caused by passing comets. In simple terms, this perturbation refers to a deviation in the path of an asteroid belt object due to the gravitational influence exerted by a passing comet. This influence propels or redirects the object from its usual trajectory, causing it to deviate from its inert path.

Comets literally drag these objects out of the asteroid belt, creating closely linked showers that have been somewhat obscured in modern history. As you will observe from events over the last 180 years, this historical oversight of bolides can be attributed to global events such as both world wars, extended intervals between events, event isolation, and the decline of natural warning systems, including stranded whales themselves. The final point is that if commercial whaling had not been prevalent for a significant portion of the past 180 years, humans might have recognized sooner the correlation between these events. Due to the low whale population, people failed to see the connection between bolides and whale strandings. Had whale numbers been unaffected, it's likely someone would have made the connection much earlier. During the peak of bolide activity in the last century, if whale numbers matched today's population density, thousands of individual whales would have died each year. The lack of numbers prevented anyone from identifying this natural process; however, it would have been apparent that something from above was causing these strandings.

At the end of the 1950s, super bolide activity declined in Australia and New Zealand. It remained quiet until 2015 when, in my opinion, the super bolide season recommenced. The duration of this resurgence is unknown. With the comets well on their way, we are poised for an eventful era.

I have observed that these meteoroid streams often provide warnings. The "rubble," so to speak, can extend for millions of kilometres. It is not uncommon for electrical interference to manifest days before a main body meteoroid appears as a violent super bolide. Occasionally, rocks simply plummet from the sky at terminal velocity. These streams can also fuel electrical storms that give rise to intense atmospheric reactions. This occurs when iron and other elements mix with water vapour and atmospheric gases. The result can be volatile components and the formation of fireballs—intense plasma clouds that are highly hazardous but generally benign. Interestingly, it has been noted that rain sometimes falls on clear nights after a bolide sighting. This is due to the introduction of fine particles into the upper atmosphere. Water vapour is consistently present in the upper atmosphere, whether the skies are clear or not. At any given time, there is as much water vapour above the Sahara as there is over England.

To put it simply, bolides can be thought of as nature's atomic bombs, though with unparalleled forces. Many bolides surpass the destructive power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Some go undetected due to their slow breakup during entry into the atmosphere. The Hiroshima bomb was equivalent to 15 kilotons of TNT. In 2013, the Chelyabinsk super bolide event exceeded 440 kilotons of TNT. Such events were commonplace before 1960, during the peak of the bolide season. To give you an idea of meteor speed. If a meteor travelling at 30 km a second passed over the North Coast of New South Wales, it would take 1 (One) minute to reach New Zealand's North Island. The world record observation of meteor speed was over 70 km a second. Secondly, the power of a meteor is simply immense. An object weighing just a kilo impacting the sea at 48 km a second is like dropping 75 fully loaded train carriages full of rock into the water at terminal velocity. That's a kilo; imagine something in the tons? Or you have a sonic boom, which has been known to cause terrible effects in humans, let alone whales and other fish species in the medium of water.

When I talk about a bolide going “slow,” I mean 10 to 15, even 20 kilometres per second. For reference of how fast that still is, here is a link to something going a mere 2.8 km a second. To me, that's standing still. But just imagine if it weighed 10 tons hitting the water or blowing up above the water.

https://youtu.be/3qeoH_8jQ5E?si=ulzl1BVWzNqw2uTv

This is when sonic booms turn into violence that is truly terrifying. A witness once described a bolide turning inside out, and that's a fair and apt description. They literally explode like popcorn, and when they do, the percussion, the detonation of a solid iron/nickel meteor, is a force that is unmatched in nature. The sonic boom literally folds over the meteoroid, causing a reaction like a whip cracking.

It is true that speed is our friend. The faster a bolide comes in, the more likely it will destroy itself when impacting Earth's atmosphere. The problem arises when they enter at slower speeds. A rock weighing tons can survive; they do survive often, and when they do, it's devastating to the sea community. When discussing meteoroids and what people see, it's important to add, and I will repeat this many times, that we live on a tiny strip of coastal land. The population of Australia is found in a line of sky sight maybe 500 km wide. That leaves an immense amount of land unmonitored, so what is happening outside this realm when the land/sea ratio is 1:2.

In conclusion, here is a final representation of these phenomena. When a bolide does cut a path through the atmosphere, it is essentially creating a particle accelerator that creates fireballs. These fireballs are a conundrum that has baffled scientists for decades. Because of their complexity, I will not go into what they are at this time. However, fireballs in their own right can be dangerous and sometimes benign. Simply put, it's an object called plasma mixed with elements from the meteoroid itself; a highly intense supercharged object, complex and not to be discounted in bolide activity. Fireballs are misunderstood and further represent what will be a magical show as the bolide season unfolds. It must be said that explosive bolides do seed the ocean with elements, so the question should also be asked: Do these clouds sometimes bring something less than healthy with them? Further research is needed on this topic.