Auroral Acoustics Project

Interesting sound. I would have guessed a Wild West performer was practicing with a bullwhip while also vacuuming. But no. That sound is apparently produced by the aurora borealis, the northern lights. Since 2000, researchers at Finland's Aalto University have been collecting audio , as part of what's called the Auroral Acoustics project. Folk tales have long held that the lights also produce odd sounds, but the claims were hard to prove. And some researchers thought that any noises produced by the energetic particles that cause the light show would be far too high in the sky to be heard on the ground. But the latest results indicate that at least some sounds are produced very close to the ground.