Mysterious Marrakech sky: Exploring the riddle of 'Earthquake Lights' & their unexplained appearance
Marrakech, Morocco, shared videos recorded before the 6.8 magnitude earthquake that hit the area Friday, showing unidentified lights in the sky. The bizarre aerial phenomena are known as earthquake lights and seem to occur above sites of seismic stress.
«People have wondered about them forever,» said Karen Daniels, a physicist at North Carolina State University. «It's one of those persistent mysteries that hang around and never quite get nailed.»
Earthquake lights are difficult to study because earthquakes are impossible to predict. Without knowing when or where they will occur, researchers don't know where to place sensitive equipment that can detect them. Some experts doubt they're associated with earthquakes at all, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
But accounts of these lights go back centuries, said John Ebel, a seismologist at Boston College who wrote a book on the history of earthquakes in the northeastern United States. In a study in 2014, researchers found reports of aerial luminous phenomena from 65 earthquakes occurring in Europe and the Americas during the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries.
People have reported a variety of kinds of earthquake lights, ranging from glows high in the sky to low on the horizon. Some last up to minutes; others flash on and off like lightning. They've also been seen in different colors.
What to know about the Morocco earthquake and the efforts to help
«All of these have been reported by observers,» Ebel said. «Which ones are actually true, and which ones are products of their imagination, we can't really say.»
The advent of dashcams, smartphones and social media provided the first non-anecdotal data. Videos of earthquake lights, for example, caused a stir
