On Friday, September 8, a devastating 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck the High Atlas Mountains in eastern Morocco, claiming the lives of at least 2,900 people and injuring 5,500. Before the start of this tragedy, several eyewitnesses recorded enigmatic blue lights flashing in the sky.
UFO Seen In Morocco Before Earthquake
Experts believe the videos that went viral could have recorded a phenomenon known as “earthquake lights” which, despite having been reported for centuries, is rare and often unexplained.
«These luminous phenomena appear in different forms, colors, and manifestations, as diffuse glow in the sky, as sudden bursts of light from the ground, as cold flames that rise to ankle height, as luminous objects described as pillars of fire rising from the earth, like floating luminous balls, and other stranger manifestations,” says a 2019 paper on the underlying mechanism of earthquake lights written by physicist Friedemann Freund, who once worked at the Ames Research Center from NASA in California.
Images of the devastating earthquake in Morocco appear to show flashes of light similar to those documented in other similar events — such as the Aquila earthquake in Italy in 2009 and the Acapulco earthquake in Mexico in 2021. And while some have suggested that tectonic activity could disrupt power lines, causing light shows associated with earthquakes, Freund’s idea is that the source lies in the Earth’s crust.
Earthquakes generate mechanical stress in the Earth’s crust as tectonic forces push plates together; In the case of Morocco, the African plate moved north and collided with the Eurasian plate. It is possible that this stress generates electrical charge carriers that can move through the crust to create currents, and when these reach the surface, they ionize the air and create light phenomena similar to lightning.
The exact mechanism behind earthquake lights remains a matter of debate, and since light shows that fall under this term often looks very different, there may be more than one legitimate explanation. Understanding how and why they occur could be critical in how we predict tectonic activity, as scientists are always looking for ways to anticipate events like the Moroccan earthquake in the hope of saving lives.