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This is what a frozen lake sounds like

This is what a frozen lake sounds like

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The frozen lake in Rikkenstorp, Sweden
The frozen lake in Rikkenstorp, Sweden
Freia Stieger

It was an hour into the new year on January 1st, and I was on the shores of a frozen lake in Rikkenstorp, a few hours from Stockholm. My friends and I had rented a house to spend a lovely New Year’s Eve playing board games and eating insane amounts of food. After toasting to the beginning of the new year and before heading to bed, we decided to go out to watch the stars. And that was when I witnessed the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard.

The air was cold but not freezing, and the woods were silent. But all of a sudden, we heard a loud noise — like the crack of a whip. Fortunately, one of my friends grew up in the countryside, right next to a lake that froze in the winter. He quickly explained to us city-dwellers what the noise was: the ice in the frozen lake shifting. The explanation made us jump up and down in excitement.

Believe it, my friends. It’s one of the coolest sounds you can hear. A frozen lake that looks like it’s been stopped in time, but in fact keeps shifting and moaning, sounding like a Star Wars blaster (some have said). Unfortunately, I didn’t have an audio recorder with me, but here you can hear what I’m talking about.

The phenomenon has been observed in many parts of the world, and it’s even gone viral with a 2014 YouTube video that was viewed more than 11 million times. The amazing sci-fi sound occurs usually when there are fluctuations in temperature, which cause the ice to expand and contract.

This ice shifting causes all kinds of sound frequencies, high and low. The vibrations move through the ice, but the high frequencies move faster than the low frequencies and reach your ears first, explains NPR's Skunk Bear. That time lag makes the lake sound like a cracking whip.

To hear the sound, you have to be at the right distance, so that the high frequencies have enough time to overrun the low frequencies. The same happens with metals, too. And in fact, NPR says, those iconic Star Wars blaster sounds were produced by making use of the same frozen lake acoustics: the movie’s sound engineers just hit the long wires of radio antennas with a wrench. The sound is similar to the one I heard by the frozen lake in Sweden.

As my editor Liz Lopatto often says, nature is metal as hell.