On the Nature of Electrophone Phenomena Accompanying the Passage of Meteoric Bodies through the Earth’s Atmosphere

Abstract

The paper briefly discusses hypotheses about the nature of a centuries-old mysterious phenomenon, for which there is still no clear explanation. Its essence is that an observer, usually located at a distance of 50–100 km from a flying meteor body, sometimes hears sound simultaneously with its radiation. It seems that sound travels at the speed of light. Historically, the situation was such that it was only no more than sixty years ago that attempts to instrumentally study this unusual phenomenon began. The difficulty of these searches is also due to the fact that only a few percent of the total number of observed meteoroids have this property. About forty years ago it was discovered that meteoroids can emit electromagnetic pulses of varying duration and frequency composition. However, it turned out that this fact does not always have an unambiguous relationship to electrophonic phenomena. This paper provides a brief overview of the most meaningful hypotheses and experiments of past years. It is possible that this phenomenon is of a fundamental nature and its study can introduce previously unknown information into science.