Here's something new, to me at least: A reader wrote to Natural History Magazine's "Ask the Experts" section (Oct. 7 issue), wanting an explanation for a phenomenon he had observed way back in 1946. Apparently he had witnessed a very active meteor shower, during which he heard the sounds of meteors simultaneous with their individual appearance in the sky. Natural History's Joe Rao replied that "astronomer Colin Keay suggests that the simultaneous meteor sounds . . . arise by electrophonic transduction: the wake of the meteor traps its own magnetic field, generating long radio waves. When the radio waves interact with ground-level objects such as trees, they create audio waves: sound. The same principle may explain reports of auroral sounds, the unease of animals before earthquakes, and sounds heard before lightning strikes nearby."

I provide this with some hesitation, since I know such information is likely to be misapplied to any of the numerous inchoate quake prediction and other pseudo-scientific theories floating around. In particular, its applicability to the ear tones/quake prediction theory is highly dubious, since the radio waves would presumably follow the inverse square law among other reasons. And I have to also wonder whether astronomer Colin Keay might be talking through his hat. I'm not familiar with any audible interaction between radio waves and material objects - other than the occasional reports of tooth fillings responding to AM frequencies.

Michael Williams