A possible aid for navigators
Star charts, compasses, sextants, even dead reckoning. For centuries, sailors have used one or all of those to determine their position on the globe and to help them navigate from one place to another. In the Pacific Islands, however, sailors have long claimed to have something else in their navigational toolbox, te lapa — loosely translated as “underwater lightning” — flashes of iridescent light that appear in nighttime waters, and which some claim point toward nearby islands. But could “underwater lightning” be real? And could the strange phenomenon have helped lead wayward sailors to safe harbors for thousands of years? Might it even have played a critical role in human migrations through the South Pacific by pointing ancient peoples toward islands just over the horizon? John Huth thinks so, and he may have come up with an explanation of what would cause it. Huth, the Donner Professor of Science and creator of the popular...