Scientists, climbers and adventure-seekers have long been claiming that Mount Everest makes terrifying sounds at night. Many of them tried to unravel this mystery in the past, but failed. A team of glaciologists recently found the source of the noise.

Dr Evgeny Podolskiy, the Lead Glaciologist and an expert at the Arctic Research Centre in Hokkaido University, said in the first week of May 2023 that he and his fellow researchers had trekked through the Himalayas in Nepal for a week in 2018 to resolve the mystery. They spent nearly three weeks in the Himalayas after reaching the Trakarding-Trambau Glacier system.

According to Dr Podolskiy, they placed sensors deep within the glacier in order to measure its vibrations. Researchers used the technology, which is commonly used to measure the intensity of earthquakes. After coming down from the Himalayas, they checked the seismic data of the vibrations recorded during those three weeks, and found that the mysterious noises were closely related to extreme cold weather conditions. Dr Podolskiy has explained that the ice sheets begin to crack as the temperature drops too much at night. That is why the mysterious sound is heard in the Himalayas at night.

Daily Mail has quoted Dr Podolskiy as saying: “It was an amazing experience because it’s such a magnificent area to work in. The temperatures could drop to around -15 degrees Celsius at night. Local ice turns out to be very sensitive to this high rate of change.” The glaciologist told the daily that one could hear a terrible, loud and scary sound when high-altitude glaciers would start breaking. This is basically the sound of disintegration of glaciers. At the same time, he stated that it happened only in high-altitude areas. For his part, Dave Hahn, a senior member of the expedition, stressed that he heard “ice and rock crashing down in various places around the valley” when he and his fellow climbers would rest. It may be noted that Hahn has completed 15 Everest summits till date.

Dr Podolsky claimed that it was an amazing experience for them, as they were at an altitude of about 29,000ft. The glaciologist said that they had enjoyed their lives on the peaks of Mount Everest for those three weeks.

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das