I seem to always miss them and am always jealous of those who catch a glimpse, particularly at this time of year when the skies are typically very dark for a very long time. Earlier this week, some lucky Mainers got a glimpse of the Northern Lights. I enjoyed them vicariously through photographs, my favorites of which were over the water. This led me to wonder what makes those coastal views so special.

It turns out that there is a lot of lore around the Northern Lights involving the ocean. This is likely because of the stunning watery reflections that can result from their displays. It is also because where there is water, there is open sky. In addition, out on the water or in more remote parts of the coast, there is less unnatural light that can make the Northern Lights harder to see.

Throughout history, many cultures around the world have wondered what causes them and have developed their own explanations that include everything from the whimsical to the scientific.

To start, their name, aurora borealis, comes from the Roman goddess of the dawn, Aurora. Borealis comes from the Greek god of the north wind. Together, you have a Roman goddess and a Greek god, referring together to something like “the north winds of the dawn.” That’s because the aurora borealis can best be seen in the wee hours and in the northern latitudes.

The displays of these lights are varied with different colors and patterns that seem impossibly beautiful against a dark wintry sky. However, without knowing what causes them, they could seem ominous and concerning. Apparently, some native people of the Great Plains thought they were the reflections of fires. In Finland, some thought they were the spirits of the dead dancing in the sky, some of them appearing to bleed as the lights streaked down towards Earth. Norse cultures thought they were the reflections of the armor of those killed in battle. Celts thought that the particles from the lights would fall to the ground that could be used to treat burns. And Inuit people believed that if you whistle at the lights, they would descend and behead you! That all makes our current understanding of their origins seem a bit boring.

Some of the first recorded explanations of the Northern Lights came from Aristotle (back in the fourth century BCE), who described them as burning balls of gas. Many centuries later (13th century CE) a Norwegian scientist described them in “The Kings Mirror” as reflections off the oceans. Solar rays were first suggested by a Swede in the 1700s and, later, Sir Edmund Haley (of Haley’s comet) wrote that they were caused by the Earth’s magnetic field. This theory was proven with the help of mariners who collected data on the magnetic field as they traveled over the oceans.

From there, the explanations progress from those early fundamental discoveries of the roles of magnetism and solar flares and get very complex. Our understanding today is something like solar flares shooting from the sun towards Earth, and as they pass through the northern latitudes, they produce a variety of colors depending on how much energy the particles have and what gasses are in Earth’s atmosphere.

One of these winters, I’m going to catch a glimpse of these amazing lights, and I hope it is over the ocean. It would be incredible to see them while thinking of these early explanations of the ocean’s role and the expeditions out on the water that helped us to understand them better.

Susan Olcott is the director of strategic partnerships at Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association.

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