The Earth is Shaking Every 26 Seconds, And No One Knows Why

Humanity has always tried to better understand its place in the world, and it has been doing some by studying every aspect of nature. Nowadays, we are headed to new planets and stars; every day we find new exotic objects, and the more we study the cosmos, the more we understand…there’s much more to understand! This, like it or not, is the true meaning of making science.

Even here on Earth, some inexplicable phenomena happen, but we have no idea why they do: Shakira and Pique breaking up and then dissing each other or Greta Thunberg getting arrested by German police.

On the scientific side, instead, on 6 June 1961, the Earth started shaking, pulsating with a period of about 26 seconds. This was detected by long-period seismographs throughout the world, and it gained the attention of the scientific community when Jack Oliver – a geologist best known for his later work on tectonic plates – wrote a paper to try to explain the unusual event.

Oliver figured out that this pulse was coming from somewhere in the southern or equatorial Atlantic Ocean, and that it was stronger in the Southern Hemisphere’s winter.
It would have probably been something destined to be forgotten if in 2005 Greg Bensen had not found it again.