Images flooded social media over the weekend revealing an apocalyptic-looking scene that unfolded over Western Australia, as the country’s skies turned an eerie blood red.
The photos and videos showed baffled Australians watching as the odd crimson glow bathed the country, beginning early on Friday, increasing in intensity throughout the afternoon.
Behind the odd phenomenon had been the region’s reddish dust, much of which had been lifted skyward as Tropical Cyclone Narelle advanced toward the country on Friday.
Imagery shared on social media revealed Australia’s skies looking so red due to the fact that many wondered if filtration had been added to cause the videos to appear in such striking reddish hues.
“Incredibly eerie outside and everything is covered in dust,” the park said on Facebook.
Iron Sky
A key component behind the phenomenon involves the iron-richness of the soil in Australia, which oxidizes a part of its natural weathering process over time. Because of this, Australia’s skies not only appear red from the ground when storms carry its dust into the air—the country also appears a deep red when seen by cameras in orbit.
“When seen from space, the surface of Australia seems to look more like the red planet Mars than it does a continent on Earth,” according to NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS).
“In warmer climates, like Australia, chemical weathering is more common,” according to an article on the NESDIS website. “Chemical weathering occurs when conditions change the materials that make up the rock and soil.”
Additionally, Australia’s unique position means that it hasn’t been impacted by ice ages in recent geological epochs, meaning that its soils have been less impacted by glacial processes over time than other continents, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere.
“The remnant iron oxides have been able to accumulate through millions of years of weathering,” NESDIS says. “Unfortunately, although the red soil is beautiful, it is not of much use because it is very poor in nutrients.”
Wild Theories Circulate
Despite the natural phenomenon behind the recent crimson display, many took to social media with theories about government conspiracies and even signs of the coming apocalypse.
“The best thing to do is remain calm and remember the government is doing this,” one user posting on Facebook joked.
“Heard about it in ghost busters,” another remarked, while many others compared the hellish-looking imagery to scenes from horror movies.
“It looks like scenes from the outside of the house in the movie This is the End,” another user wrote.
“Oh we’ve gone total Mad Max down under, now have we,” another added.
This is not the first time airborne dust has caused such conditions over Australia. A similar storm occurred in 2009 that, according to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, “turned Sydney as red as Mars.”
“Dust storms can wreak havoc with transportation and create health concerns, among their many effects,” a 2009 NASA post about the incident reads. “They also reduce the amount of outgoing longwave radiation. Each year, in a similar fashion, the dust from storms originating in Central and West Africa can be transported as far away as the Amazon.”
Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. A longtime reporter on science, defense, and technology with a focus on space and astronomy, he can be reached at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow him on X @MicahHanks, and at micahhanks.com.