Huge solar storm ‘actually set off bombs during the Vietnam war’

In 1972, American pilots flying over North Vietnam saw huge sea mines detonating suddenly for no apparent reason – but researchers now believe they have solved the mystery.

Researchers from CU Boulder say that the mines may have been detonated from space – by magnetised gas hurled at our planet by a solar storm.

The research highlights the power of solar storms – and shows how vulnerable our wired world could be to a large solar storm.

CU Boulder professor Delores Knipp investigated the explosions – and found a declassified military report which linked the explosion of dozens of sea mines to a large solar storm.

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Knipp and her colleagues linked the report to reports from scientists around the world, showing large solar flares from 2 August 1972 to 4 August 1972.

Knipp said, ‘I started reading this report, and I said ‘wow, this really happened.’

She says the find highlights the scale of the flares – and the danger of solar activity.

Knipp said, ‘In the process of researching this event, I realized that this was, in fact, a great storm. But it was also such an odd storm in the way it developed and the way it hit the earth.

‘What this event does is give us a sense of range of what these great storms could look like.’

Researchers warned last year that a ‘super solar storm’ could burn out power stations, cut water supplies, and leave satellites dead in the skies.

The only account of a ‘super storm’ striking Earth comes from more than 150 years ago – when a Victorian scientist, Richard Carrington, described an eruption known as ‘the Carrington event’.

In 1859, there were no telephones and satellites, but the power of the storm devastated communications – telegraph wires around the world burnt out, and some operators reported sheets of paper catching fire.