Massive Solar Storms Are Making Tractors Act Like They’re ‘Demon Possessed’

Massive solar storms this year have meant that people across America have been able to see the Aurora Borealis like never before. The massive jets of charged particles that have been emitted by the Sun in these storms haven’t just made for a nice photo opportunity, however. They’ve also been wreaking havoc with high-tech tractors across America.

Modern tractors from the likes of John Deere are packed full of sensors and instruments to keep them operating correctly. GPS systems onboard help farmers harvest crops and plow in nice straight lines as they map the field out and tell tractors exactly where they are. Because of developments like these, farmers can seamlessly plant thousands of acres of crops in perfectly straight rows.

Annoyingly for America’s farmers that rely on this technology, charged particles emitted during solar storms can mess with GPS systems, reports Futurism:

During particularly violent solar storms, charged particles fill the Earth’s ionosphere, the part of the Earth’s upper atmosphere that creates a protective barrier between us and electrically charged particles from the Sun.

The layer is also responsible for transmitting GPS signals from satellites down to the surface. So changing densities of the ionosphere, caused by this bombardment of charged particles, can distort radio signals as they make their way through.

The impact of this for farmers is not ideal, as it puts the positioning systems used by tractors out, in some cases, by as much as a foot. This has meant that tractors and other farming equipment started behaving pretty strangely when the storms hit, reports Space.com.

One farmer whose tractors were impacted by the solar storm said their vehicles “acted like they were demon possessed,” the site reports. The tractors reportedly lurched back and forth, even forcing farmers to stop their work entirely in some cases, as Space.com explains:

“This fall was the first time I got to see the aurora, and my hair was standing on end from the beauty,” Indiana farmer Michael Spencer told Spaceweather.com. “When the storms were strongest around Oct. 7th, my tractor’s Autosteer system would ‘jump the line’ —meaning, the tractor would make a quick jolt left or right and I would have to manually reset.”

The solar storms this year were particularly fierce as the Sun is in the midst of an 11-year cycle that’s about to peak. This means that over the coming year more outbursts are to be expected, which is great news for Aurora spotters but bad news for farmers around the world.

The issue has been particularly problematic this year because of the sheer number of farmers across America that rely on GPS systems compared with previous times when solar storms have hit at a higher rate. Eleven years ago, farmers may have been much less affected purely because fewer relied on GPS. In the future, Space.com adds that newly developed vision-based systems could mean that the next time a massive solar storm hits farmers will be fine once again.