A satellite image shared on social media purports to show mysterious energy waves across Australia emanating from Antarctica.

However Australians can relax after it was confirmed the image with wave-like lines were from a non-apocalyptic source.

“GIANT ENERGY WAVES MOVING NORTH,” one user wrote in a Facebook post.

“A massive pulse appears to be radiating from Antarctica, spanning more than 6,000 miles toward Australia.”

“Whatever’s generating this… it’s powerful”.

An image in the post shows a satellite view of Australia, with white, curved waves that appear to radiate or pulse northward. 

A caption at the bottom of the image states “AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT BUREAU OF METEOROLOGY 12 OCT 25 05:30 UTC”.  

Social media users commenting on the post theorised the waves could have been anything from the arctic magnetic field to the emergence of white walkers.

The truth was more mundane and was apparently the work of technical error on a Japanese satellite.

There is no evidence of the waves on other satellites covering the same region at the same time.

The Bureau of Meteorology confirmed that the image was taken by the Himawari-9 geostationary satellite, operated by the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA).

“The Bureau of Meteorology is aware of issues that impacted the Himawari-9 satellite on 12-13 October 2025,” a spokesperson said.

The BoM uses uses the Himawari-9 satellite for weather forecasting. Photo: AAP

A JMA statement said it had switched to observing Himawari-8 on October 11, 2025, due to an anomaly in Himawari-9’s satellite image data.

“We apologise for any inconvenience,” it said.

The Himawari-9 outage was also noted by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 

There is also no evidence of wave-like lines in images of the region captured by other satellites on October 11 or 12, 2025, such as the Korea Meteorological Administration’s Geo-Kompsat-2A.\

-AAP