The catastrophic eruption of the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai volcano in 2022 triggered a special atmospheric wave that has eluded detection for the past 85 years. Researchers from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, Japan Agency for Marine–Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), and Kyoto University relied on state-of-the-art observational data and computer simulations to discover the existence of Pekeris waves—fluctuations in air pressure that were theorized in 1937 but never proven to occur in nature, until now.