You've no doubt heard the question: 'If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?'

The answer is 'No'.

Sound requires not only a transmitter (something producing vibrations) but also a receiver (something which can convert those vibrations into sound).

A tree falling in the forest would indeed create vibrations.

For those vibrations to be sound however, something or someone capable of converting those vibrations into sound would need to be present.

This could be a person, an animal or a recording device.

Without one of these, no evidence of a sound would exist.

The visual is different than the audio in such cases.

If we were to go into the forest where the tree had fallen, we would observe visible evidence of the occurrence.