Flexi Says: Something very strange has happened many times during Earth's history. The planet's magnetic field flipped! The North Magnetic Pole became the South Magnetic Pole. The South Magnetic Pole became the North Magnetic Pole. Scientists don’t know for certain why magnetic reversals occur, but there is hard evidence that they have for hundreds of millions of years and as per NASA, the magnetic field reversal occurs only approximately every 1 million years.