  Searches for light sterile neutrinos are motivated by the unexpected
observation of electron neutrino appearance in short-baseline experiments, such
as the Liquid Scintillator Neutrino Detector (LSND) and the Mini Booster
Neutrino Experiment (MiniBooNE). In light of these unexpected results, a
campaign using natural and anthropogenic sources to find light --
mass-squared-difference around 1 eV$^{2}$ -- sterile neutrinos is underway.
Among the natural sources, atmospheric neutrinos provide a unique gateway to
search for sterile neutrinos due to the broad range of baseline-to-energy
ratios, $L/E$, and the presence of significant matter effects. Since the
atmospheric neutrino flux rapidly falls with energy, studying its highest
energy component requires gigaton-scale neutrino detectors. These detectors --
often known as neutrino telescopes since they are designed to observe tiny
astrophysical neutrino fluxes -- have performed searches for light sterile
neutrinos and have found no significant signal to date. This brief review
summarizes the current status of searches for light sterile neutrinos with
neutrino telescopes deployed in solid and liquid water.
