MYSTERY BOOMS
List of many of the meteor & fireball sightings over the last few years.
CALIFORNIA - 12/4/07 - Worried citizens who believed another wildfire was burning in Los
Angeles called authorities in what was believed to be remnants from a possible meteor shower.
"We received several 911 calls from concerned citizens early today about fire being seen
across the Los Angeles skies. We believe they may be seeing remnants of a meteor shower in
the sky and want to assure people there are no wildfires currently burning in Los
Angeles.
TENNESSEE - 11-20-07 -
A ground and air search of northern Bedford County was conducted Tuesday night after two
area residents reported possibly seeing an airplane going down.
Nothing was found as of Wednesday morning.
Emergency workers were inititally notified of grass fires near a subdivision on Pepper Hill
Road and on Eady Road west and north of Deason about 7:45 p.m.
Deputies were later told both callers said they'd seen what they thought was a plane. No
fires were found. Also, a man said a loud "boom" shook his room at the Tennessee Fire and
Codes Academy, Unionville-Deason Road.
Rescue personnel did a "dark search" of an area behind the academy and checked several small,
private airstrips in the area. Four-wheelers were used to check several areas described by
callers as possible crash sites.
A helicopter was brought in later, finding nothing except a burning brush pile on Ebb Joyce
Road. [A webpage reader has reported a 20-30 second loud, low rumbling around the 1st of
November in Knoxville, Tennessee.]
11/1/07 -
CANADA - at 3:20 am there was a big boom experienced in the Vancouver area of British Columbia, Canada. It was heard over a large area, including Vancouver, North Vancouver, Burnaby and Coquitlam. "It was of such a force in Coquitlam that it shook our whole house and knocked down ceiling panels in our basement. A friend (80) reported that she was also awakened by the boom and when she looked out her window she saw large flashes in the sky, which she attributed to a sizeable fireworks display!"
(This has not been reported on the news sites and was dismissed by radio reporters as thunder.)
10/11/07 -
AUSTRALIA - The BIGGEST QUAKE IN 40 YEARS to hit the Great Southern has cracked the walls of one man’s home but left his neighbours’ homes unscathed.
The quake, which registered 4.8 on the Richter scale, left his house trashed.
“I do know that it happened just around 8 oclock because my clocks all jumped off the wall, along with all my pictures, and the clocks stopped.” While many people reported that the quake had shaken their house, for this man the experience was quite different.
“I never had a shake I just had an almighty boom.”
He has been expecting something like this for some time.
“For the last few months I’ve also been getting these booms and it took a while to work out what it was. It sounded like something landing on the roof – we’re talking something pretty heavy, not like a swan or a bird, more like an elephant.
I’d ring my neighbours up after and say ‘did you hear that? Did you feel it?’ and they’d say ‘no we never felt anything’. I almost felt like I was going mad, that I was just imagining it although I know one time my daughters were here staying with me and they said ‘what is that dad?’ and I said ‘I don’t really know’.
So it’s been very localised but it hasn’t happened for at least a month which had me concerned - either it was going away, or this was coming and this is what came."
(photos)
INDIA - A geologist has visited 8 Gir villages to study mysterious rumbling sounds
that have been occurring for the past several days. He said that the sounds are certainly not emanating from earthquake tremors or its aftershock, but were caused due to "block system", which might be the after-effect of the 2001 massive earthquake in Kutch. However, he refused to elaborate. Asked about his observation of the recurring phenomena, he replied that he cannot say anything with certainty about its root cause. The villages of Haripar, Jasapar, Moruka, Suruva, Vadla, Akol Vadi, Rasoolpara and Hadamatiya experienced the rumbling sounds on the 8th, spreading panic among the people who rushed out of their houses as the vessels started making a huge rattling sound. Many houses developed cracks on the walls. All of the villages fall within a radius of 15 kilometers. The village of Jaspar experienced 15 such sounds. These events are not new, and three years ago such sounds were felt in Haripur. A seismograph installed between October and December of 2001 has so far recorded more than a thousand tremors, ranging up to 3 on the Richter scale. The Haripur village and nearby areas had again experienced the rumbling sounds during December of 2004.
9/18/07 -
CALIFORNIA - Mysterious shaking along Central Coast on Monday morning -
Folks in the Five Cities Area reported they felt an earthquake. People as far away as Santa Maria to Los Osos also felt shaking.
One San Luis Obispo woman said she saw her windows shake three times about five minutes apart.
"It really shook, and I though we're having an earthquake, but nothing else was shaking. So I don't know. Just the windows? Just the windows."
The U.S. Geological Survey is not reporting any earthquakes in the area.
Monday's shaking is consistent with past sonic booms. Action News contacted several military bases across the region but none would confirm that that was the cause.
8/17/07 -
CALIFORNIA - 8/11/07 - 12:09 am - Representatives with the Sonora Police Department and both
the Tuolumne and Calaveras County Sheriff's Departments say they fielded numerous calls early in
the morning in regards to a "loud boom," and "structures shaking."
There were several calls from residents who reported seeing "a blue light," just before the "loud
boom." The incident reportedly occurred at 12:09am. The Police Department notes that it also
received a call from a resident in Tuolumne, in which a female reported seeing what she thought
was fireworks, and then something spiraling over her house.
Early indication from the law enforcement agencies is that the loud boom was somehow the result
of a meteor shower.
MYSTERIOUS SHAKING-
8/7/07 -
AUSTRALIA - It might have felt like an earthquake to Sydney coastal residents but it wasn't,
scientists say.
Dozens of Sydney coastal residents reported their houses shaking this afternoon (8/7) but
Geoscience Australia said it was not an earthquake.
Residents reported windows shaking about 3.45pm (AEST) in the eastern beach suburbs of Maroubra,
Clovelly, Bondi and Tamarama.
"We're pretty happy to say that it wasn't an earthquake. At this stage Geoscience Australia has
not recorded any seismic activity. It would certainly have to be very, very small for us not to
register it."
Radio talkback callers also reported several houses shaking on Sydney's north shore and northern
beaches.
AUSTRALIA - A mystery earth tremor has been reported by residents in eastern Sydney, but the
A number of ABC radio listeners have also reported feeling a tremor on the north shore and
eastern suburbs.
A defence spokeswoman also ruled out a sonic boom from high speed aircraft.
MYSTERY BOOMS -
MISSOURI - 7/23/07 - The United States Air Force has launched an investigation and hope to
provide residents who heard a series of loud booms Monday with an answer to clear up any
confusion.
Military officials at Whiteman Air Force Base at Knob Noster, Missouri said that their staff
would do everything they could to determine what caused all the commotion Monday afternoon. Air
Force personnel were not aware of any missions or training exercises in the area at that time
that would have caused the booms that were accompanied by shaking in some areas.
Residents from one end of Camden county to the other reported hearing loud, sonic-type boom
sounds beginning around 2:15 p.m. The sounds and shaking that accompanied the booms shook
windows, rattled dishes and may have caused some damage to walls where the sheet rock cracked.
The sheriff's department had contacted Whiteman, the St. Louis Earthquake Center and other
agencies to find out what caused the noise.
7/19/07 -
CALIFORNIA - Military aircraft appear to be responsible for sonic booms and shaking that
residents around the county were feeling Wednesday afternoon, July 18th, officials said.
Edwards Air Force Base officials said they sent an F-22 airplane out to a testing area about 50
miles off the coast that could have explained the rattling residents reported. But the area is
also used by other branches of the U.S. military that could have had aircraft in the area.
In addition, NASA was conducting sonic boom testing at the base that may have been heard by
residents along the coast. The base is located in the Mojave Desert, near the Kern and Los
Angeles county line.
Sheriff’s Department officials reported receiving dozens of calls from residents around the
county who reported feeling shaking and loud booms at three different times before about 1:30
p.m. Residents from California Valley to Arroyo Grande reported feeling the shaking and hearing
the booms.
Comments from residents - "I've lived in California all of my 48 years, and I've heard sonic
booms many times before, including the big double boom of the shuttle coming in. This was much
different. It was 3 or 4 seconds of what sounded like a jackhammer on my walls, followed by a
window rattling boom. If the Air Force is playing with a new secret toy, fine, say "no comment",
but this story isn't working for me at all."
"I thought we were seriously under attack. I got my dog ready to evacuate. A boom is a boom, an
explosion and several second rumble is something very different. I'm not buying the story...
MORE MYSTERIOUS BOOMS -
7/9/07 -
SRI LANKA - The residents of Lunugamwehera in the Hambanthota district of Sri Lanka’s Southern Province say they experienced something similar to an earthquake in the early hours on Monday.
The residents of Beralihela and adjacent villages say that the tremor was unexpected and the houses quivered with the earth shock around 12 to 12:30 in the middle of the night.
However, a spokesman of the National Geological and Mines Bureau said that no earthquake that could have felt by Sri Lanka was recorded by the equipment at the centre.
5/15/07 -
TENNESSEE - Dozens of people in Knox County woke up to some rumbling Monday morning and investigators are still working to figure out what it was.
Dozens of calls flooded central dispatch at about 1:15am, mostly from two neighborhoods off Northshore Drive in West Knoxville; Admiral's Landing and Northshore Landing.
Many people tell us they woke up to loud rumbling and thought there were animals or prowlers in their basements or attics.
Others thought there was some sort of explosion shaking the ground.
"Half of our neighborhood had come outside and there was these constant shakes in the ground, constant thud. It felt like some type of missile attack. It wasn't an earthquake, I've been through an earthquake."
4/9/07 -
VIETNAM - An 'earthquake-like phenomenon' in central Vietnam sent residents into a panic.
Hundreds of people in a village in Vietnam’s central highlands fled their homes in panic early Monday when a suspected earthquake hit the area.
No one was hurt and scientists and authorities are studying the area to see if it was indeed an earthquake or some other phenomenon.
Residents of A Klai village in Gia Lai province’s in La Pet commune said they had felt strong vibrations beneath the ground, houses shook violently, cracks had appeared on the walls, and the ground had sunk. Fissures up to 4 meters deep had opened up.
Incredibly, however, all these were confined to a tiny area of around 50 meters, with areas beyond that remaining unaffected.
MYSTERY BOOMS BACK -
3/8/07 -
SOUTH CAROLINA - Newsrooms were flooded with calls about the mystery rumble observed Thursday morning. According to the National Earthquake Information Center, there is nothing to indicate there was an earthquake in the Charleston area. It doesn't rule out the possibility that it was a smaller quake, but they said it was most likely a sonic boom. However, the Charleston air traffic controller said there was nothing in the pattern at that time that is capable of producing a sonic boom.
There are no reports of damage.
A big boom, followed by earthquake-like tremors. That's how people are describing what they felt Thursday morning. "The ground was shaking, the house was shaking, the windows were banging.” All those who felt it say it lasted seconds. Even the National Weather Channel was reporting a possible earthquake felt in the Charleston area. But since the 1800s, not a single report of a quake in that area has been confirmed.
The National Earthquake Information Center says this isn't an earthquake since nothing was recorded on their seismographs.
There is another possible explanation for this mystery according to the US Geological Survey.
There is an unexplained phenomenon called Seneca Guns that sound like sonic booms and shake homes.
There have been reports of Seneca Guns along the coasts in South Carolina and also in North Carolina and Virginia.
In addition, there have been reports of such booms around Lake Seneca and Lake Cayuga in New York State. Some speculate this could be gas escaping from vents in the earth's surface, but no exact cause is known.
2/15/07 -
OHIO Something happened at around 9 p.m. that a lot of people heard.
But nobody seems to have any idea what it was.
“It” was a loud bang, something loud enough to be heard all over the county, and loud enough to make small objects move in houses.
Rumors range from an earthquake to a meteor strike, a sonic boom to something ice-related.
While we may never know for sure, at least one scientist believes the meteor could be the answer. There’s no evidence to suggest an earthquake could have caused the bang, especially not over the range specified. “The type of waves that I see is not earthquake-type stuff. What bothers me is we don’t see it anywhere else. Right now this is mysterious to me.”
The National Weather Service’s station in Wilmington is equally lost, especially after hearing calls from the Cincinnati area. The only common factor is that each area was affected by Tuesday’s ice storm.
“It definitely wasn’t thunder. We’re kind of stumped on that ourselves.”
Not everyone agreed that it’s a meteor, however. Every contact one heard about the bang was writing from an area that got some layer of ice earlier this week.
“I’m 100 percent certain that it’s ice. It’s only the areas that had a lot of ice. None have been from areas with just snow.”
He did offer one idea, but not one that would explain the noise over such a large area.
He described a phenomenon called a “frostquake,” in which water seeping into the ground and freezing can cause the earth to break up and create localized bangs.
2/4/07 -
TEXAS - Galveston County residents from League City to Texas City to Jamaica Beach reported hearing what sounded like a series of short explosions during the weekend.
The sounds so worried some that the Texas City office of homeland security launched its own inquiry.
“We started getting calls about 8 a.m. (Sunday, 2/4). We called all the plants, the Coast Guard, tried calling Ellington Field and can’t find where they came from.”
The media liaison for the FBI said her agency had no reports of any unusual activity and said there were no drills or training exercises involving explosives taking place during the weekend.
The blast came without warning and rattled windows up and down Bay Street in North Texas City.
The Texas Office of the U.S. Geological Survey said there had been no recorded seismic events along the Gulf Coast this weekend.
So what went boom? What could have shook homes from League City to Galveston’s beaches?
They do know that they came from above.
“I can tell you to the exact minute ... I heard them” - the first boom was at 4:14 p.m. Sunday.
With back-to-back booms at 5:12 p.m. and 5:14 p.m. as well.
The booms were described as short, low-pitched bursts lasting only a few seconds. Given those descriptions, the most plausible explanation would appear to be the sonic boom made by a jet when it crosses the sound barrier. With Ellington Field close by, it wouldn’t be the first time jet fighters would have been blamed for creating a stir.
But all of the Air National Guard’s planes were on the ground Sunday.
A spokeswoman for the Houston Airport System said checks into the mysterious booms came up empty. [Scores of people all over the Midwest and Upper Midwestern United States reported seeing flames and fiery explosions in the sky Sunday night - probably meteorites, possibly connected to the booms. See 2/6 for the meteorite article.]
1/25/07 -
MICHIGAN - residents in four counties said they heard loud booms and bangs Thursday night.
Between 8:32p.m. and 11:30 p.m. residents called police, complaining about the "explosions."
Many people were frightened by the noises, which some claimed sounded as if something had hit their homes.
"One lady described it as sounding like someone was banging with both fists on her door."
It is being explained as a possible weather phenomenon involving a drop in temperatures. Rapidly dropping temperatures could have created a stable layer in the atmosphere called a temperature inversion. That temperature inversion will trap sound waves close to the surface of Earth.
Those sound waves, when dispersed, are forced to move horizontally from their source, instead of upward and horizontally.
MYSTERY BOOMS OR TREMORS OR METEORITE?-
1/24/07 -
VIRGINIA - Some Giles County residents are a little shaken after a tremor-like event Wednesday night, others say they heard a loud "thunder-like" sound.
Virginia Tech researchers say they received several calls about a meteor sighting the same time of the tremors. The BIZARRE incident took place around 8pm. Researchers say the seismic station in Giles County did get a very short but intense seismic signal.
1/10/07 -
FLORIDA - newsrooms were flooded with calls from residents in Lee County who said they felt an earthquake just before 10am and again at 12:50pm on Wednesday the 10th. The USGS said there were no earthquakes that would have been felt in SW Florida."The doors were going boom, boom, boom. They actually shook and made noise." "It felt like a big explosion." Many people's dogs started barking.
It may have been a sonic boom over the Gulf of Mexico.
--------------
12/8/06-
NEW JERSEY - Some people felt the ground shaking Thursday
afternoon in South Jersey along the shore.
Police took calls and emails from people in Mays Landing, Egg Harbor
Township, Marmora, Somers Point, and Ocean City. All of them reported
rumblings, tremors, and loud noises around 12:30 pm, then again at
1:15 pm.
Most of the obvious potential causes don't check out. The only major
road construction in the area is along the Route 52 causeway, and
that's pretty far away for all those people to feel it.
The Earthquake Center in Delaware reports absolutely no activity in
the region.
And the Department of Defense and New Jersey military investigated.
Both say no local aircraft caused a sonic boom. But there is the
possibility that an aircraft just passing through from a different
area could have caused a loud rumbling feeling.
MISSISSIPPI - Many Jackson County residents felt the earth shake
and rumble for several seconds Wednesday morning, creating a myriad of
suspicions as to what had happened, but officials believe sonic booms
from jets may have been the cause. About 10 a.m. two loud noises that
shook houses, windows and the ground were reported throughout the
county.
Deputies were dispatched but no explosions were reported at any local
industries, which prompted officials to then call local airports in
Pascagoula, Gulfport and Mobile, as well as Keesler Air Force Base in
Biloxi and the National Weather Service.
Local police departments, including Mobile, and other agencies
received numerous calls from citizens about the noise.
"It was pretty widespread."
Last year, a sonic boom from jets from Pensacola Naval Air Station
conducting high-altitude exercises over the Gulf of Mexico caused a
similar quake that was felt in the county.
That is what could have happened Wednesday.
"That's the only thing we can attribute this one to. We can't find
anything on the map."
"There was a shake. It felt like an earthquake and then it make a deep
bass-like rumbling sound."
"We talked to a lot of people and they told us, 'We felt it, we heard
it, but we don't know what it was."
No official NAS Pensacola representative was available at press time
to confirm whether exercises were taking place in the area.
12/5/06 -
MYSTERY TREMORS -
AUSTRALIA - Authorities are investigating the cause of a large tremor felt across a
70-kilometre stretch of the New South
Wales mid-north coast.
Emergency call centres were inundated with calls from residents who reported a tremor that shook
windows and doors in Taree
and surrounding areas.
But the Government seismology body, Geo Science Australia, says it was not an earthquake, and
the weather bureau says no unusual weather was recorded in the region.
AUSTRALIA - residents along the NSW mid-north coast began contacting police about 9.30pm
(AEDT) and reported their homes
shook in a tremor yesterday. "It was felt around Forster, Nabiac and then up as far as Taree,
Wingham."
A spokeswoman said F/A-18 Hornets, fighter jets, from two squadrons were on low-altitude flying
missions Monday night.
"We can confirm that there were Hornet F/A-18 aircraft flying over that area."
But the spokeswoman would not say whether that was what residents felt and heard when they
reported a suspected earthquake.
Military aircraft from the Williamtown base fly most nights along the NSW mid-north coast and as
far west as Coonabarabran
and Mudgee. Weather could amplify the noise.
11/5/06 -
MYSTERY BOOMS BACK IN NORTH CAROLINA -
Unexplained Booms - Residents of Lake Renaissance Circle say they
felt a series of jolts Thursday morning, November 2.
They say it felt like an explosion followed by tiny booms.
Some residents speculate the booms were caused by military planes
flying overhead.
Another possibility is the so-called "Seneca Guns," the mysterious
sounds that seem to come from the ocean.
Possibly
related to this story from Virginia? -
Tremors from what was believed to be a minor earthquake Thursday in
Southwest Virginia were more likely the result of a collapse at an
abandoned mine.
The event registered magnitude 4.3 and took place about eight miles
north-northwest of Raven and about 10 miles northwest of Richlands in
Tazewell County. It occurred at 12:53 p.m.
Even a minor earthquake of that magnitude would typically trigger "a
thousand calls" and normally would be felt as far away as Washington
D.C.
When the National Earthquake Information Center had only a couple of
calls trickle in, seismologists took a closer look. They concluded it
was far more likely to have been a mining event, which can sometimes
be confused with a temblor.
Experts say it may have been a blast, but more likely a ceiling
collapse in one of the region's many mines.
The state had no reports of the collapse of a working mine nor any
reports of unusual mining activity in the area, however.
9/22/06 -
NEW ZEALAND -
A loud bang accompanying an earthquake centred off Takou Bay on Sunday
had some coastal residents checking the sky for a meteor.
The 8:34am earthquake 20km east of Kaeo and 20km north of Kerikeri was
centred at a depth of 5km and had a magnitude of 3.5 on the Richter
scale.
Some heard what sounded like a big explosion which shook a stone home
at Te Ngaire, rattled windows and moved a picture on a wall.
"At first I thought something had landed on the roof. Some people
rushed out of their houses thinking it was something from space like
they've been getting in the South Island."
Along the road at Te Ngaire, "there was an awful boom and everything
vibrated".
It had sounded like a door slamming loudly or a gas cylinder
exploding.
"We thought maybe it was thunder, but it was too abrupt for that -
more like a sonic boom."
At Matauri Bay, a woman said the bang had sounded "like a quarry
blast".
The bang was also heard at Kerikeri, where among the suggestions for
its cause was: "We thought it might be a P lab blowing up."
Another "rattle" was heard much later on Sunday at both Matauri Bay
and Te Ngaire, where a Mrs. Sale pointed out a unique anniversary.
She said it was 25 years to the day that "a smoky thing" appeared in
her home during a major storm. Scientists had investigated and
attributed the phenomena to plasma or ionised gas formed by lightning.
NEW MYSTERY BOOMS -
8/13/06 -
VIRGINIA - Buildings shook and windows rattled with a series of
loud booms heard up and down the northern beaches of the Outer Banks
shortly before 11 a.m. Tuesday, August 8.
"The only thing we can attribute it to is offshore jets. We called the
Air Force, the Navy and the Coast Guard and they couldn't run it
down."
There was a flurry of calls from the public wanting to know what
caused the concussive sounds that felt like an explosion could have
gone off somewhere nearby.
A military operating area - commonly called an MOA - is located about
25 miles offshore.
Jets from the Air Force and Navy conduct practice bombing runs at the
range, but none of those aircraft could have been a source.
"I promise you, it was nothing we had. If it was a jet, it had to be
out over the ocean over the MOA. There was nothing from Nags Head
beach west that we were doing that would do anything like that."
Pilots are not allowed to break the sound barrier over populated
areas.
"This is the first time it's happened in I don't know how long."
There were no reports of any damage related to the incident.
MYSTERY BOOMS-
4/30/06 -
WASHINGTON - A series of explosions that rocked most of the Port Angeles
area remains a mystery. Police dispatchers received calls from all around the
area the night of the 27th about 11:30pm reporting the series of "booms". But
police have been unable to uncover what may have caused the noises. Callers
reported a series of five explosions that shook their houses. One caller
reported her glass sliding door shattered. No earthquake activity was reported
that night in the Port Angeles area.
CALIFORNIA - the source of a mysterious disturbance that rattled San Diego
County on the morning of April 4, shaking windows, doors and bookcases from
the coast to the mountains was a sound wave that started over the ocean
roughly 120 miles off the San Diego coast and petered out over the Imperial
County desert.
That spot is in the general vicinity of Warning Area 291, a huge swath of
ocean used for military training exercises. Researchers have charted dozens of
similar, if less dramatic, incidents that seem to have originated in the same
general area of the ocean. They aren't sure what caused any of them, whether
the April 4 disturbance was natural or made by humans.
“But it was certainly a big disturbance in the atmosphere.”
There was no Navy or Marine Corps flight activity in Warning Area 291 on that
day that would have caused a sonic boom or a countywide tremor.
The area covers 1 million square miles and is off-limits to civilian planes
and ships.
“We don't know at this time where this earthquakelike sensation came from.”
The disturbance was the result of a low-frequency wave that traveled through
the air at the speed of sound as it moved from the ocean to the desert. It was
picked up by more than two dozen seismometers in San Diego and eastern
Riverside counties.
The wave was felt on San Nicolas Island, northwest of San Clemente Island, at
8:40 a.m. It hit Solana Beach at 8:46 a.m., the western edge of the Cleveland
National Forest at 8:47 and the eastern side of the Salton Sea at 8:53 a.m.
From there, it appears to have dissipated.
The wave moved at 320 meters per second, roughly the speed that sound travels
through the air. Its velocity was too slow to be that of an earthquake. The
only explanation is that the wave was traveling through the atmosphere, not
through the ground. At each location, the wave could be felt for roughly 10
seconds.
Several months before the April 4 incident, a team had begun studying other
nonquake disturbances that were registering on San Diego County seismometers,
including 76 that apparently originated in that same general area of the ocean
in 2003. They figured that some of those disturbances surely must have come
from offshore military exercises.
The researchers haven't been able to determine whether the April 4 wave was
more powerful than the earlier ones or whether it simply felt that way because
of atmospheric conditions.
“I'm told that a sonic boom would not cover that distance at all."
Authorities have said a meteor probably wasn't the cause because it would have
been noticed by the scientific community. The American Meteor Society reported
no fireball sightings over Southern California on that day.
MYSTERY BOOM LOCATION PINPOINTED -
4/28/06 -
CALIFORNIA - Scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography believe
they have located the mysterious boom heard and felt in San Diego earlier this
month.
On the morning of April 4, a loud boom rattled windows and doors in many parts
of the county. A team of Scripps scientists said the boom was the result of a
sound wave that originated over the ocean about 120 miles west of San Diego.
The spot is near an area used by the Navy for military training exercises.
The Scripps scientists said that they didn't know if the sonic boom was caused
by human activity or a natural phenomena like a meteor exploding in the
atmosphere.
Military officials said that there was no Navy or Marine Corps fight activity
in the training area on April 4. [ SITE NOTE - So we still don't know WHAT
caused the boom, only where it seems to have originated from.]
MYSTERIOUS BOOMS CONTINUE TO BE HEARD -
4/24/06 -
CALIFORNIA - At various spots throughout San Diego County, people reported
a rumbling sound or a booming noise shortly before 9 a.m. Tuesday, April 4,
and so far no one has come forward with an explanation.
Whatever it was, it caused a woman's bed to shake in Lakeside. It created
waves in a backyard pool in Carmel Valley. It set off car alarms in Kearny
Mesa and rattled windows from Mission Beach to Poway to Vista.
“My garage door is double steel and it weighs about 500 lbs. It was rattling
back and forth like a leaf in the wind for about 3 or 4 seconds.”
Scientists insist it wasn't an earthquake. The Federal Aviation Administration
has no record of any planes producing a sonic boom by breaking the sound
barrier.
Camp Pendleton officials say no activities on the Marine base could have
created such a disturbance. There were no large explosions in San Diego County
that day, and no meteor fireballs were reported in the sky that morning.
What was it, then?
Maybe it was the same thing that caused a strange disturbance in Mississippi
on April 7, when the locals heard a loud boom that rattled windows all over
Jackson County, throwing emergency workers “into a tizzy.” Authorities in
that state still don't have a clue as to the cause.
Nor, to this day, can anyone explain what was behind similar episodes in Maine
two months ago, or Alabama three months ago, or North Carolina four months
ago. In each of those cases – as well as in other incidents around the nation
over the years – residents reported hearing windows rattle and feeling floors
shake even though no earthquake was detected. [Mobile, Alabama on Jan. 19,
2006: Wilmington, N.C., on Dec. 20, 2005; Winston-Salem, N.C., on March 5,
2005; Charleston, S.C., on Aug. 1, 2003; and Pensacola, Fla., on Jan. 13,
2003. ]
THE MYSTERIOUS BOOMS ARE BACK -
4/5 -
This time they're in California - San Diegans are wondering what's behind
a series of mysterious booms heard across the county Tuesday morning.
The booms were heard at around 8:45 a.m. and rattled residents, causing a
flood of calls to sheriff's dispatchers.
No measurable seismic activity was recorded in San Diego County Tuesday
morning, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Local military officials had
no reports of a sonic boom happening.
Marines at Camp Pendleton conducted mortar training Tuesday morning, but
officials say they were unaware if the noise was a result.
MYSTERIOUS BOOM -
3/24/06 -
CANADA - British Columbia - Possibly a meteorite - A loud explosion in
Burnaby late Wednesday night, March 22, has authorities scratching their
heads.
About 11:05 the blast rattled windows and awakened neighbours near the Chaffey
Burke Elementary School on Abbey Avenue.
Police responded with officers and a dog but came up empty handed. All they
could find was a small hole in the ground.
No damage has been reported and there were no injuries.
3/17/06 -
MYSTERY BOOMS STILL A MYSTERY -
OREGON - The Portland Air National Guard says they do not believe F-15
fighters are to blame for loud booms heard throughout the area on Saturday.
The Air National Guard checked Portland's flight track and determined jets
were conducting training flights over the Northwest when a series of strange
rumbling noises hit. However, the two jets that broke the sound barrier were
over the ocean and pointing west. That sonic boom would not have traveled more
than 20 miles. "If it was us, we'll confess and make sure we look at
procedures and make sure it doesn't happen again."
Many people on the base heard the noise as well, but say it was much different
than a sonic boom.
The Air National Guard will now check Seattle's flight track to see if any
other jets may have been flying at the time.
MORE MYSTERY BOOMS -
OREGON - People from the coast all the way to the mountains heard
mysterious rumbles Saturday night, so what on earth were they?
No, it was not an earthquake from Mount St. Helens and it was not thunder and
lightning.
It seems everyone had their idea what the noises were and nearly everyone had
a different opinion about how long it lasted.
A meteor was the best guess from the National Weather Service, but that is
unconfirmed.
The 911 dispatch center told KATU News they heard it was military jets causing
sonic booms.
Monday morning, KATU contacted McChord Air Force Base to find out if they were
conducting some kind of exercise over the metro area.
They were still waiting to hear back from them.
UPDATE -
The source of those mysterious rumblings over the weekend that caught the
attention of so many continues to be a mystery.
The focus is on F-15s at the Portland Air Base, which KATU News was originally
told were on the ground, but later learned were not.
It turns out a group of F-15s were launched from the Portland International
Airport Saturday night as part of three days of intensive training.
Within an hour of their departure, people started hearing things and feeling
some rumblings. That is when the 911 calls began.
Even the commander of the F-15 squadron heard the strange noise from his home
in Lake Oswego.
The logical explanation seemed to be that the fighter jets set off a sonic
boom, but the Air National Guard says it does not make sense that so many
people, from Longview to the Oregon coast, would hear the same sonic booms at
the same time. A much smaller range of 10 to 20 miles is more likely.
With so many wondering what happened, the Air National Guard is continuing its
investigation.
That leaves others to speculate about meteors and to do comparisons with a
similar unexplained phenomenon in FLORIDA last year and in MAINE just last
month.
Others speculate it is a secret government plane, code-named Aurora, which
supposedly flies out of Area 51 in Nevada.
For years, unusually intense sonic booms rocked LOS ANGELES, with many
believing it was Aurora passing by at four times the speed of sound.
The Air National Guard says they plan to interview the pilots individually on
Wednesday, which may lead to some kind of answer.
Each time an F-15 pilot causes a sonic boom over populated areas, they are
required to write a log of the event. [SITE NOTE - If you are wondering why I
put news of these mystery booms on the page, it is because mystery booms deep
in the plate boundary were reported in Indonesia in the months before the
December 2004 quake and tsunami. The booms may not be related to quakes, but
just in case they are, it seems prudent to keep note of where they are
occurring.]
MORE MYSTERY BOOMS -
2/26/06 -
MAINE - People in Somerset County are seeking answers after feeling earthquake-like tremors
this week.
The Somerset County Communications Center got calls Thursday morning from at least a dozen
residents who reported tremors in
a 15-mile radius in Anson, Madison, Skowhegan and Norridgewock.
But state officials said there weren't any earthquakes that were documented by the New England
Seismic Network. People in
Solon last week reported hearing an unexplained loud explosion that shook homes.
"I'd like them to re-look at what they may have. This is the second occurrence in less than a
week of such magnitude."
Thursday's event sounded and felt like a Dumpster had fallen off a truck or a truck had hit the
town office building, but
that nothing could be found when employees went outside to see what happened.
More than a mile away, another person felt the shaking in his office. But he, too, couldn't find
the cause.
"It felt like somebody with a delivery type of vehicle had backed into our building."
Six miles away in Anson, the boom and shaking were so strong that an off-duty dispatcher called
the county's dispatch center.
He thought maybe his chimney collapsed or his furnace exploded, but he couldn't determine the
cause either.
Reports continued to pour in Friday from residents who said they experienced what appeared to
be earthquake tremors at
about 10 a.m. Thursday morning. "The number and validity of reports received Thursday and Friday
- in addition to similar
reports last Friday in Solon - indicate Thursday's event was significant and not just a sonic
boom."
1/6/2006 -
SCOTLAND - The coast of Aberdeenshire was rocked by a mystery huge bang on the sixth, shaking
windows. There were no aircraft or blasts and the cause of the noise left experts baffled.
----------------------------
12/23/05 -
MORE BOOMS -
NORTH CAROLINA - Carolina Beach authorities were investigating
reports of three loud booms in the area Tuesday. About 4:20 p.m., numerous
residents heard a loud boom and some felt the building they were in shake.
Officials were unaware of what may have caused the booms, but were
looking at causes ranging from a plane flying too low to the ground to an
earthquake. The U.S. Geological Survey Earthquake Center said it had no
record of an earthquake along the North Carolina coast and local police said
that there were no scheduled activities in the area that would have caused
the booms or the buildings to shake.
Thousands of people reported hearing a series of explosive "booms" all
across New Hanover County and in some sections of Brunswick County late
Tuesday afternoon.
Thoughts of the nuclear power plant exploding, an earthquake or a terrorist
strike are just some of the theories that were tossed around after hearing
the sounds.
Most of the information is pointing towards some type of military exercise.
"It was a series of kabooms. It was just like an explosion." "I sort of jerked
and almost lost my balance, and I noticed it was lasting longer that the ones
we had heard in the past." The weather service reported seeing some
military activity about 30 miles off shore at about 4:00 p.m. Tuesday and one
viewer in Wrightsville Beach said she saw about nine military jets flying over
head, but the Military is not confirming or denying any reports. The
continental shelf shifting - an unstable piece of land off shore - is another
theory, but geologists say it's very unusual for loud explosive noises to go
along with that or an earthquake for that matter.
MYSTERIOUS BOOMS AGAIN -
11/23/05 -
ISRAEL - Just three weeks after dozens of residents from across Israel reported unusually
loud “booms” and tremors throughout the night, residents again reported hearing loud boom-like
sounds in different parts of the country Tuesday, mainly in coastal regions, claiming their homes
shook as a result.
Police officials confirmed people reported they heard “explosions,” but added that the source
remains unknown. No unusual military activity that may have caused the “explosions” was
detected, and the Seismology Institute said no earthquakes were recorded. Most of those who
reported of the blasts reside in the Sharon region, in central Israel; they said the shockwaves
came from the direction of the sea. Last time the Air Force said, “this is an unusual phenomenon
in which cold and warm layers are alternately formed in the air, and the sound waves move like a
ping pong ball between the ground and layers."
10/29/05 -
MYSTERIOUS BOOMS ARE BACK, THIS TIME IN ISRAEL - Dozens of residents from across Israel heard
unusually loud “explosions” and tremors throughout the night, but attempts to shed light on the
source of
the blasts has been met with uncertainty.
At least one possibility has been discounted, with the country’s seismological institute saying
no
earthquake occurred.
Police officials estimated the loud sounds were a result of sonic booms created by IDF fighter
jets on their
way to attacking Gaza, but the army insisted there was no unusual Air Force activity across the
country
overnight. Many residents said the explosions came from the direction of the sea. “Police
personnel who
heard the blasts themselves said they sounded like sonic booms. We still don’t know what caused
the
explosions. We had similar reports during the week.” Police in Haifa also received calls
regarding a
possible earthquake, but no damages were reported.
The nighttime explosions have apparently become a routine occurrence throughout the Sharon
region,
north of Tel Aviv. In recent nights there have been other reports about blasts heard in the town
of
Herzliya, but the source of them is unclear. “It was a scary blast. The windows shook and we felt
the
entire house shake. The first thing that came to mind was a terror attack…we weren’t able to
figure out
what caused the first blast, and minutes later a second blast followed.” The blast was so
powerful it
knocked one door out. The owner said he thought an earthquake was behind the unusual occurrence.
“It wasn’t like an explosion, but rather, the entire building shook.”
10/19/05 -
INDIANA - More
Fort Wayne residents have reported hearing more of those
mysterious earth-shaking booms. After four months of silence, residents of a neighborhood on
the
city's northeast side say they heard two of the booms within hours of each other Monday.
The booms, which rattle homes, have been heard primarily on the northeast side over the last
year.
Police investigations have not found an exact cause for the huge booms.
[Earlier Florida reported mystery booms, but I do not have the exact date.]
---------------------
12/17/1997 -
MYSTERY BOOM STARTLES PEOPLE IN THE OZARKS -
On Wednesday afternoon, December 17, 1997, a huge aerial explosion jolted the town of Rogersville, Missouri.
According to news reports on KYTV (Cable Channel 12 in Florida--J.T.), the blast "rattled windows and blew open storm doors" in the small community on Missouri Highway 60 approximately 13 miles (21 kilometers) east of Springfield.
According to KYTV, a U.S. Air Force spokesman denied that the mysterious blast was a sonic boom caused by low-flying supersonic jet interceptors.
The cause of the "sky boom" is unknown.
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