Since Sunday, March 18th, a series of loud “booming” noises has been shaking the homes and nerves of residents in Clintonville, Wisconsin, near Green Bay.<\/p>\n
A small town in Wisconsin is giving new meaning to the phrase \u201cthings that go bump in the night\u201d after a series of mysterious underground \u201cbooms\u201d accompanied by ground shaking sent some residents packing and left scientists scratching their heads as to their source.<\/p>\n
Residents in the northeast section of Clintonville, Wisconsin, a small town located in Waupaca County near Green Bay, have been hearing mysterious underground booming sounds since last Sunday evening.\u00a0 The strange sounds, described as being like heavy thunder, fireworks, or a cannon, began on Sunday evening and intensified by Monday, tapering off a bit by Thursday morning.\u00a0 Officials received more than 250 calls from concerned residents as they scrambled to find an explanation for the sounds.<\/p>\n
Gas lines and sewers were checked, and officials contacted local businesses and mining operations in the area. Even the military was contacted, but NORAD claimed none of their planes was responsible for any of the sounds.\u00a0 The National Weather Service ruled out the weather.<\/p>\n
After ruling out many man-made possibilities, city officials contacted experts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison\u2019s Department of Geoscience about whether or not the \u201cbooms\u201d could be related to seismic activity.\u00a0 Seismology Professor Clifford Thurber reviewed seismograph readings from a station in Shiocton about 20 miles from the affected area and, while he did see evidence of the ground shaking in an unusual way, concluded that \u201cnothing he saw indicated an earthquake.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harold Tobin, a Professor of Fault Mechanics and Rock Physics, went to Clintonville.\u00a0 After reviewing seismograph readings for the area, he, too, concluded that while it does appear that the sounds are coming from the ground just beneath the surface, \u201c\u2026we can rule out that standard earthquake activity, [that] some swarm of earthquakes is happening in that region. It also really looks like it\u2019s not connected to, say, unusual drilling activity or some other kind of real obvious human-induced signal.\u201d<\/p>\n
By Thursday, however, researchers with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) determined that the possible cause of the rumblings was a 1.5-magnitude earthquake that had occurred near Clintonville on Tuesday.\u00a0 Geophysicist Paul Caruso<\/a> told the Associated Press that the types of noises that were being reported in Clintonville have been known to be associated with earthquakes, however, he also had his doubts, stating \u201cTo be honest, I\u2019m skeptical that there would be a sound report associated with such a small earthquake.\u201d<\/p>\n Booming sounds have been reported for a long time<\/a> in the U.S. and around the world, and tend to occur more frequently in the Northeastern part of the country and along the East Coast. \u00a0Early explorers and native people made note of such \u201cbooms.\u201d\u00a0 The most well-known of these types of sounds are the \u201cSeneca Guns<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0 The term \u201cSeneca Guns\u201d originated in one of James Fenimore Cooper\u2019s short stories called \u201cThe Lake Gun,\u201d which referred to the \u201cbooms\u201d heard on the shores of Lake Seneca and Lake Cayuga in New York State in the 1800s. The name has since been used to describe similar sounds along the Carolina Coasts and Virginia. \u00a0There were also accounts of \u201cartillery-like\u201d sounds<\/a> that occurred before and during the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811-1812 (see related article on the New Madrid Seismic Zone<\/a>).<\/p>\n While scientists speculate that these \u201cbooms\u201d may actually be very small, shallow earthquakes that are too small to be recorded, other causes have occasionally been determined.\u00a0 Some of these include far-off thunder, sonic booms, mining activities, explosives, and even meteors entering the atmosphere.\u00a0 But sometimes an explanation remains elusive.<\/p>\n Regardless of what\u2019s causing the \u201cbooms,\u201d some Clintonville residents decided to pack their bags and leave town in search of much-needed rest.\u00a0 And while residents of Clintonville brace for the possibility of another round of odd booming sounds, residents in the town of Montello, about 80 miles south, also reported hearing similar loud \u201cbooming\u201d sounds this week.\u00a0 VIDEO OF MONTELLO\/CLINTONVILLE HERE:\u00a0 http:\/\/fox6now.com\/2012\/03\/22\/montello-community-reports-mysterious-booms\/<\/a><\/p>\n Although the USGS has declared the case closed in Clintonville, speculation remains among geologists as to whether such a small earthquake could produce the types of sounds being reported for such a length of time at such a shallow depth.\u00a0 City Administrator Lisa Kuss was quick to agree with the USGS and declared the mystery solved.\u00a0 Many local residents, however, doubt that an earthquake was the cause of the sounds they experienced, and remain wary of \u201cthose things that go bump in the night.\u201d<\/p>\n