Picture this: you’re enjoying a peaceful afternoon when suddenly, a thunderous boom crashes through the air, rattling windows and making your heart skip a beat. You look up expecting to see storm clouds or military jets, but find nothing—just clear blue sky. Welcome to the bizarre world of skyquakes, one of Earth’s most perplexing mysteries that’s been haunting humanity for centuries.
When the Sky Screams
The skyquake, a perplexing atmospheric phenomenon characterised by loud, unexplained sounds that seem to originate from the sky, has captured curiosity and concern for centuries. These mysterious noises, akin to an atmospheric boom, distant thunder, or an explosion, have been reported all over the world, leaving residents and scientists alike baffled by their sudden occurrence and elusive origins. The sound hits you like a physical force—the trumpet-sounding noise can be so loud that it can cause vibrations in buildings and houses. There are also reports where they cause shock waves that can rattle plates. Imagine trying to explain to your neighbors that the earth-shaking boom they just experienced came from absolutely nowhere. That’s exactly what millions of people worldwide have been trying to do for over two centuries.
A Symphony of Global Names
What’s fascinating is how different cultures have given these mysterious sounds their own colorful names, reflecting their local understanding and folklore. Near Seneca Lake in New York State, they’re known as ‘Seneca guns’; in Belgium they’re called ‘mistpoeffers’; and the Japanese refer to them as ‘uminari’, which literally means ‘cries from the sea.’ In Bangladesh, they are called “Barisal guns” (referring to the Barisal region of East Bengal). Italians have several names for skyquakes, including “balza,” “brontidi,” “lagoni,” and “marine.” It’s like the world’s strangest musical collaboration, where every country contributes its own interpretation of the same inexplicable performance. Each country has a different name for them, with most of their terminology referring to booms, guns, water, sounds from clouds, or rumbling of the ocean.
Historical Echoes from the Past
Reports of skyquakes date back to the early 19th century, with one of the earliest documented cases occurring in 1811 during a 7.2 magnitude earthquake in New Madrid, Missouri. Witnesses described hearing powerful sounds reminiscent of cannon fire accompanying the tremors. The famous author James Fenimore Cooper immortalized these sounds in his 1850 story “The Lake Gun,” describing them as “a sound resembling the explosion of a heavy piece of artillery, that can be accounted for by none of the known laws of nature. The report is deep, hollow, distant, and imposing.” Even early white settlers in North America were told by the native Haudenosaunee Iroquois that the booms were the sound of the Great Spirit continuing his work of shaping the earth. Ancient wisdom meeting modern mystery—sounds like the perfect recipe for scientific frustration.
The Sound That Breaks All Rules
While a sonic boom is brought by an object that breaks the sound barrier, a skyquake is characterized as a boom that happens with no apparent cause. The sound produced by a skyquake is like a distant, very loud thunder with no clouds in the sky. No one has been able to record the loudness of a skyquake, but all reports indicate that it is very low frequency. This low frequency and great intensity (>100 dBA) enable skyquakes to rattle buildings. Think of it like nature’s version of a prank call—you hear the message loud and clear, but when you try to trace the source, there’s nothing there. Their sound has been described as being like distant but inordinately loud thunder while no clouds are in the sky large enough to generate lightning. Those familiar with the sound of cannon fire say the sound is nearly identical.
The Global Mystery Tour
The bizarre atmospheric boom noises generally known as ‘skyquakes’ have occurred all over the world, from Bangladesh to Belgium, Northern Ireland to South Australia, and Germany to Japan. This widespread occurrence has fuelled a variety of explanations, ranging from atmospheric conditions to seismic activity and even top secret military operations, yet no single theory has been agreed upon. Skyquakes have been reported in at least 12 different countries around the globe. Each country has a different name for them, with most of their terminology referring to booms, guns, water, sounds from clouds, or rumbling of the ocean. It’s as if Earth has decided to play the same mysterious song on different continents, leaving scientists scratching their heads in unison. The widespread occurrence of skyquakes adds to their intrigue, as they appear to transcend geographical boundaries.
Recent Rumblings: The 2024 Boom Year
But we do know that very loud “booms” are happening in the sky, and we do know that they have been making frequent headlines all over the globe in 2024. Hopefully the fact that they are occurring so often is not a bad sign. The most recently reported skyquake in the U.S. occurred near Daytona Beach, Florida, on Dec. 3, prompting nearby residents to search for answers on social media. Birmingham, Alabama, residents experienced a similar event last month, which local media dubbed the “Bama Boom.” A similar occurrence to the “Bama Boom” was reported in June earlier this year along the San Diego coastline, rattling doors and windows. Social media has become the modern town square where confused citizens gather to share their “did you hear that too?” moments. It’s both comforting and concerning that we’re all equally baffled by these sounds.
The Seismic Red Herring
For years, scientists suspected that skyquakes might be connected to earthquakes, but recent research has thrown cold water on that theory. In 2020, a team from the University of North Carolina conducted an extensive analysis of seismic and acoustic data from the EarthScope Transportable Array (ESTA). This network of over 400 stations across the United States is designed to detect both seismic events and atmospheric phenomena. The researchers aimed to establish a correlation between skyquakes and previously undetected seismic activities. However, their findings yielded no direct link between these mysterious sounds and earthquakes or other underground activities. This lack of connection to seismic events lends credence to the theory that skyquakes originate in the atmosphere. It’s like discovering that the monster under your bed is actually living in your attic—the mystery just moved to a different floor of the house.
Military Jets: The Convenient Suspect
One of the most commonly accepted explanations involves sonic booms produced by aircraft exceeding the speed of sound. These booms can travel long distances and can be heard far from their origin, often without the aircraft itself being visible to those on the ground. After initially denying any involvement, a Navy spokesman told the San Diego Union-Tribune that several jets went supersonic, causing the boom. “Those two aircraft went supersonic about 35 miles from the coast,” Kakiel told the Union-Tribune. However, although sonic booms from aircraft may trigger skyquakes, it is not enough to account for many reports recorded before the supersonic flight was invented. While sonic booms from aircraft might explain some skyquakes, the explanation doesn’t account for reports predating the invention of supersonic flight. It’s the perfect alibi for the modern cases, but what about those 19th-century reports when the Wright brothers were still kids?
Meteors: Space Rocks with Attitude
The entry of meteors into the Earth’s atmosphere can create sonic booms or explosive sounds as they disintegrate, often accompanied by visible streaks in the sky. Some scientists have suggested that a type of meteor, called a bolide, could be the cause. These space rocks explode when they hit Earth’s atmosphere. If this happened above thick cloud, the sound could be amplified across a wide area, but no physical evidence would reach the ground. Meteor explosions might be visible as a flash in the sky but, if it’s cloudy or very sunny, the flash may be visible only on satellite imagery or not at all. A meteor explosion most often will not result in any debris reaching the ground. Think of it as cosmic fireworks with delayed audio—by the time the sound reaches your ears, the light show is long over. Small bits of space rocks enter our atmosphere daily, but they are big enough to make a loud sound over a wide area when they break apart.
Mother Nature’s Gas Problems
Release and ignition of methane gas from underwater or underground sources can produce loud, unexplained sounds. Methane can accumulate from decaying organic matter in places like swamps or underwater deposits. As many skyquakes seem to happen near large, deep lakes, one suggestion is that they come from gases released from lake sediments. However, some skyquakes happen away from bodies of water. With lakes, bio gas from decaying vegetation trapped beneath the lake bottoms suddenly bursting forth. (Plausible, since Cayuga Lake and Seneca Lake are large, deep lakes with millennia of deep deposition of organically enriched sediment.) It’s like Earth having indigestion—after millions of years of organic matter settling at the bottom of lakes, sometimes the planet needs to burp. The sound effects are just more dramatic than we’d expect from normal digestive processes.
Atmospheric Ducting: Sound’s Magic Trick
In addition to the potential causes provided above, skyquakes can be a result of atmospheric ducting of noise (from man-made explosions, or thunder) from far away. Under certain meteorological conditions, sounds may travel through the air in a preferred path or bounce off layers in the atmosphere, affecting distant receptors but not the people in between. Thus, the receptors (people affected by the noise) are at a loss as to where it originated. “Ducting” is enhanced propagation of sound or radio waves over long distances, through the troposphere, by wave travel that’s constrained between distinct air layers. It’s nature’s version of a telephone game, where sound gets passed along atmospheric layers like whispers in a schoolyard, except these whispers can shatter windows. Eli Bird, a researcher at the University of North Carolina, suggests that specific atmospheric conditions may amplify sound waves, allowing them to travel further than usual. While this explanation seems plausible for regions near large bodies of water, it fails to account for skyquakes heard in landlocked areas.
Solar Storms: When the Sun Gets Moody
Secondary atmospheric waves from plasma impacts of solar CMEs. CMEs generate plasma shock waves in space, similar to the sonic boom caused by aircraft flying faster than the speed of sound in Earth’s atmosphere. The solar wind’s equivalent of a sonic boom in the Solar System plasma medium can accelerate protons up to millions of miles per minute – as much as 40 percent of the speed of light. An interesting, but unconfirmed, idea about skyquakes is that coronal mass ejections from the sun can accelerate protons enough to cause shock waves in the earth’s atmosphere. Or, there may be sounds generated from interactions in the earth’s magnetosphere. It’s like the Sun throwing cosmic tantrums that somehow translate into Earth-shaking sound effects. This is a proven source of auroras, but has never yet been shown to be sufficiently forceful and sufficiently abrupt to cause a “boom”. The idea sounds spectacular, but scientists are still looking for concrete proof that our star can literally make noise across 93 million miles of space.
Underwater Architecture Collapse
Explosive release of less volatile gases generated as limestone decay in underwater caves. Underwater caves collapsing, and either the released air and/or a wave of water pressure vacuum abruptly arriving at the lake surface. One disputed hypothesis is that the sounds may be produced when parts of the continental shelf fall into the Atlantic abyss. Imagine ancient underwater cathedral systems suddenly giving way after millennia of erosion, creating massive air pockets that eventually burst to the surface with explosive force. Many explanations have been put forward, including solar flares, shallow earthquakes, offshore tsunamis, collapsing underwater caves and avalanches. It’s Earth’s own version of demolition day, except nobody got the memo about when or where it’s happening.
The Frequency of Mystery
They did pick up signals – varying between 1 and 10 seconds long, Live Science reports – associated with reported booms. They’re often described as a “rushing” or “rolling” sound, and occasionally are associated with cold temperatures rather than earthquakes. While no one has been able to record the decibel level of a skyquake, all reports indicate it is very low frequency. It would have to be very low frequency and of great intensity (>100 dBA) to rattle buildings. The researchers, who presented their findings at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in 2020, focused instead on listening to infrasound data – low-frequency sound that isn’t audible to humans. These sounds exist in a frequency range that our ears can barely detect but our bodies can definitely feel. It’s like being touched by invisible sound waves that your brain can’t quite process but your bones certainly can.
Coastal Connections: The Water Factor
While skyquakes occur all over the world, most of them have been reported near a coast. Some explanations focus on the possible relationship between proximity to water and skyquakes. Breaking waves: A line of breaking waves on a rocky shore is capable of producing booming noises at low frequencies, thereby allowing the sound to travel for longer distances. An alternative explanation is gas escaping from lake sediments. Several hotspots for skyquake activity are close to large, deep lakes, such as Seneca. But skyquakes have also been reported away from such water bodies. There’s definitely something about water that seems to enhance these mysterious booms, whether it’s acting as an amplifier, a storage tank for gas, or simply providing the right atmospheric conditions. However, the landlocked skyquakes keep scientists honest about not putting all their eggs in the aquatic basket.
Modern Detection: Technology Meets Mystery
As scientists continue to explore the phenomenon, new technologies and methodologies may provide fresh insights. Advanced atmospheric monitoring systems, satellite imagery, and machine learning algorithms could help identify patterns or correlations previously overlooked. In 2020, scientists used seismic data from the EarthScope Transportable Array (ESTA) to attempt to explain the noises around the US, comparing it to accounts of the noises from 2013 onwards. We’re living in an age where we can track cosmic radiation and decode genetic sequences, yet these earthbound sound effects continue to stump our best equipment. “Generally speaking, we believe this is an atmospheric phenomenon – we don’t think it’s coming from seismic activity,” researcher Eli Bird said in a statement seen by Live Science. “We’re assuming it’s propagating through the atmosphere rather than the ground.” It’s humbling to think that with all our technological prowess, nature still has the ability to completely baffle us.
