Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, I'm Lauren Vogel Bam, and this is another
Speaker 1: classic episode from our archives. In this one, we explore
Speaker 1: the sometimes unsettling and still unexplained phenomenon of skyquakes. Hi
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren Bogel bom Here. One November afternoon, in
Speaker 1: residents of fifteen Alabama counties were reportedly startled by a
Speaker 1: loud boom that caused some to call nine one one
Speaker 1: operators in alarm. As the National Weather Services Birmingham station
Speaker 1: tweeted not quite a couple hours later, there wasn't any
Speaker 1: clear explanation for the noise. Radar scans and satellite imagery
Speaker 1: of the region didn't show any large fires or smoke
Speaker 1: from an explosion, and the U S Geological Survey didn't
Speaker 1: spot any signs of an earthquake on its seismic monitoring system.
Speaker 1: In their tweet, the National Weather Service speculated that the
Speaker 1: sound may have been caused by an aircraft or meteor,
Speaker 1: but said we don't have an answer and we canly
Speaker 1: hypothesized with you. A NASA scientist soon knocked down those
Speaker 1: possible explanations. Bill Cook, head of these space agencies, Meteoroid
Speaker 1: Environment Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama,
Speaker 1: told al dot com that he was skeptical that the
Speaker 1: sound could have been caused by a meteor because there
Speaker 1: were no reports of anyone seeing a fireball. Cook also
Speaker 1: discounted the possibility that the boom had been created by
Speaker 1: an aircraft, noting that the seismic signature is not characteristic
Speaker 1: of that produced by supersonic jets. Boom. About six hundred
Speaker 1: miles or nine seven kilometers to the north in Ontario, Canada,
Speaker 1: the Elgin Field infrasound array picked up an infrasound wave
Speaker 1: that apparently was linked to the boom. It usually takes
Speaker 1: something pretty big, such as a severe storm and avalanche
Speaker 1: or rocket launch to trigger such a wave. To add
Speaker 1: to the weirdness. Less than two weeks later, another similarly
Speaker 1: unexplained boom was heard one morning in the Birmingham area.
Speaker 1: We spoke with James Cooker, director of the Jefferson County,
Speaker 1: Alabama Emergency Management Agency, via email. He said that he
Speaker 1: heard a double boom, although the sound I heard may
Speaker 1: have included an echo caused by the mountains, he said,
Speaker 1: and Alabama isn't the only place where things have been
Speaker 1: booming lately. Skyquakes, as they're commonly called, recently have been
Speaker 1: heard across the US in states ranging from New Jersey
Speaker 1: to Idaho, as well as in places as far away
Speaker 1: as India, where two seaside resort towns were jolted in
Speaker 1: August by a boom so loud that it shattered hotel windows,
Speaker 1: according to the Dacca Tribune. Indeed, as u S Geological
Speaker 1: Survey Scientist Emeritus David Hill detailed in a article on
Speaker 1: the subject, mysterious booms have been heard for many years
Speaker 1: in places across the world. In Belgium, they're known as
Speaker 1: MIAs poofer's, while the Italians call them bron titi. In
Speaker 1: the vicinity of Lake Seneca and the Catskill Mountains of
Speaker 1: New York, residents have long heard the Seneca guns, a
Speaker 1: phenomenon that was described by author James Fenimore Cooper back
Speaker 1: in eighteen fifty one as a sound resembling the explosion
Speaker 1: of a heavy piece of artillery that can be accounted
Speaker 1: for by none of the known laws of nature. As
Speaker 1: Hill noted in his article, numerous explanations for skyquakes have
Speaker 1: been proposed over the years, including shallow earthquakes that could
Speaker 1: produce audible sounds without noticeable shaking, massive tsunami waves breaking
Speaker 1: far from shore, explosions of methane gas released from the
Speaker 1: methyl hydrate beds sand dunes shared by avalanches, and of course, meteors.
Speaker 1: As Hill wrote, meteors penetrating the upper atmosphere could create
Speaker 1: sonic waves that wouldn't reach Earth's surface until after the
Speaker 1: meteor had vanished, so the connection between the two wouldn't
Speaker 1: be apparent. People have also raised the possibility that the booms,
Speaker 1: or at least some of them, might be caused by
Speaker 1: tests a secret U S military aircraft, such as the
Speaker 1: long rumored spy plane that aircraft buffs have dubbed Aurora. However,
Speaker 1: there may not be one single explanation for all the booms.
Speaker 1: Hill explains it is indeed the case that there may
Speaker 1: be several plausible explanations for any given incidents of a
Speaker 1: mysterious booming sound, and that the environment where the sound
Speaker 1: is heard will determine which of the possible explanations are
Speaker 1: the most reasonable. A sound heard in the middle of
Speaker 1: the desert, for example, is not likely due to breaking surf.
Speaker 1: Hill says that most booming sounds are heard over a
Speaker 1: limited range, so reports of clusters of booming sounds separated
Speaker 1: by large distances are most likely coming from multiple sources.
Speaker 1: The exceptions, he says, may include the sound from a
Speaker 1: meteorite exploding in the atmosphere high above the earth, a
Speaker 1: massive volcanic eruption, or an aircraft flying it's supersonic speeds
Speaker 1: for an extended distance. Today's episode was written by Patrick J.
Speaker 1: Kiger and produced by Tristan McNeil and Tyler Klang. For
Speaker 1: more on this and lots of other topics, visit how
Speaker 1: stuffworks dot com. Brain Stuff is production of iHeart Radio
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