Mysterious booms in Wisconsin

I've posted before about mysterious booming sounds from unidentified sources that have rattled people in California, New York, and elsewhere. Now, the small town of Clintonville, Wisconsin has been rocked the last few nights by weird booms. The city government has now hired an engineering firm to try to identify the cause of the noises. From the Associated Press:

If the firm finds the epicenter, it will try to pinpoint its depth and what is causing it. The city will spend $7,000 on the effort, but (city administrator Lisa) Kuss said "it's possible we'll never have a definitive answer."
The city set up audio and video recorders overnight Wednesday but didn’t capture anything. There was at least one loud boom at 5 a.m.

"Clintonville noises: City's equipment fails to tape mystery booms" (AP, thanks, Matt Drudge!)

"After 3 nights, sleepless Wisconsin town longs for relief from mysterious loud booming noises" (AP)

David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

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dillonl

Perhaps they could use the technology the military has to locate snipers based on the report of the gunshot?
- xzzy
  
  The hardware needed to do that is a lot more expensive than $7,000. Plus if the booms are originating underground, they don’t be able to find the epicenter.
  
  My theory? Bigfoot mating rituals.
- Lobster
  
  My knee-jerk reaction is that the military already knows the source of the booms. Reminds me of when they first started testing supersonic aircraft.
http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy

Let me be the first to blame the govt/military.

Ahem,

I blame the govt and/or the military involved in secret secrets of alien technology. probably some kind of drum machine from Alpha Centauri
MB44

Let’s get to work on those shelters everyone!
Awesome song/Relevant:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_syZ6pA7O0&feature=related
http://profile.yahoo.com/3XLUOLFYZCOGKXHLV4PJBPF47E Larry

Here’s another report from the south coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, across the San Juan Strait from Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. This one is reported more as a low frequency rumbling noise than a series of bangs.

http://www.timescolonist.com/news/Mysterious+rumbles+bring+down+barn/6318605/story.html
http://twitter.com/kpkpkp Kevin Pierce

Dick Cheney’s new lair
msw141

I remember hearing about reports of unexplained daytime thunder here in Minnesota during the end of last year. It turned out that it was the sound of ice cracking on the lakes. Due to the mild winter, there was no snow cover that typically would muffle the sound. Could be something similar?
- RedShirt77
  
  Except all the ice broke up a few weeks ago.
http://twitter.com/castisms chris cast

We all know it’s a “War of The Worlds” scenario… the thing buried down there has been there…waiting…for centuries. It’s alarm is going off (2012), it’s cranky and we are doomed! Doomed, I tell ya!
Keith Achorn

About 1 week ago, I also experienced some unexplained booms around my house at night in Port St Lucie, Florida. It went on for maybe 10 minutes or so. The bangs were discrete (not a rumble) and they were quite loud and reminded me of professional fireworks. However, I periodically tried to identify the source by looking around my house and was unable to. My home is in a suburban neighborhood not near any other sources I can think of (like stadiums), and this noise was louder and more persistent than previous fireworks I’ve heard from my neighbors – not to mention this is not remotely close to New Years or the 4th of July. Now that I know there are reports elsewhere, I wish I had taken some notes.

All that being said, I’m sure there is a reasonable explanation for what I heard, but I will be interested to hear how this story pans out.

Edit: I should point out that this did not appear in any way to be normal thunder. The bangs seemed to be in somewhat regular intervals with brief gaps between sets.
- RedShirt77
  
  Have you had the same abnormally warm march we have in the upper midwest?
  - Keith Achorn
    
    It has been warm, but it usually is this time of year in Florida. The typical range has been 70-80F.
    - RedShirt77
      
      Yeah, we have been 40 degrees above normal.
      - David Wyatt
        
        My friend in alaska said he is used to the teens about this time of year, it hit nearly 90 the other day and was 65 the day before. Nah, no such thing as climate change and the 2,106 nuclear explosions the humans have done in the last 70 years couldnt have a thing to do with it.
http://twitter.com/blindeschildpad Blinde Schildpad

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAARP!!!
Jason

This happened in Richmond, VA a few years ago. It turned out to be concussive bombs constructed with 3-liter soda bottles deposited in storm drains or left on the street. I seem to recall that since pyrotechnics were not involved, there was no way to prosecute the perpetrators when they were caught.
- mat catastrophe
  
  WHERE ARE THESE 3 LITER BOTTLES OF SODA YOU SPEAK OF? I NEED MORE CAFFEINE AND SUGAR!
  - travtastic
    
    You have to get non-name-brands. They have 3-liters of diet ginger ale at the dollar store here.
- bcsizemo
  
  3 liter bottles…that might have been more than a few years ago then. I haven’t seen a 3 liter is many many years. (Well at least in the major brands now that I think about it. Wal-Mart might still have a few things in 3 liter bottles.)
  
  Good old aluminum foil and toilet bowl cleaner…how I miss my youth.
  - David Wyatt
    
    local supermarkets always have and (many) still do carry 3 liter sodas/
    
    They come in strange flavors like fruit punch and ginger ale.
    Also after many many many dry ice bombs in my youth, I found that the smaller the bottle the denser the bottle the greater the pressure. I made them out of 1 liters, worked ok. Thought 2 liters would be louder, it wasnt, and 3 liters were even more ridiculous. BUT, If you use a really really small and dense bottle like a “Pom” bottle or anything thick, it will make a ridiculously strong shockwave/explosion.
Teller

Glad to see no cutting-cheese gags that would cheapen the discussion.
- RedShirt77
  
  Maybe god had beans for dinner.
jennybean42

Secret fraking?
- http://twitter.com/zaren Jim Schmidt
  
  Or even not so secret. The theory is that the Maryland earthquake a few months back that was felt where I am in Michigan was triggered asa a result of fracking. It’s possible that what they’re doing invisibly underground is the cause of the noises.
- shawn3012
  
  I’m in tx and there have been several small quakes that they say have nothing to do with fracking but are remarkably close to major drilling areas. I’m afraid we are all going to be unpleasantly surprised at the result of fracking.
mat catastrophe

Seriously, if the sounds are not captured on recording devices then can we even say that these people aren’t just having a mass delusion event?

Those things happen, you know….some of them are even fatal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_Plague_of_1518
http://twitter.com/ifdeadpoke Poke With Stick

The journals of the Corps of Discovery mention booming noises heard and I think it even mentions Lewis or Clark taken the time to investigate the source.
bcsizemo

It’s just the other universe bleeding through…
- http://twitter.com/neongreen78 Nico
  
  O a fellow Fringie! I thought the same thing…
  - http://2012diaries.blogspot.com/ tristan eldritch
    
    Is that show still good? I followed it up till about the start of season 3 and then drifted away for some reason or another.
Dr_Wadd

There was mysterious loud rumbling in Reading, UK last week, either the late hours of Friday night or the early hours of Saturday morning, I wasn’t paying attention to the clock too closely. Pretty certain it wasn’t thunder. While it could have been a plane, Reading is on the flight-path to Heathrow, it was late enough that no planes should have been flying in or out and it seemed too long in duration to have been a plane passing over.
Bartacus

WORM SIGN!!
Ian Anthony

It was the gubment. I know because I did my research on YouTube.
- dculberson
  
  This never used to happen at ground level!
Guest

There’s more than one way to get rid of a stump.
StAlfongzo

Sounds like the Brown Note to me.
- Donald Petersen
  
  Smells like it, too.
http://twitter.com/puppetdark puppethead

This made me think of a chilling story from an Alfred Hitchcock horror anthology I read as a youth, which I can’t recall or locate.

The story involved a mine dug so deep it stumbled across underground dwellers, and these beings had metal rods that made whatever they touched disappear in a small radius around the rod tip. Like rock face, parts of bodies…
http://www.facebook.com/people/Memefilter-Boldvoices/100000979840396 Memefilter Boldvoices

Android and/or iPhone apps would probably be able to triangulate this for a lot less than $7k.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_UKSXQTK3FZOHNQ6ENX2LPVXRHA ClayE

I’m WAGing, but a dynamite driven Seismic Survey would have those results.
But I though oil/gas exploration in that area occurred decades ago.
http://profile.yahoo.com/RJ7W72SEW7G6K7ZIUIQNCV7VL4 Adam

As I’m sitting here reading the comments with the NBC Chicago local news broadcast playing in the background, I hear them say “Clintonville” and “booms.” That got my attention! I rewound the DVR and they’re reporting that it was 1.5 magnitude earthquakes.
http://www.facebook.com/ayla.erdman Ayla Erdmann

I was sitting at up in Montello Wisconsin, i think 20 minutes away from Clitonvill?, and I heard only one boom. It was quite loud, it shook the little trailer that we we sitting in. My first thought was that something fell on the roof.
danmcenroe

It’s the kick!
yeahyeahwhtever

I’m wondering if this is what I used to hear on Summer nights: dueling booms from different locations. Supposedly the origin of that sound would be a garbage bag filled with oxy/acetylene, which was then ignited.
http://noctilucent-studios.blogspot.com/ Noctilucent Studios

Here’s hoping this marks the resurgence of those mysterious sky rumbles from the start of the year and it all is leading to something AMAZING and WONDERFUL.
bumpngrindcore

The answer is simple; there is a hellmouth under Clintonville.
OgilvyTheAstronomer

Obviously Deros.
http://echofox3.blogspot.com efergus3

This one seems to be solved: http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/23/us/wisconsin-noises-earthquake/index.html