Earlier today my mother mentioned hearing something particularly strange on the local news. ?They were saying something about booming noises coming from the sky, I think,? she recalled. This obviously excited me because I instantly knew exactly what she was referring to- the skyquakes
I?ve spent a ridiculous amount of time fixed to my laptop going through video after video of these mysterious noises that seem to emanate from the sky. So as you can imagine, I was geeking out. ?Like skyquakes??, I asked, spinning around to face her with such enthusiasm that I almost fell out of my chair. If you knew my mother you wouldn?t even question her about skyquakes. Of course she?s never heard of them. I knew this but couldn?t pass up the opportunity to rave on about them for a few minutes while she tried to follow my narrative. She looked like a deer in headlights.
I live in North Carolina and loud booming noises occurring either late at night or in the early morning hours are being reported in Wake county, a county located within about 10?15 minutes from my own county. Mysterious booming noises have been occurring frequently since the end of January. As of now, nearly a month later, complaints still continue to pour in from residents and possible theories as to the origin of the noises are abound.
If you?re unaware of this worldwide phenomena of mysterious booming noises known as skyquakes, be warned. You?re about to get the same fanatical explanation as my mother did earlier today. If you have in fact heard of skyquakes and find yourself continuing to read, you?re likely someone just as interested in them as I am. If you?re of that variety- welcome. You are (maybe unfortunately) my type of person.
Answering the question ?What are skyquakes? is a pretty loaded question because that?s what this is all about- nobody really knows for sure. To demonstrate how mysterious of a concept this phenomena is, I?m going to include the local news story my mother saw which started this whole conversation below.
Mysterious booms rock east Wake neighborhood :: WRAL.com
Could it be construction? Military exercises? Meteors falling to earth? Residents of Barham Crossing just wonder what?
www.wral.com
Cause for Concern
So as you can see, nobody knows what?s going on.
Now if you?ve never heard what a skyquake sounds like, you might wonder why exactly it?s concerning to those that experience it or why it?s a big deal. For those of you skeptics out there (not dogging on you in any way, I love a good skeptic) I?m going to insert a video of an actual occurrence of these mysterious noises seemingly coming from above. Hopefully you?ll be just as excited by it as I am.
That is in fact, pretty creepy if you ask me. As you can probably hear from this particular video, the noise does sound fairly far off and coming from within the clouds. These forms of skyquakes have been likened to earthquakes occurring in the sky. When these are experienced you?ll typically observe the person recording to point their camera up at the sky as though to visibly identify the cause of the booms.
That?s another creepy part of this whole phenomena, you never see anything at all. All you can do is stare up at the sky and wonder what?s happening and then it suddenly just stops. The sounds literally just cease as quickly as they began. As with all things that humanity has no verifiable explanation for, the sounds are particular cause for concern. The whole thing is pretty eerie and I love it.
The mysterious ?booms? aren?t the only weird noise we?ve observed in the case of skyquakes though. Skyquakes have a vast variation of pitch, frequency, and duration and that is one of the most interesting things of all. Some skyquakes are likened to ?trumpet blasts? and some are described as ?the scraping of metal?. I even read a post one time that compared it to the noise the Transformers make when they?re warping. That really made me laugh because they definitely ain?t wrong about that comparison. Look it up and compare them. I swear you?ll laugh too. Although I?ve already posted way too many videos within this one post I?m going to go ahead and include an example of this variation of skyquake for the sake of continuity.
What?s Going on Up There?
As I said earlier, there?s no shortage of theories about the origin of skyquakes. I find some of them interesting and thought-provoking while others tend to bore me a little bit. I?m going to lay out a few of these theories and let you make your own judgement though.
Sonic Booms
I think is one of the most commonly suggested of the theories and also one that bores me. I figured I?d get this one out of the way right off the bat. It?s not that I?m disputing it as a possibility at all but I think it?s pretty obvious as to why it isn?t my favorite from just examining the content of the site that you?re currently on. Let?s be honest here.
A sonic boom occurs when an aircraft breaks the sound barrier generating large amounts of sound energy and subsequently creating a booming noise. It should also be said that aircraft aren?t the only things that can generate these sonic booms. The entrance of meteors into our atmosphere could also be a likely suspect.
Is this entirely possible? Yes. Is it sexy? No, not particularly.
Earthquakes
This one really doesn?t make much sense to me. It is argued that the occurrence of earthquakes could be to blame for the noises. I?m gonna personally write this one off because, yes, earthquakes do cause loud vibrations of sound BUT they?re also usually accompanied by seismic activity. Some examples of skyquakes do include feelings of a shaky sensation but there are also many more examples where they are absolutely none. This one doesn?t hold water for me but if you disagree and this is one of your theories, I?d really love to hear what you have to say in the comments.
UFOs
Woah boy, here we go. I?m about to absolutely blow your mind.
I actually don?t entirely support the idea that UFO?s are the origin of the phenomena. I LOVE this theory on a personal level though so I?m including it. I?ll start by saying that us UFO nutcases can actually be pretty reasonable. I can accept when there are explanations much more scientifically probable than UFO?s themselves. We can offer different explanations.To further my point, I?m going to provide a quote by Peter Davenport of the National UFO Reporting Center in Seattle. ?UFOs almost never generate sonic booms or shock waves,? he said. ?They accelerate so rapidly that they leave a vacuum in the sky, much the way lightning does.? If we were all completely unwavering weirdos, we wouldn?t make statements like this.
Unfortunately there is something wrong with Davenport?s statement that I would like to point out real quick. Lightning definitely does create a vacuum in the sky because it is incredibly hot in temperature and causes the air it cuts through to expand. The problem is that this expansion of air that lightning causes does in fact create a shock wave. The creation of a shock wave causes thunder. Thunder is a loud booming in the sky.
The other problem I?d like to point out here is that I find it a little bit laughable that Davenport is absolutely sure that UFO?s ?never generate sonic booms or shock waves?. He is absolutely sure that ?they accelerate so rapidly? that they would be silent. As a UFO enthusiast, it does irk me that he is making any concrete statements on how a UFO operates or sounds when it?s moving. This is why we?re not taken seriously from time to time, dude! We don?t actually know that and we can?t offer verifiable proof to the skeptics at this time that these kinds of statements are fact!
I sincerely apologize that this portion of the theories kind of became a defense of the sanity of those of us that believe in the existence of alien lifeforms. If you really look at it though, this is a definite narrative on why this theory doesn?t make sense to me either! I just took a little while to get there.
Yep, We Still Have No Idea What Causes Skyquakes
I?ve only included a couple of theories as to the origin of this phenomena and there are MANY more. I strongly encourage you to look into these as there are a lot of scientific theories that are really interesting. I?m avoiding those here just because I?m not the best at explaining such scientifically complex things and would like you to have an accurate understanding. I?d also love for you to offer your own explanations if you actually took the time to get to this point of the blog post. You?re great.
I?m sure the skyquakes are a bit of an annoyance to my neighbors over in Wake County. I for one was incredibly excited when I heard that they were being experienced so close to me, however. I wouldn?t necessarily mind if I could take a break from pouring through hours and hours of skyquake videos to get my fix. As with many things I?m interested in, I?d love to be able to experience it with my own eyes and ears even if just once.
Until then, back to Youtube.
UPDATE: The second video originally included in this post, ? SkyQuake in Leicester England 1?28?2012 ***Creepy***? has since been made private.
