Mysterious Booms Off Shore Of South Eastern Nc.

[Moontanman]

Well the "Seneca" guns off shore where I live have been active the last few days. Mysterious booms off shore, sometimes accompanied by slight ground shaking. This occurs a lot more often than is normally reported, if you spend lots of time on the beach you are likely to hear these "booms" many times a year, not often but occasionally they become so loud people inland hear them as well. It is claimed that Native Americans reported these booms long before jets, or guns...

 

http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20101106/ARTICLES/101109706&tc=email_newsletter?p=1&tc=pg&tc=ar

 

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/topics/booms.php

 

There does not appear to be any agreement on what causes the Seneca guns. They have been occurring in several places around the eastern U.S. and in India for at least a century or two. As far as I can tell, they have worried people but they have never caused damage or injury. The Earth is a complex place and there is a lot about it that we don’t understand. Perhaps someday we will understand what causes Seneca guns, but right now we don’t understand what makes them. However, they do not seem to pose a threat to anyone.

[LaurieAG]

Hi Moontanman,

 

Well the "Seneca" guns off shore where I live have been active the last few days. Mysterious booms off shore, sometimes accompanied by slight ground shaking. This occurs a lot more often than is normally reported, if you spend lots of time on the beach you are likely to hear these "booms" many times a year, not often but occasionally they become so loud people inland hear them as well. It is claimed that Native Americans reported these booms long before jets, or guns...

 

Is the weather roughly the same when the booms occur?

 

I have experienced many situations where sound has travelled considerable distances on cool nights.

 

Being woken up by a train at 5am isn't much fun, especially if the train is 10 miles away.

You might also notice that the noise of a vehicle driving through the first chicane of an Indy track does not attennuate at the focus point, especially if it is 11pm, it is a Harley and your bedroom window is 10 feet away from that focus point. That rumbles your timbers too.

That reminds me of the slightly sunken under road drainage pipe that would produce a low boom whenever a truck drove by at a certain speed, especially when that pipe ran somewhere near your foundations.

 

But considering that the noises have been around for a while there is only one other possibility that could also be considered if some combination of the previously described topographic and atmospheric precursors wasn't enough, lightning. Lightning strikes that shake your foundations can land 200km away in the ocean and cause 2.3 richter earthquakes, 'especially' if thats what the newspapers say the next day.;)

[Moontanman]

I first heard the Seneca guns when I was 17 and living in an apartment at the beach. It was enough to wake me at night on occasion but being on the beach when it happens can be impressive, weather doesn't seem to play into it and the noise is distinct from thunder, you do seem to notice it more at night or early in the morning when very little man made noise competes with the booms.

 

I used to live a few miles from the state ports, at night lying in bed it was so easy to hear the sounds of loading ships, during the day it took a very large noise like dropping a full container to get your attention but at night you could lots of sounds you would never have payed attention to in the day time. So i know how night time plays with what you hear but the booms are odd, I often wondered if it was possibly the collapse of a giant wave off shore that caused the booms. They do have characteristics that mimic a wave clap...

[LaurieAG]

It wouldn't be that difficult to pin down the physical aspects of the boom with a small grid of bouys with sound and direction capture sensors.