Folks from Siren to Birchwood and Hayward to Chetek have been reporting loud boom noises for the past few days, at all hours, whether day or night. Most have said they sound like cannon booms. Hundreds of people have taken to social media to share their stories. The booms were heard in Spooner, Trego, Hertel, Siren, Rice Lake, Barron, Chetek, Almena, Birchwood, Weyerhauser, Springbrook and Hayward. A pretty wide area.
These booms being reported all over the Northland may be some sort of geodynamic process taking place. The booms may be the result of crustal movement and the resulting explosive fracturing. Some people who have reported the booms even reported seeing flashes of light. Basically, these booms may be the result of microquakes and the flashes of light could be the mysterious Earthquake Lights.
Earlier this week there were three large Coronal Mass Ejections from the sun, but it was the third ejection that made the news. It was an X9 class flare, the largest in 12 years. Over the course of Thursday and especially Friday night, the Northern Lights could be seen as far south as Arkansas. I believe it was this solar storm that bombarded the Earth the past few days that may have caused the booms here in the Northland and the major 8.4 earthquake that struck Mexico two nights ago, the largest quake Mexico has had in over 100 years.
Let me explain what I believe is happening. In 2012 there was a series of loud booms that rattled the Wisconsin city of Clintonville. The booms were mysterious and without explanation for several days and then finally, it was determined to most likely have been a series of very small “microquakes” barely registering on the Richter scale.
Also, over the past few years, since 2011, there have been reports of strange sky noises all over the world, from the loud booms to hums to metallic-sounding trumpet noises. These noises were theorized to have been a geodynamic process caused by acoustic gravity waves… from the sun’s solar activity.
A Ukranian professor named Elchin Khalilov said the following;
“We have analyzed records of these sounds and found that most of their spectrum lies within the infrasound range, i.e. is not audible to humans. What people hear is only a small fraction of the actual power of these sounds. They are low-frequency acoustic emissions in the range between 20 and 100 Hz modulated by ultra-low infrasonic waves from 0.1 to 15 Hz. In geophysics, they are called acoustic-gravity waves; they are formed in the upper atmosphere, at the atmosphere-ionosphere boundary in particular. There can be quite a lot of causes why those waves are generated: earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, storms, tsunamis, etc. However, the scale of the observed humming sound in terms of both the area covered and its power far exceeds those that can be generated by the above-mentioned phenomena.”
Many of these noises have been reported prior to earthquakes. The professor goes on to say that he believes the sun is the culprit of all the strange sky noises. I find it interesting that just days after a massive coronal ejection from the sun, we have a very large earthquake in Mexico and then the mysterious loud booms all over northern Wisconsin.
And then there is the report from some folks who said they also saw flashes of light. There is a little-known phenomenon called Earthquake Lights that scientists have determined the lights are caused by electrical properties of certain rocks in specific settings. And the specific setting, in this case, are rocks that are fractured during crustal movement of a microquake.
A San Jose State University scientist said that, “common forms of earthquake lights include bluish flames that appear to come out of the ground at ankle height; orbs of light called ball lightning that float in the air for tens of seconds or even minutes; and quick flashes of bright light that resemble regular lightning strikes, except they come out of the ground instead of the sky and can stretch up to 650 feet (200 meters).”
It's this last one that I think our witnesses saw. Flashes of light rising from the ground.
There’s no official report on the cause of these booms. This is simply my opinion on what is causing them. An X9 Class Solar Flare causes acoustic gravity waves, which usually results in strange humming sky noises, but in this case, we actually get a series of small microquakes resulting in small explosions when certain rocks are fractured.
There’s certainly a lot more research needs to be done on the relationship between quakes and solar flares, but I find it highly suspect that these boom sounds came in the days following the largest solar flare in 12 years.
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Last Update: Sep 11, 2017 8:22 am CDT
