Mysterious booms rock Cape Fear region ('Seneca Guns'?)

[Jeff]

Mysterious booms rock Cape Fear region

Feb 8

Loud booms rocked Brunswick, New Hanover and Pender counties starting about 6:40 p.m. today.

Callers from Oak Island, Leland and Supply told the Star-News they heard the booms and felt strong vibrations. One man said he thought his beach-front home was collapsing. Another said it shook her whole house.

A meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Wilmington said reports of the booms or vibrations were widespread, coming from Rocky Point in Pender County to Leland in Brunswick County.

The Brunswick County 911 center's switchboard lit up with calls from people reporting explosions or loud booms.

A dispatcher said the center had not confirmed the source of the loud noises.

Although a dispatcher at the New Hanover County 911 center said the center had received no such calls, a Star-News staffer who lives in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Wilmington said he heard the noise at his home.

Mysterious booms known as "Seneca Guns" have been reported in the region for centuries. The name comes from a similar phenomenon in New York and Connecticut.

Legend has it that the Seneca Indians are getting their revenge with the guns that Europeans used to displace them.

More scientific explanations say the boom of the guns comes from earthquakes, material falling off the continental shelf, or pockets of hot air exploding like balloons.

"We have no idea what it was," said Michael Ross, the meteorologist at the weather service in Wilmington. "We felt the building kind of shake for just a split second."

Ross said staff at the NWS office was keeping tabs on the National Earthquake Center to see if there was a report of an earthquake in the region, but none was reported.

Ross said he wasn't aware of any military maneuvers off the coast, which occasionally is spotted on NWS radar when aircraft drop material to confuse enemy radar systems.

Calls to the public information office at Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station in Havelock were not answered.

http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/2 ... /219232410

[ninakat]

Ross said he wasn't aware of any military maneuvers off the coast, which occasionally is spotted on NWS radar when aircraft drop material to confuse enemy radar systems.

Enemy radar systems? WTF?

Calls to the public information office at Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station in Havelock were not answered.

Probably closed for the weekend, but the whole story is still odd.

[NaturalMystik]

This happened in southern ontario a year or so ago. The whole house rocked. The airport was trying to sell it as thunder, which was a total joke. It was about 4:15am, and I did hear a plane over head. I'm thinking it was a sonic boom.

[orz]

Enemy radar systems? WTF?

Ross said he wasn't aware of any military maneuvers off the coast, which occasionally is spotted on NWS radar when aircraft drop material to confuse enemy radar systems.

[marmot]

Gia farting, naturally. Duh!

[sunny]

Earlier reports from Mobile, AL

[brainpanhandler]

Related:

US Navy Seneca lake Sonar test facility website

I found this in poking around for info on the seneca guns. I didn't look for naval facilites in the cape fear region. No doubt there are some.

Wiki entry for Seneca lake

The Wiki entry on Lake Seneca under the heading Miscellanea: Seneca Lake is also the site of a strange and as-yet-unexplained phenomenon known as the Guns of the Seneca, mysterious cannon-like booms heard in the surrounding area. Some might speculate that they come from the north eastern museum aka Rose hill mansion.

The cryptic reference to the Rose Hill mansion seems to lead to a dead end, although possibly it is a reference to civil war reenactments that take place at the mansion.

Wiki entry for Mistpouffers

Apparently similar phenomena are reported all over the globe. I'm curious to know what sorts of fault lines might exist around the lake Seneca area or the Cape Fear region.

Connection between global warming and tectonic activity?

There is a relatively new theory that global warming and glacial melt can, do and increasingly will result in increased volcanic and tectonic plate activity. Lake Seneca was formed by the retreat of the glaciers during the last great ice age. Perhaps the Seneca Guns are the continuing tectonic reverberations from the geologic events of that era?



Perhaps some ancient Balrog of sorts will be awoken from it's slumber by the US navy or other clandestine black ops projects. Or perhaps global warming and it's associated tectonic stresses via the increased weight of the rising oceans will contribute to more and more instances of "Seneca guns" phenomena around the globe, not to mention all the other unusual phenomena that seem to accompany tectonic stresses.

If I can find something on the USGS site or elsewhere relative to faults located in the area of the finger lakes or the cape fear region I'll post it.

[Sepka]

The Moodus Noises are one of the better-documented examples of this sort of thing:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.h ... wanted=all

http://www.curbstone.org/index.cfm?webpage=96

[seemslikeadream]

Loud Booms in North Carolina Followed by Massive Fish Kill

March 20, 2015 Paul Seaburn

Those mysterious booms that have been heard around the world with increasing frequency may have claimed some innocent victims. On March 16, 2015, loud booms were heard and felt by people living along the U.S. Atlantic coast from North Carolina north to Delaware. Less that 24 hours later, thousands of dead fish began washing up on the beaches of the Outer Banks in North Carolina. Coincidence, catastrophe or conspiracy?
In North Carolina, the first boom occurred at 4:24 pm and the second at 6:24 pm. They were reported to local officials and to the U.S. Geological Survey, which detected no earthquake activity at either of those times. The USGS admitted it was at a loss to explain the booms and asked for any and all input on its website.
Areas reporting loud booms on March 17, 2015
Areas reporting loud booms on March 16, 2015
While there was some offshore weather activity, any thunder would not be felt all the way to Delaware. There were no reports of any military aircraft activities and related sonic booms from the nearby Harvey Point Defense Testing Activity facility in Hertferd, North Carolina. No explanation, no responsibility, nothing to see here … everybody move along.
Until the fish started dying.
Dead fish and other dead wildlife on a beach in Corolla, NC
Dead fish on a beach in Corolla, NC
The day after the booms, there were reports of thousands of dead fish and a dead dolphin washing up on beaches in Corolla, NC, on the northern Outer Banks. The area of beach covered with dead fish eventually reached three miles in length.
The North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Division of Water Resources, which monitors fish kill activity, reported that the fish were primarily menhaden. Also known as mossbunker, bunker and pogy, menhaden are oily fish caught primarily for animal feed and fish oil supplements. According to Division of Water Resources environmental specialist Jill Paxson, they are extremely sensitive to environmental changes like algae blooms cutting off oxygen or rapid fluxes in water temperature.
Or mysterious loud booms?
No one is saying anything. Meanwhile, the booms go unexplained and the dead fish keep washing up. Coincidence, catastrophe or conspiracy?

[Asta]

I live 5 miles from the Outer Banks, NC where the "loud booms" occurred.

It was more than just a loud boom. I was on the phone with a friend who lives about 2 miles south of me when the first one happened. I have a new home, well built for hurricane and high winds, heavy duty windows, incredibly reinforced foundation and the whole house shook. BAM! I nearly fell out of my chair. I said to her, "Did you feel that explosion?" She said no, then 8 or so seconds later, she yelled "Holy Cow! Yes I did!" The "blast" was traveling south, that is, from the mainland to the coastline.

We hung up and I ran outside thinking a Navy jet from a base in nearby Virginia Beach/Newport News, etc. had crashed. Nothing, no telltale smoke plumes. Everyone in the neighborhood was calling each other, a little scared, all saying "our house shook, did we have an earthquake?" The next day there was another event in Kill Devil Hills that lasted almost 30 seconds, not a boom, but serious enough shaking to alarm everyone in the beach rentals. That event was not felt where I live.

The beaches are covered with dead fish. Now dolphins and one whale have washed ashore dead. More dead fish wash up each day.

There's an artillery range 30 miles north of us in Moyock that is operated by Blackwater (remember them?) but they changed the name to The Academe with a little accent mark over the last "e". Charming. You can't go near the place without being met by armed personnel in black SUVs. Can't discount them, and I can't discount underwater sonar testing by the Navy causing the fish kill. No one has any "answers".

I thought I'd moved to Mayberry, but it seems Mayberry may have a very dark side.

On edit: We're not having an algae bloom. The water is a beautiful clean blue as far as the eye can see.

[justdrew]

probably a sudden methane release and explosion out to sea a bit. it killed fish while bubbling up. IF someone would go looking, they'd probably find it still seeping.

boats in the area should probably have a methane detector installed, it's entirely possible a small slow boat could move into a region of relatively high concentration and IIRC unless it's well-contaminated it's presence is odorless/colorless. There may be an explanation for the Marie Celeste someone was mystified by. If people on a ship start mysteriously suffocating, it's possible they would blame the ship and try to get away from the ship as fast as possible, to no avail of course.

[Elvis]

probably a sudden methane release and explosion out to sea a bit. it killed fish while bubbling up. IF someone would go looking, they'd probably find it still seeping.

Hm, but how would that explain this?:

BAM! I nearly fell out of my chair. I said to her, "Did you feel that explosion?" She said no, then 8 or so seconds later, she yelled "Holy Cow! Yes I did!" The "blast" was traveling south, that is, from the mainland to the coastline.

[zangtang]

inter-factional warfare in the underground tunnel network system.
Wonder if you can tell if a fish died of concussion?

[Squatterman]

@Asta

Thank you.

Clear and well written - I especially appreciate the attempt at analysis of the "wavefront" requiring 8 seconds to travel southerly.

Keep us posted!

(I live in Asheville.)

Then there's this from March 14-

CHEROKEE, NC -- A 2.8 magnitude earthquake jolted Cherokees and areas around it early Saturday at 12:51am.

The U.S. Geological survey reported the quake's epicenter was almost two miles east southeast of Cherokee.

"We kept hearing it over there and then in another area like it was a rolling thunder sound," said Jeff Gomez of Cherokee.

"I just heard my apartment walls start shaking and the glass kind of knocked over and ornament sitting on a table next to me," said Justin Jumper of Whittier.

There was another minor earthquake in the area Wednesday. No one has reported any major damage from either quake.

[Iamwhomiam]

I doubt the explosion was caused by escaping methane. The waters are too shallow for methane clathrates to form. But in your earlier comment you were correct about increasing volcanism and tectonic shifting as a result of an expanding earth, expanding from the diminished weight of melting glaciers.

Considering the dead fish, I can only imagine a tremendous underwater explosion as the cause. And when I think about tremendous underwater explosions, I wonder who's been fishing with explosives? Blackwater? Z? The Academe?

Also, we should not discount the possibility of the navy having sunk a foreign submarine.

My sister lives in New Bern, the colonial capital of NC; I'll ask her if she also heard the explosion or felt the next day's earthquake.

Thanks for sharing your experience with us, Asta.