Mystery Booms: Seneca Guns, Earthquake Booms and Other Strange Sounds

Mystery Booms: Seneca Guns, Earthquake Booms and Other Strange Sounds. Earth is a weird and unexplained sounding place!


Mystery Booms: Seneca Guns, Earthquake Booms and Other Strange Sounds

Earthquake “booms” have been reported for a long time. They tend to occur more in the Northeastern US and along the East Coast. Most of these loud booms are the result of cultural noise (explosion, army training, sonic booms, tannerite explosion), but some booming noises remain unexplained.

Although their origin is unknown, these “booms” probably originate from small shallow earthquakes that are too small to be recorded, but large enough to be felt by people nearby.

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Mystery Booms: Seneca Guns, Earthquake Booms and Other Strange Sounds


Seneca Guns


What might be the cause

The thing that comes closest to matching all of the observations is sonic booms from military aircraft. During the 1970’s, Seneca guns were heard on the coast of Virginia. Reporters and seismologists investigated for several weeks but were unable to determine the cause. Finally the Navy admitted that one of their planes had caused a sonic boom. The problem with sonic booms is that they cannot explain Seneca guns that occurred before supersonic jets.

Naval ships firing their guns offshore might have produced some of the booms. Under certain atmospheric conditions, sounds can travel farther than usual so that they might be heard onshore as loud booms. Naval firing might explain some of the Seneca guns that occurred before jet planes were in wide use. However, naval gunfire cannot explain the Seneca guns inland, around Seneca Lake and Cayuga Lake. These lakes are much too small to have any military vessels on them, and no navigable rivers connect them to the ocean or to the Great Lakes.

Earthquakes are also a possible cause. In southeastern North Carolina, earthquake lists show seven events between 1871 and 1968. Each event was reported by people who felt it or heard it. The problem with the earthquake explanation is that something that is felt or heard that strongly should have been recorded on nearby seismographs (these are the instruments that record ground shaking for seismologists to analyze). A seismologist in Virginia who has tried, has never been able to match any of the reported Seneca guns with his seismograph records, and he has tried lots of times over the years.

What is probably not the cause

  • Tidal wave: Any wave large enough to produce shaking and booms on land would have been reported. I have not found any reports of tidal waves.
  • Landslides off the continental shelf: These have happened in the geologic past, but I don’t know of any reports that they happened during recorded history. The main effect of large landslides under the ocean would be tidal waves, which we’ve already considered.
  • Industrial disasters, like the Chernobyl explosion: Anything that large would be reported. There would be no way to hide the news because too many people nearby would have seen, heard, and felt the blast, and there might be injuries too.
  • Global warming: The articles that suggest this don’t offer any explanation of how a gradual warming of the atmosphere would produce something as sudden as a loud boom. Also, global warming would affect the whole globe, whereas Seneca guns have only been reported from a few areas.
  • A hole in the ozone layer: Holes in the ozone layer form over the north and south poles, not over the U.S. or India. The reasons why they form are well understood, although I don’t understand them myself because I’m a geologist, and the reasons apply only to polar areas.
  • Shifts of tectonic plates: There are no tectonic plate boundaries near the east coast. The nearest plate boundaries are in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and in the Caribbean Sea.
  • Pockets of air being released: Air can fill small pores between particles of soil, and cracks in rock, but it’s not held in pockets that are tight enough to contain it under pressure. If the air is not under pressure, its release would not make booms or shake the ground.
  • Methane released from the ocean floor or lake bottoms and exploding when it rises to the surface and contacts the air: There is methane buried under the ocean floor and bottoms of lakes. It forms from the gradual decay of buried plants and microscopic animals. Sometimes the methane can seep upward to ground level. However, it does not come up suddenly enough or in large enough amounts to cause explosions (except for these). Also, burning methane makes flames, and a couple of the articles that Google listed point out that flames have not been reported at the times and locations of Seneca guns.
  • New faults forming: Fracturing rock to produce a new fault, as well as moving an existing fault, should produce an earthquake. We’ve already examined earthquakes.
  • Cold air meeting warm Gulf Stream air: The articles that I’ve read which suggest this cause do not explain how it would operate. Two results might be thunder and lightning, but Seneca guns have been reported in clear weather as well as stormy.
  • Meteor exploding in the atmosphere: this suggestion would have to be evaluated by an expert in meteorites. It’s a possible cause, but my guess is that any meteorite large enough to cause something as strong as a Seneca gun would be much rarer than Seneca guns. If my guess is correct, then exploding meteors might explain a few Seneca guns but not most of them.
  • Top secret military activity: The problem with this explanation is that it’s too easy. Centuries ago people called on magic the same way. There’s no way to disprove this idea as a cause of Seneca guns, because if it’s top secret we won’t know about it, but I’ve never seen any reason to take the explanation seriously. Sure, the military has lots of secrets, but something big enough to cause Seneca guns in so many regions, including India, would be really hard to keep secret. One of the great things about America is that it’s hard to keep big secrets here. Most of us, including me, would be eager to share a really big secret with friends and family, and if we weren’t lots of reporters would be glad to do it for us.
  • Indian ghosts firing guns to disturb descendants of settlers who took their land: We want an explanation, not a ghost story!
  • Lightning: Some of the Seneca guns have been reported in clear weather. But some lightning sounds are terrifying!

Earthquake booms

First, here a catalog of earthquake-related sounds compiled by Karl V. Steinbrugge.


Perhaps the best way to understand earthquake sounds is this experiment by David Hill. It seems to be the P wave that sounds as shown in the description of the experiment (Earthquake Waves Outrace Sound).

Historical reports of earthquake sounds?

New Madrid, Missouri

There are accounts of explosion-like sounds that were said to have occurred before or during the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811-1812.

Charleston, S. Carolina

As with most historical earthquakes, details about sounds and the actual level of ground motion related to the Charleston, SC Earthquake (1886) are somewhat sketchy and hard to authenticate. Here are some of the most interesting reports:

According to the testimony of some, the first intimation of the disturbance was a strange sound or murmur. Others say that with the sound they felt the trembling, and that both increased, at first steadily, but by perceptible stages, and then suddenly or by swift degrees, to the full roar and energy of the climax. Dr. Manigault resides in a very quiet street near the Battery, and but a few hundred yards from the estuary of the Ashley River. He was engaged in a game of chess, and a member of his family was sitting by an open window. The latter, surprised or perhaps alarmed by the prolonged sound, arose, crossed the room, entered the hall, and passed out into the open air before the doctor became aware of anything unusual. The sound appeared to come across the water of Ashley River from the west-southwest. Another observer of intelligence was seated in the park at the Battery, near the statue of Jasper. He suddenly became conscious of a deep murmur, which swelled in volume, and which appeared to come from the open bay, lying southeastward. Very soon there was a sound of agitation in the leaves of the trees overhead, and at the same instant, he thinks, he became aware of a tremor in the ground. Springing to his fee, there suddenly broke upon his ear a rapid swell in the sound, which became a mighty roar, and with the roar came a shock.”

It is apparent from these observations that, at least for the main shock, people heard the actual low frequency motions of the damaging earthquake waves as they rolled across the region and right down their street… The “roar’ came with the “shock”.

As for scientific evidence for loud sounds that preceded the 1886 Charleston, SC Earthquake, there is none. To our knowledge, there were no seismographs or barographs that recorded the earthquake. The only data that was collected that could have scientific significance (aside from tide gauge and other water surface measurements, was from large clocks that stopped due to ground motions. Unfortunately none of these clocks were precisely synchronized so those data are of poor quality.

For several weeks after the Charleston Earthquake (8/31/1886) there were many aftershocks that were reportedly accompanied by “loud detonations”. But there was little mention of sounds occurring before an event. The earth was in a fairly continuous state of agitation and it would be difficult to relate a specific sound to a specific earthquake. The following account from the Dutton report is particularly informative:




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.

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