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Subscribe to RSSClintonville City Administrator Lisa Kuss explains that recent mysterious booms that shook the small Wisconsin town may have been the result of a series of small, shallow earthquakes.
CLINTONVILLE, Wis. -- Did a minor earthquake cause the booming sounds plaguing an eastern Wisconsin city this week? Yes, the city administrator said at a news conference Thursday evening. Not so fast, a federal geophysicist said.
The U.S. Geological Survey did say that a 1.5 magnitude earthquake struck Tuesday just after midnight in Clintonville, a town of about 4,600 people about 40 miles west of Green Bay.
Geophysicist Paul Caruso told The Associated Press that loud booming noises have been known to accompany earthquakes. It's possible the mysterious sounds that town officials have been investigating are linked to the quake, he said.
Earthquakes can generate seismic energy that moves through rock at thousands of miles per hour, producing a sonic boom when the waves come to the earth's surface, Caruso said.
"To be honest, I'm skeptical that there'd be a sound report associated with such a small earthquake, but it's possible," he said.
Those reservations didn't stop Clintonville City Administrator Lisa Kuss from declaring "the mystery is solved" at a news conference Thursday evening.
She said USGS representatives described the event as a swarm of several small earthquakes in a very short time.
"In other places in the United States, a 1.5 earthquake would not be felt," she said. "But the type of rock Wisconsin has transmits seismic energy very well."
The U.S. Geological Survey says earthquakes with magnitude of 2.0 or less aren't commonly felt by people and are generally recorded only on local seismographs. Caruso said the Tuesday earthquake was discovered after people reported feeling something, and geologists pored through their data to determine that an earthquake did indeed strike.
Local residents have reported late-night disturbances since Sunday, including a shaking ground and loud booms that sound like thunder or fireworks. The booming continued Monday and Tuesday nights and into Wednesday morning, eventually prompting Jolene Van Beek to take her three sons to her father's home, 10 minutes away, so they could get some uninterrupted sleep.
Mysterious noises and ground vibrations are unnerving residents in Clintonville, Wis. WGBA-TV's Brian Miller reports.
"My husband thought it was cool, but I don't think so. This is not a joke," said Van Beek. "I don't know what it is, but I just want it to stop."
City officials investigated and ruled out a number of human-related explanations, such as construction, traffic, military exercises and underground work. They checked water, sewer and gas lines, contacted the military about any exercises in the area, reviewed permits for mining explosives and inspected a dam next to City Hall. They even tested methane levels at the landfill in case the gas was spontaneously exploding.
Clintonville resident Jordan Pfeiler, 21, said she doubted an earthquake caused the noises. She said the booms she experienced were in a series over the course of several hours and not continuous as she might have expected if they were caused by an earthquake.
Still, she said, "It's a little scary knowing Clintonville could even have earthquakes."
Steve Dutch, a geologist at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, said a 1.5 magnitude earthquake produces the energy equivalent of 100 pounds of explosives and could certainly produce loud sounds.
But he was reluctant to describe Tuesday's event as an earthquake, saying the term is generally used to refer to widespread stress in the earth's crust. What happened in Wisconsin could be near the surface, perhaps caused by groundwater movement or thermal expansion of underground pipes, he said.
Still, Dutch said it was possible that the event could produce a series of sounds over time.
Professor: Groundwater could be causing booms
Earlier, Kuss told The Green Bay Press Gazette that the city was spending $7,000 to hire an engineering firm in Waukesha, Wis., to install ground seismology monitors in four places around Clintonville late Thursday or early Friday.
Some residents are having fun with the mystery, which has drawn media attention from around the nation.
Jordan Pfeiler said people stayed up late on the first two nights to walk around listening for booms. They came up with outlandish theories to explain the noise - for example, that the White House was building an underground bunker in the area or that mole men had found a home there.
"And the aliens, of course, there's always the aliens," she said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Three Weeks later.........................An overnight robbery spree has left this small town with no money..........................tunnels......................Mexico. lol or not so much.
Try mobile gas cannon.
The guy will eventually blow himself up with this joke.
All it takes is one leak.
It's the politicians are trying to turn the city into a boomtown.
It's clearly the work of the devil. Maybe Tim Tebow was due to land in Green Bay.
Not exactly right Mr. (or Ms.) USGS person, the us humans can feel one as light as 0.05. We normally may not feel light movement in our busy day. But in the quiet of night one could certainly feel a 2.0. Here in CA we don't even notice a 2.0, but if you are not accustom to quakes a 2.0 could be quite frightening.
It's just Mother Earth passing gas or belching.
snap/kracle/pop/boom
lol
Of course! It's ALL George W. Bush's fault!! Ask Bozobama.
I would not take this so lightly.
@imrightnotyou - I agree. There has been a lot of strange noises reported lately. Watch the videos on you tube - most are fakes, but a lot of them are sounds just like what is being reported in this town. Here's a couple examples:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwgXVFSAxCA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B72Yc0nnvrA
Is there any fracking going on in Clintonsville? :D
I'm somewhat joking, but I generally don't know, can anyone shed some light on this?
Yikes! This sounds like the beginning of an Armageddon type movie! Surely there is a logical explanation...
It's the Federal budget blowing up.
Lots of fracking sand mines in WI, makes you wonder...
"wisconsinwatch.org/2011/07/31/sand-mining-surges-in-wisconsin/"
Thay mine for the sand for fracking. Look closer.No oil drilling, No mining , no nothing in Wisconsin. We cant have jobs here we might hurt the environment.
..exactly- sand, lots and lots of it. All over the state. The link I provided is 8 months old, the mines have expanded across more areas since then- just saying, we don't know enough about it to say for sure...but lots of big deep holes under your feet can't be good if you're a surface dweller.
Sand mines are surface mines. Nothing underground. Sure they do use explosives but that would be public knowledge. Every time they put in a new road anywhere in the country, you would have this happening. Gravel, sand, and stone, All come from this type of mining. Have you felt or heard the booms? Have they built a road near you in the past 25years?
Roads-yes, booms-never. Thanks for the info, I read a bit more about it-open pit mines, and leveling hills. Seems lots of people are upset about it. I just can't help but think that overdoing anything is bad. We know that when something like a glacier melts it redistributes lots of weight, the earths crust responds in kind-What I've read about how much sand is being taken out of the ground at such an expanding rate because of the "fracking boom", it just seems logical that it may have an effect on the geology. The sand in that area is special, and booming sounds are reported in other places with similar sand.
"singingsands.weebly.com/faq.html"
"en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singing_sand"
Maybe it's that simple. Interesting at any rate
There is no logical explanation...and dont call me surely
When I eat a lot of that great Wisconsin cheese, there is plentiful of booms in my house! Yum
Ugh, I see headlines like this and pray its something totally epic and awesome for us to see in our lifetimes, then it usually turns out to be something lame. :(
Quite the interesting story, I'm curious as to what these new people find. I wonder if there's any postings that allow you to hear the sounds.
http://www.clintonvillewi.org/pictures.htm
That is the "pictures" portion of Clintonvilles official website.
They have a wind sock. And damnit, they're proud.
Possibly may be... ahem... *simpler* folk that don't carry such new-age fandangled recording devices. Just my 2 cents.
Maybe it's Scott Walker banging his head against a wall.
Don't give him any ideas, we need a live Governor to oust from office. I bet there will be some felony charges as well, when his fellow Republican cohorts squeal on him for a lenient sentence.
Get out now before the hole opens and swallows the town.
It could be underground digging machines digging a shelter for the government scum to hide when things start falling apart.
why would they go underground?? thats what all these space shuttles and the space station is for. think about it...what purpose does the massive space center serve? and i wish i had access to it if something major were to happen
Tommyknockers!
love the Tommyknocker movie,
Stephen Kings 'The Mist" is next big event to happen
In other news, the Clintonville Chimichanga Week Extravaganza will continue as original planned.
Aliens .... it's got to be aliens.
Aliens would be my first guess then HAARP....followed by the new supersonic missile defence :)
Jeez, I got gas! Maybe I shouldn't have had that last burrito!
Anybody around there shooting exploding targets? A neighbor of mine had some shook my house, sounded like a like a bomb explosion. Never herd the gun just the boom. He lives little over a half mile away.
His wife is probably an angry lebanese!
Really, NoRghtTurn? I think its from the Unionist's banging there drums. You are either a pist off teacher that has to deal with the real world OR know some one that is. I find this kind of cool being from Wisconsin, and you have to go and open that gaping hole you call a mouth. Just remember we may not shout and beat our drums loudly but Walker will take this election again. WE the silent majority!
If you are the silent majority, then shut up why don't you? I like it when someone uses the term "WE" as well. Looking around them, all you see is tumble weeds. LOL!
My money is on a backyard meth lab. Start checking all the trailer parks.
I am an arms collector, and have a couple of cannons as well. One shot outside of the cities limits would still shake my local city hall, and possibly even bust out windows. I am not saying that is what happened, as I have never taken them to WI, however it remains a possibility.
More probably seems to be a fighter pilot, getting a little bit happy behind the stick. Happens all of the time, and usually the .Gov will deny it because of the liabilities involved with breaking the barrier over CONUS. The possibility remains, that somewhere a pilot is getting a good laugh as he keeps up with this story.
More probably, it's militia numbskulls practicing their pipe bomb skills.
Or firing cannons.
The Private Military Contractor might be closer to the cause then he realizes. Based on my exprience with atom bomb testing east of Christmas Island back in March of 1962, a 50 Megaton bomb 40 miles East of the island caused two shock waves. One came west across the ocean and shook our 655 long ship; the second shock wave came from the stratosphere (? on which sphere) about seven seconds later which surprised everyone. No atom bombs of course; however, if a classified super sonic jet was flying in the vicinity and broke the sound barrier intentionally, his shock waves could come from two directions and by the time they were felt at ground level, the plane would be long gone. Just a thought.
Yeah, private, we regularly get sonic booms in central Texas caused by military jets. They always deny them. Why anyone believes anything that the government says is beyond me?
Bigfoot taking a dump.
"give me some of dat BOom BoOm BOOM"
Can anyone else imagine the hilarity in this type of domestic altercation (gotta remember to keep the accents in mind)... And think about what else this guy must go through with his wife to be this pissy and agitated over such a random type of occurance.... Well I can, and i'm thouroughly amused. (I personally imagine it being played out as part of a Cops episode)
We in Wisconsin dont have accents. Every one else does!
.....LOL
Well played my friend.
And here I was thinking your accents were cute.LOL
We had an earthquake here in Oklahoma City a while back. It was really wierd! VERY loud and of long duration--sounded like a box car full of bowling balls rattling around. You could hear it comming, then it shook the house--have never heard anything like that.
Rosie was doing a concert in the area at that time!You usually travels with a bunch of angry lebanese who can tear up a town,even a medium size town! You lucky,they didn't "pink slime" your town1
We had a 4.0 earthquake in NE Ohio last New Years Eve. It was accompanied with noise that sounded like thunder off in the distance.
For the uninformed, CONUS refers to "contiguous united states." I know this because I am CIA. Now I'll have to kill you all, per regulation SC 404.65 in the handbook that does not exist. If everyone who has read this would please post their name and location, and a photo, it will be rewarded with a choice of death. Otherwise, for those who don't cooperate, the death panel squad will choose for you.
Regarding the quoted comment above: it does not happen all the time. If it did, it would not be a mystery on national news. The truth is too fantastic too tell. If I told, I would have to kill you all again. Double killing is discouraged per SC 606.06 and requires too much paperwork.
Uhmmm............My name is Brad Britt, but most say I look like George Clooney. You can find me @ 1600 Pennsylvania, District Columbia.
My name is Luca, I live on the second floor, I live upstairs from you.
Gilligan, unknown island, no photo (monkey refuses to power camera without banana, Skipper ate all the bananas), request death by Ginger.... and Mary Ann.
My name is Amelia, I'm a pilot and you'll NEVER find me...
This same thing happened in Spokane WA a few years back. It was as swarm of small shallow earthquakes. They didn't figure it out for sure until sesimometers were installed. google it if you don't believe me. "Spokane Earthquake Swarm".
It was just a "Spokane Lebanese Swarm" stomping around town,pissed about the Catholic Church!Be careful,they are vicious and cause a lot of damage!You are just lucky Rosie wasn't in town to give them something to scream about!
Urbn.Prsn.... This type of event was happening at Tos New Mexico, in the late 1990's. The sound was more a hum. It may well can still be occurring there.
the "Taos Hum" is not just in Taos - it's also heard in Los Alamos, and you know what goes on there....
I know for a fact that Rosie and a troop of her girlfriends were in the area!I still say it was a clamquake!Just too many lebanese stomping around the areas' vacant properties looking for a place to pee!The earth can take just soo much!M.E.A.T.(MeEatAnyThing).Yes a lot of lebanese like MEAT and so should you!We are taking donations that are not tax deductible!Go to hell peta,our MEAT is bigger than your your veggie burger!!Neener,neener!
maybe the government testing new atomics boms underground...
It is underground boring machines so the corrupt officials and people with money can hide when they blow us all up with nuclear bombs.
There was a small earthquake in Saint Louis around 1978-80. The sound was like a single sonic boom but there was no shaking. Saint Louis University seismologists confirmed it was an earthquake for the local TV stations.
It was a clamquake! It's very,very difficult to ascertain the difference!The only way to tell is if Rosie was in town at the time of the quake!If she was it was a "clamquake"!
I wonder where Rosie is now! I know she was in Rosieodennelllita in Mexico a few days back!Caused all sotrs of damage!God,I hope she isn't at home in LA!The earth can take only soo much!