Tuesday night's shaking wasn't caused by a passing asteroid -- although it makes for an interesting plot line. Rendering courtesy of NASA
Where are Mulder and Scully when you need them?
Orange County experienced an “X-Files” sort of moment at about 9:15 p.m. Tuesday, when thousands of doors and windows across the county rattled and vibrated, but the rest of people’s homes remained still. Scores of readers, especially in South County, also reported hearing a loud noise that sounded like a sonic boom. A brief, second round of rattling happened moments later.
As if that wasn’t strange enough, basically the same thing happened in the Santa Cruz area at 9:15 a.m. on Wednesday morning — 12 hours later. Click here to read a Santa Cruz Sentinel story about the incident.
The Orange County incident startled and frightened many people, who said they thought an intruder was trying to break into their homes, or that an earthquake had happened and they didn’t know the details.
My Sciencedude column received more than 500 comments from readers, some of who attributed the rattling to a passing asteroid, flights by secret military aircraft and bombing exercises at Camp Pendleton. We still don’t know exactly what caused the event. But it was probably a sonic boom from a passing military jet, experts say.
Here are answers to questions raised by readers:
ASTEROID: 2009 DD45, a 65-foot-wide asteroid, passed unusually close to Earth this week. But “the asteroid made its closest approach at 5:45 a.m. Monday, when it was 41,000 miles away,” says Don Yeoman, an asteroid expert at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “The asteroid didn’t come close to our atmosphere, and you would have needed air to hear sound.”
PENDLETON BOMBING: Camp Pendleton, immediately south of San Clemente, had publicly announced that it might set off high explosives Tuesday in an isolated spot in the eastern area of the base, behind foothills. It’s not uncommon for military operations to produce sounds and vibrations heard in south Orange County. But the explosions aren’t strong enough to cause vibrations as far away as Seal Beach (which happened) unless unusual atmospheric conditions exist. The National Weather Service says the weather was normal Tuesday night.
Second Lt. Riley Whaley, a spokesman for the base, offered a convoluted explanation for Tuesday’s activities, saying: “While a particular event between the times you specific (9 p.m. to 9:45 p.m.) is not known to have taken place, it is possible that explosives were being used during that time.”
F/A 18 Super Hornet. Image courtesy of U.S. Navy
SONIC BOOM: In Southern California, the Marines fly Hornet fighter jets and the Navy flies Hornets and Super Hornets. These aircraft can fly fast enough to produce a sonic boom heard over a wide area. Navy Air Forces, Pacific Fleet, said they didn’t have any jets operating near Orange County Tuesday night. The Marines haven’t commented on their own jets.
Bob Dollar, a seismologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, says the rattling wasn’t caused by a quake. But the vibrations picked up on their seismometers was consistent with a high speed jet.
Dollar said, “This morning (Wednesday) Kate Hutton (of Caltech) reviewed seismograms from the event last night in Orange County. The energy travelled across our seismic sensor network at the velocity of a compressional wave in air rather than the velocity of a similar wave through the ground, which is much faster. There was no S phase (wave).
“Additionally, the felt descriptions (doors & windows being rattled but no building shaking) is consistent with a compressional wave such as a sonic (boom) but with no shear wave which one would expect in an earthquake.”
Dollar said the vibrations were more consistent with the sonic boom produced by a jet.
SECRET MILITARY PLANES: In the past, the military and private contractors have flown experimental and highly advanced aircraft over Southern California that have produced sonic booms. The aircraft include Lockheed Skunk Works SR-71 Blackbirds. But that plane went out of service in the late 1990s. Boeing Phantom Works also has worked on advanced aircraft in Southern California. But the projects are largely secret, so details about such flights wouldn’t be known.
SPACE SHUTTLE: On Nov. 29, shuttle Endeavour landed at Edwards Air Force Base. It produced a sonic boom (story) that was widely heard across Southern California. The boom rattled some windows. But no shuttles were in flight Tuesday. Discovery is scheduled to lift off next week.
WIND GUSTS: Several readers said they thought the rattling of winds and doors was caused by a gust of wind. The weather service says there were no strong countywide wind gusts Tuesday night.
SPACE ALIENS: Several readers also suggested, tongue in cheek, that the rattling was caused by invading space aliens. “They are here to take over the earth,” wrote a reader with the screen name twasanlien. With the Dow Jones below 7,000 points, it’s unlikely that aliens are interested in us at this particular moment.
LOL! OK. Here’s one I just heard during lunch. Seeing as how there was one in OC and in Central California and BOTH at 9:15 on different days, I overheard a guy telling his budd he thinks it was a secret “sonic bomb” being tested by the military. Talk about people having too much time on their hands…
My dog and I were in the upstairs bedroom, and it sounded like someone was either running through our attic or in the walls. We live in Villa Park, and I felt NO shaking. My dog ran to the wall to address the noise, and I was genuinely tweaked by the whole thing. I have never had an earthquake experience like this before.
Ok, here’s the freaky thing—12 hours later, to the min–Central CA experienced the exact same thing. Makes you go hmmmmmmmm. In HB felt window shaking very acutely! Really thought someone was trying to break in. Did the usual investigation: TV, computer, check house. Wierd.
Psst. I think they’re testing the Aurora…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_(aircraft)
Sorry that link didn’t work. Use this one: http://tinyurl.com/5a5xad
Love this story, gary. Here’s a link to a story on the central coast mystery shake: http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_11835292?nclick_check=1
I agree with oakley…a Former engineer just mentioned this to me!!!! Totally a secret until it retires like the blackbird….why are they doing secret test…btw look up chemtrails why ur at it…go to californiaskywatch.com
I live in Anaheim and never heard or felt a thing….wierd…..
If Kate Hutton from Caltech says it is consistent with a sonic boom, then must have been. She is pretty smart.
It spoked my boyfriend and I last night in Long Beach. Sounded like someone was trying to come in through the door. We thought maybe it was wind but checked outside and it was not windy at all. Weird…..
The military is testing their toys again. My father worked on San Clemente Island in the 1970’s, and saw all kinds of things that “didn’t exist”.
My foil hat protected me from the vibrating radiation.
It doesn’t matter what you or your dog heard, only I know what’s going on - you’re being controlled.
we saw the destroyer again anchored right off the beach at trestles with helicopters going back and forth to it; we think it was military training exercises in that offlimits area behind san clemente island; and of course the military cant acknowledge anything that would be stupid.
Thanks Gary - this is desperately needed; we appreciate you helping to find the answers to this phenomenon.
There is some great analysis going on at http://www.abovetopsecret.com - with lots of expert testimony including reseerch documents, historical records and such. The discussion is in this section:» Fragile Earth » Very Strange “non-earthquake” Rattles So. Cal.
Great job in turning over some more anomaly rocks. The rubber-headed aliens explanation is doubtful - but some type of skunkworks project may be closer to the mark.
After all they, they mothballed the SR71 Blackbird some time ago - and the public didn’t even know it existed until after it was operational for many years. SOMETHING is already way past development and operational already to replace the Blackbird, no? The DOD wouldn’t just mothball a superb workhorse like the SR71 without rolling out a replacement.
And if they did - then it is logical to assume they already are working on the succeeding generation aircraft.
Given our proximity to giant aerospace firms (LMT, BA, etc.), military bases, Edwards, etc., lots of desert and ocean to fly around in - my money is on our tax dollars at work… Now you see it (or feel it) - now you don’t! It’s just new technology folks…
Now please move along - nothing to see here…
Good job, Mr. Robbins!
The ship has been off trestles for about a week. It has not been north of San Mateo Point ( In the daytime). On Monday March 2nd friends of mine “felt” a vibration that lasted less than a minute and pulsating felt throughout their bodies (like a shock wave)at San Onofre State Beach. However , there was no sound and they had never felt anything like what they had felt before.It is not uncommon for ships this size to be out there and there is always lots of activity / noise/ jets/ ships/ with helicopters and smaller boats doing maneuvers just off trestles/ San Onofre. I bet it was Camp Pendleton just practicing or testing something top secret on Tuesday evening !
Any time there is a change in government or a threat to the USA you can count on the Marines to start making noise somewhere on the base !!!
One uneventful December afternoon, while returning home on the Pacific Coast Highway,I had an encounter with a advanced piloted aerial vehicle of unknown origin. I now believe that man has constructed and operate craft way beyond known technology.You may,or may not believe it. I know what I witnessed that day. These craft exist,somewhere,and man made them.The technology available to do so exists.
I just finished watching a scary movie and I sat down with my computer when i heard the noise I was so scared i jumped up and i thought the killer from the movie i was watching was coming to get me! but then reality struck me and i thought it was an earthquake….=)
Im from Aptos (Santa Cruz) and we didnt hear the noise untill about 10
First of all, there is no such thing as a sonic wave reaching different points 100 miles apart at the same time. It still has to travel +-750mphfrom the point of origin, so forget it.
How can we hear a sonic boom, and someone in san Fransisco and Tennessee hear it at the same exact time?
How could someone in Portugal hear the same thing at the same time as someone in California?
Not buying it…sorry.
I wonder if the government really has built aurora????
Why would it take a jet that is faster than sound over 12 hours fo go from Oc to santa cruz, and why couldnt we hear the noise of the engine afterwards, there was only two loud booms and shaking
Could also have probably been a test of a satellite capable of shooting down ballistic missiles using an invisible ultra hypersonic beam of some kind. Word is that North Korea is getting ready to test launch a long range missile capable of reaching the U.S. west coast. And the U.S. is also getting ready to have annual military excercises with South Korea. Tensions are high right now.
In Newport Beach I had exactly the same Erin M in Villa Park… sounded like a large animal (or small person) either on my roof or maybe in my attic… heard no sonic boom, saw nothing. My home itself did not shake at all. I was wide awake, my girlfriend, too. It sounded like actual feet or maybe paws making physical contact above us for 25-30 seconds. Very freaky… in my life never experienced anything close to it before.
The vibrations mentioned are caused by the impact of 14+ billion dollars hitting the bottom of the hole that’s been dug by General Motors. More vibrations are on the way.
Maybe it was something at the Navel Weapons station? Perhaps they had an accident underground in the weapons storage facility.
I was on the phone with a friend in Whittier, when my sister In Brea called pretty shaken up. My friend and I heard/felt nothing ( I am in La Habra Heights), but were aware of this unknown shaking right away. As I climbed into bed that night I realized every few minutes my windows rattled.
Having lived in the flight path of LAX this was not the first time I noticed it but it struck as odd from my house to the person I was talking too in Whittier is in the same flight pattern to LAX.. Im 100% sure this is an aircraft (Unidentified flying object).
If memory serves me in the week after 9-11 the skies above me were eerily silent and the air full of haze then a few time some military aircraft heading from south OC in the direction Of Dodger staduim nearly made me drop dead as I sat on the couch and they streaked right past my living room. I knew they were our guys but I wasnt prepared for the sonic boom from the jets. I remember rushing to get a better look as they streaked by. I remember my windows rattling so bad I hought an implossion was immenet, and I noticed the night of this mystery regular aircraft doing this too.
Fox & Scully would like to know how many of the witness’s lived in new homes with double pane windows and was the vibrations mainly affecting thier doors or roofs? I think people in older homes like mine would have vibrations from window panes drown out most other noises.
I am north of Santa Cruz and heard a similar sonic boom around noon.
Now I have heard of reports at 9:15am and 10:00am and mine at around 12:00pm.
There were cumulonimbus clouds visible off the coast, especially south toward Big Sur.
I believe the mystery sound was thunder coming from a far away.
I looked at satellite images and there were active weather systems in both the areas of the reports.
Last year I heard a similar sound when I was at Wisconsin near Lake Michigan. There were storms to the north 75 to 100 miles away.
I am not a scientist but I think the sound waves can be focused depending on atmospheric conditions.
Sorry guys….
It was the enchiladas with extra refried beans I had for lunch.
Is it possible that the asteroid passing 40,000 miles from the earth caused the atmosphere to whobble? producing a compression wave felt in a large area at the same time?
Kate Hutton, I would be interested to hear your take on this.
I would be interested in seeing any Doppler radar images from around the time of the incident. If this was indeed a plane, and if it traveled throught the cloud deck it might have left a visible trail.
The NOAA website has beautifully clear satilite images of orange county and L.A. I wounder if they keep archives for a few days? I would like to see the timelapse of Orange Co from the night of the 4th, and then the next mornings Santa Cruz images.
what is weird that we had something like that yesterday in lake elsinore, i was out in mission viejo at work heard nothing. he and my son said it was one time around noon and then again around 2pm…very weird!
I live in orange AND it felt so frightening ..i quick knew, was not an earthquake…i was so scared..i could not move…i had no explanation but to think that was some kind of ; sign,force,energy ,entity behind the all thing. ( then yet i was just watching , T.O.P.S…..hunted houses in staff)… I was afraid to sleep in my house for two days…and happy to hear today from everyone at work ; was not the only one to feel that weird shake…!…….not sure what to make of it?!
Well, guys, it was also heard on the North Oregon Coast. Hmm, indeed!
Could it be a regular passenger jet? They normaly cruise at .85 to .9 mach. There was a change from step down approaches to a direct to the runway procedure. From 30k feet, a little overspeed and then a weak sonic boom. A SR-71’s , flying at sped at 45K feet, sonic boom will make you jump out of your shoes(even when you know its comming)
This is weird…
Mysterious booms are not new.
200 years bc the roman Obsequens wrote about mysterious booms (source: http://www.aillyacum.de/la/Obsequens/OrtDeuOb.html)
Ciel et Terre, vol. 16 en 17 (1892 - 1893 M van den Broeck rapports about mysterious booms heard in Belgium with an strange interval of 12 seconds.
Similar rapport where made by different persons in Belgium from 1892 till 1896 after which the booms silenced.
( http://www.grenswetenschap.nl/permalink.asp?grens=787%20is )
More historic papers are available (see for America: Monthly Weather Review)
Charles Fort collected several writings about mysterious booms like in Scotland. According to the
Edinburgh New Philosopical Journal 32-107 between 1839 and 1841 a total of 247 booms where heard in Comrie (Scotland).
According to the historic data we can assume that modern technology is not the cause.
According to new data mysterious booms also appears in space (source http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28548425/ )
According to news sources the phenomena is heard throughout the world.
( Iâ??m Dutch and we had boom sin 1976 en 1992, no cause was found)
Seismic activity can be ruled out since measure posts hardly ever produce a reading which is in accordance with the boom ( example:
http://www.hindu.com/2008/09/13/stories/2008091362280300.htm )
So in conclusion:
Although some booms can be caused by jets or seismic activity most of the booms can not be tied to technology or seismic activity. The first because of the historic data and the second because there often no readings.
Due to the strange intervals (Belgium/Comrie) meteors and so on seems unlikely.
Seems weâ??ve got a real X fileâ?¦
Sonic Booms were also heard in Westchester and Rockland County. Very strange indeed. Sonic booms on both coasts would seem to be a larger mission if it’s military. If it’s meteors, and they’re scattered across the country I’d be looking to see if these booms are showing up anywhere else in the country or around the world.
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20090309/NEWS01/90309005
Gary,
Anti Gravity Propulsion… the booms are getting a little louder… eehh?
I live in the Monterey Bay Region and was lucky enough to experience the “mysterious boom” at 9:15 which is being commented on. I also felt a second “boom” around 12:43. I have been doing research online as to what may have caused these events, and like everyone else who has commented, I am still in the dark as to their exact cause.
I have seen very few comments on the later noontime boom, and wonder why that is? The thought passed that maybe the two events could actually have been caused by the same phenomenon, and maybe even the very same event.
Doing a very rough calculation, if a sound wave were to be able to penetrate to the Earth’s core, and I say IF due to the fact that sound cannot penetrate the inner-core, It would take approximately 4.5 hours to reach the center.
I would like to pose the idea that whatever the event was that caused the “boom” felt by so many, it may have also caused the later “boom” I felt, and that if so, may have been reduced in its magnitude simply because of its travel into the Earth and back.
Personally, I do believe the military to be at the root of what it is that was felt, whether for weapons purposes ( I have read of sound being used as a weapon) or for classified scientific purposes (as in the sonar testing off of Point Sur). This is not to say I would rule out some kind of extra-terrestrial (outside this earth) explanation. As of yet, I have still not come upon any reference as to where the exact point-of-origin for this phenomenon was, and would hope that somewhere, somebody may have that answer for us.
A few years ago, a something similar happened in San Diego. Alex Roth looked for an explanation, but only found a few other occurences.
See http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/northcounty/20060423-9999-1n23bigboom.html
This is exciting and all, but how come we never see any mainstream journalists talk about the modern technologies in ancient times….such as the possibility that maybe nuclear weapons existed thousands of years ago and the such….i know that on the surface this sounds ridiculous to most people….but thats just because they’re unfamiliar…. click my name to see more about that….if it interest you that is
Im in Irvine and I just heard my windows and door shaking but there was no shaking of the ground/house. I thought for sure it was an earthquake but there was no shaking floor that I braced myself for. I also heard the low rumble often heard during an earthquake. The southern California Earthquake Data Center have no data indicating an earthquake at 4pm in my area or any area in southern california for that matter.
Ok nevermind i found an extremely small (mag 1.5) earthquake occurred in the approximate time frame about 30 miles from me..Could I have felt such a small earthquake from so far away??? there were plenty of larger events occurring in the past week and i felt/heard nothing….http://scedc.caltech.edu/recenteqs/Maps/118-34.html
Newport Beach - I also felt the Tuesday night shaking per the article. Experienced the same window/door shaking again this afternoon, March 16th. 1st time around 2:35 PM and then again, milder around 3:30 PM. No earthquakes reported…..it’s a mystery!
Tues afternoon sometime after 3:30 pm, I was working in my home studio, up here in Cowan Heights, N Tustin, and heard the doors rattle. I thought it was one of my cats trying to come in the room by banging on the door. There was another person in my studio with me, you should have seen the looks on both of our faces just looking at each other with bafflement and some concern. Definitely felt creepy.
Sounded like someone was trying to break in. I just put it off to a sonic boom, even though I know we aren’t supposed to have them anymore. Hmmmm
Maybe it was the Space Shuttle. Here’s a note from astronomy expert Dennis Mammano’s newsletter this week:
01) Space Station and Shuttle visible this week at dusk
With the Space Shuttle Discovery (STS-119) now on its way to the
International Space Station (ISS), the pair will make several very bright
passes over Southern California tonight (Sunday), tomorrow and Tuesday
during evening twilight hours. The brightest pass will occur on Monday
night, with the pair passing from southwest to northeast from about 7:15
p.m. to about 7:21 p.m. PDT. At its highest it will appear about 60 degrees
above the northwestern horizon.
To find exact times and directions for your area, visit:
http://www.heavens-above.com . I recommend
free registration so you can visit from time to time and keep your location
on file. Here you can select your town from a database or add your own
latitude and longitude. Once in the site, scroll down to “Satellites” and
then click “ISS”.
The shuttle will dock with ISS at 2:13 p.m. PDT on Tuesday, March 17, so
viewers on Monday night will see two satellites flying together. Those
viewing Tuesday night will see only one satellite. Unfortunately, STS will
undock from ISS before the pair become visible from Southern California
again.
Once the astronauts have installed the new solar panels, ISS will become the
second brightest object in the night sky, right after the moon. Venus will
move to third place!
To learn more about Discovery’s mission, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Mysterious Sonic Boom in Augusta, Ga. We also experienced a Sonic Boom that is still unexplained.
Here are a few of the reports: ,
Posted by shilex on Fri Mar 20, 2009 11:29 AM
It rattled our windows and our dogs went nuts. We thought it was an earthquake!
Posted by greenjacket on Fri Mar 20, 2009 11:31 AM
I slept right through it.
Posted by RU4Real? on Fri Mar 20, 2009 11:39 AM
Ditto Greenjacket! We thought someone was trying to bust down the door or something!
Posted by gagirl40 on Fri Mar 20, 2009 11:45 AM
Yesterday between 5-6pm . We were standing outside and heard a loud boom also. It was like a boom or something. we didnt see anything. But it was weird . This was in the mcbean area.
Posted by kobrien26 on Fri Mar 20, 2009 11:50 AMI was up from 1:00 am until 4:00am on Mar.20,2009 and I heard a boom sounding like an explosion. At the time of the incident I was in Beech Island, SC 29842. At first I thought It was a transformer blown, because we lost power for about 2 minutes.
Posted by karly778 on Fri Mar 20, 2009 3:59 PM
I heard the boom sometime between 2 and 3 a.m. My dog thought it was thunder and proceeded to shake the bed so badly, I couldn’t tell you if the house was shaking or not!! I am in the 30815 area.
Posted by cuurlytopp on Fri Mar 20, 2009 4:21 PM
i heard the boom around 2:45 a.m.sound like someone had a bad accident,it vibrated the house.i was waiting to hear sirens,but fell asleep.i’m in the 30904 area
Posted by pumpkinpie on Fri Mar 20, 2009 4:39 PM
I heard it over in Martinez, thought they were blasting again out at the old quarry. Shook the house flash of light like lightning and a defening cracking sound.
Posted by aftbrn on Fri Mar 20, 2009 5:05 PM
Something woke me up about that time, but we have so many people visiting at the house next door 24/7 with loud booming cars, I figured it was just one of the less noisy ones sliding around the corner real quick and went back to sleep without noting the exact time. Apparently it was louder than boom boom cars in areas possibly closer to the source of the sound. I’m reading reports from here to Alpharetta Georgia (170 miles NW of here). As heavily populated as that area is (north of Atlanta) maybe there is a security camera with video or still picture of it!
Posted by baroness on Fri Mar 20, 2009 5:28 PM
I was having lunch just south of Big Sur on Monday March 23, 2009 at around noon. I heard a large sonic boom that was also heard by the staff and guests of the resort where I lunched. One of the staff said that it was probably the space shuttle landing but I just saw that the space shuttle landed today, not monday. And now to find out that these sonic booms are occurring in different parts of California seems odd.
Virginia get it now…..
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29958635/