The Science Behind Seneca Mystery Weapons

Have you ever heard of Seneca Guns? No? Then you’re in for a real treat.

Read on to learn more about these hitherto completely inexplicable loud sounds off the coast of Carolina.

Related: Stanford AI Detection System Can Predict Earthquakes

What are Seneca Guns?

Seneca Guns are a mysterious series of loud noises that are heard from time to time along the coast of Carolina. Similar spikes are heard in the Northeast, and along the East Coast and West Coast, but “Seneca Guns” are most commonly associated with Seneca Lake in the Finger Lakes region of New York.

The name itself is believed to be taken from the work of James Fenimore Cooper with his short story “The Lake Gun”. Similar voices were heard near Seneca Lake in this story.

Seneca lake. Source: Dough4872 / Wikimedia Commons

“It is a sound like the explosion of a heavy artillery piece, which cannot be explained by any of the known laws of nature,” Cooper wrote. “The report is deep, hollow, distant, and majestic. The lake appears to be talking to the surrounding hills, which send echoes in an accurate response. A satisfactory theory to explain this noise has not been explored.”

The term has also historically been applied to similar sounds along North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia. One notable event occurred in 1886 near Charleston, South Carolina when a magnitude 6.9 earthquake with booming sounds were well documented.

Observations like these often describe a roaring sound accompanied by surface seismic activity across the area. During this particular event, aftershocks with “loud explosions” were observed for weeks after the main event.

According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), “In the United States, most reports of mysterious booms come from the Northeast and along the East Coast, but there have also been observations along the West Coast.”

To those who have heard them, they are often described as resembling thunder or cannon fire. These sounds are often heard in coastal areas and rarely at sea.

On Earth, when phenomena are observed, the Earth will often shake like a small earthquake. Similar phenomena have also been seen in other parts of the world, and they have been observed on the coast of North Carolina for more than 150 years.

Source: Tenessee Wanderer / Flickr

Other similar events around the world include “Barisal Rifles” in India and Bangladesh, “Uminari” in Japan, and “Mistpouffers” on the coast of the Netherlands and Belgium.

Some events of “Seneca Guns” were so powerful in the past that windows shake and buildings shake. However, the aftershocks were not strong enough to cause permanent damage to infrastructure or buildings.

Seneca Guns can be heard at any time of the year, but they seem to be most common in the fall (fall) or when there is a noticeable cooling of weather.

In fact, Seneca Guns appear to be more common “during temperature fluctuations, when cold, dense air near the ground creates a sound channel that can reverberate against it, causing spikes that we hear at ground level,” according to the Federal Point Historic Preservation Society.

Various explanations exist, including collapse of underwater caves, angry ghosts, frequencies of distant thunder, meteorites entering the atmosphere, and parts of the continental shelf falling into the ocean.

Various explanations have been proposed, including sound barrier breaches from aircraft. Source: RS2Photography / Flickr

However, it is important to note that while some of these sounds have been excluded, there is currently no widely accepted explanation for the noise.

Other Seneca Gun events from around the world

As mentioned earlier, similar phenomena to Seneca Guns have also been observed in other parts of the world. In the USA Midwest, for example, accounts of “artillery” sounds have been reported to have occurred before and during the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811-1822.

These earthquakes were between the intensity of 7.4 and 7.9 on the Richter scale, and spikes were observed throughout the Midwest that also coincided with temperatures of -20 F (-28 C) or colder. For this reason, these earthquakes are often referred to as “ice earthquakes” or “frost earthquakes.”

According to the USGS, such earthquakes appear to be caused by the freezing and expansion of shallow groundwater, leading to the dramatic rifting of the surrounding frozen rocks and soil. Although it looks dramatic, it is not generally recorded on seismographs.

For this reason, some of the explanations for booms heard during cold shots may be caused by the expansion of the ground and foundations of homes and other structures in extreme temperatures.

Other similar events have been observed in the western United States as well. The booming sounds coincided with the 2001 earthquake swarm near Spokane, and in 1989. US Geological Survey seismologists noticed muffled creaking sounds (but no vibration) while working on Mammoth Mountain in California.

Spokane. Source: Beverly Yuen Thompson / Flickr

Outside the continental United States, similar phenomena have also been observed and documented. For example, in 1857 there are anecdotal accounts of a 6.9 magnitude earthquake in Italy. According to witness statements, the earthquakes were described as “explosive” and “bursting and rolling”.

Other accounts of the sounds from small to medium-sized earthquakes also come from England. Between 1880 and 1916 similar accounts were collected and published in 1938. These notes included descriptions of the wind blowing, wind gusts, muffled sounds, and “an enormous group of partridges on the wing.”

But there are also accounts of booming noise unrelated to earthquakes. Most of these causes tend to have natural causes, including lightning, storms, tsunamis, meteors, and sand dune movement.

Bursting or explosive noise can also be the result of human activities such as sound penetrating loudness, explosions, and construction work.

What Causes Seneca Guns?

At the moment, as noted previously, there is no scientific consensus as to why Seneca Guns existed, but interesting theories do exist. These range from everything from military aircraft breaking the sound barrier to underwater earthquakes.

One of the more convincing explanations for Seneca Guns comes from the United States Geological Survey (USGS). In 2005, they assumed that the most likely cause of sounds was shallow earthquakes occurring outside.

Earthquakes can also be a cause of Seneca Guns. Source: UWI Seismic Research Center / Flickr

“Those on the East Coast have not been directly studied and explained, but we can infer from observations and measurements at West Coast sites that at least some East Coast booms are associated with very small earthquakes. Sometimes small shallow earthquakes produce roaring sounds or that people nearby can hear. Very much of them.

High-frequency vibrations from a shallow earthquake generate a squeaking sound; When earthquakes are deeper, those vibrations never reach the surface. Sometimes earthquakes create booming sounds even when the vibrations aren’t felt, “USGS explains.

Although it seems plausible, it has not yet been able to relate the events to any actual seismic activity using seismographs.

In fact, in 2001, a seismograph was installed inside a 1,300-foot (396 meters) well near the Fort Fisher State Historic Site. For one reason or another, the project was unable to record any results of seismic activity.

Bolides could also be an interpretation of Seneca Guns. Source: Jijian Fan / Flickr

Another interesting explanation of Seneca Guns was offered through the Duke University study. The researchers came to the conclusion that the rifles were likely of aerial origin.

According to their theory, the vibrations (and sound) come from above ground level, rather than below.

Another interesting explanation comes from the recent annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU). Researchers from the University of North Carolina collected and compared historical accounts of “guns” with data collected by a portable EarthScope Array.

This is a network of 400 sensors and seismographs. It was launched in 2003 and the array moved between 1,700 locations in the continental United States

While, again, a definitive explanation cannot be provided, it has been assumed that they could be caused by lightning strikes.

Bolides are space rocks moving so fast that when they hit Earth’s atmosphere they explode – often very, very quickly. Another explanation could be a collapse of large waves or thunder offshore.

Could big waves under the right conditions be the reason behind the Seneca rifle? Source: Mike Sandels / Flickr

If the weather conditions are well suited, then the sound can be amplified in a specific direction or specific areas.

While all of these explanations are fascinating in their own right, experts have yet to determine an actual final explanation for the Seneca Guns.

Like most things in life, the cause is likely to be multifaceted with various outwardly similar events having one of several causes from human activity to the explosion of space rocks.

Hopefully, over time, more research and data will finally be able to explain this very strange phenomenon.

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