‘Skyquake’ is a mysterious phenomenon that’s leaving scientists baffled

Skyquakes might sound a lot like thunder or sonic booms, but they usually tend to come when there’s no sign of storm clouds in the area—or even signs of aircraft passing through the area. While scientists have tried to come up with multiple explanations for this phenomenon, they remain baffled by the loud booms that often seem to come out of nowhere.

In fact, these loud, booming sounds have been reported all over the world, according to BBC . Depending on the region you’re located in, you might know them by a different name. In fact, some folks refer to them as “fog guns,” while the Japanese often refer to them as “uminari,” which translates to “cries from the sea.”

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Some people believe that skyquakes might be related to sonic booms caused by aircraft. Image source: Jag_cz/Adobe

Despite the alluring mystery surrounding them, skyquakes continue to be a very baffling point of contention for many scientists. Sure, we’ve seen a number of different explanations, including small, shallow earthquakes , as well as the possible collapse of caves underwater, and even tsunamis or avalanches that happen out of sight.

However, none of these explanations have ever given scientists quite the answer they are looking for. In fact, just a few years ago, scientists used data collected by local news articles and atmospheric sensors, as well as seismographs near the University of North Carolina, to determine that there wasn’t any detectable earthquake activity to account for the mysterious, loud booms people had reported.

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As such, some believe that the sounds we know as skyquakes must come from the atmosphere. This has reinforced the possible belief that they could be the collision of meteors or small asteroids with Earth’s atmosphere. However, with heavy cloud coverage—and because of how small they are—the asteroids may not leave any debris behind to be discovered, thus creating a very mysterious origin for these sky-bound “quakes.”

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