The island we were on was practically deserted at the time & there were no thunderstorms or rain happening either.
Later that day I was talking with my Mom & happened to mention it & she immediately said "oh, you've heard the Seneca guns!" She said that she & my Dad had both heard them a couple of times on that island (on th NC coast) & a local had told them that the term for them was Seneca guns. So I did a little research & found out that nobody really knows what they are or what causes them. These sounds have been documented as early as 1824 & have been heard around the world, primarily near water. There's some speculation that they are seizmic in nhature. Here are some possible explanations for them (from Wikipedia):
- Meteorite impacts
- Gas escaping from vents in the earth's surface.
- With lakes, natural gas from decaying vegetation trapped beneath the lake bottoms suddenly bursting forth. This is plausible, since Cayuga Lake and Seneca Lake are two large and deep lakes.
- Explosive release of less volatile gases generated as limestone decays in underwater caves.
Military aircraft (though it cannot explain occurrences of the phenomenon which predate supersonic flight). - In some cases, they have been associated with earthquakes.
- In North Carolina, that they are the sound of pieces of the continental shelf falling off into the Atlantic abyss (but there is no geological evidence to support this)
- A recent explanation is that the noise is very distant thunder which has been focussed anomalously as it travelled through the upper atmosphere
Here is another pretty good attempt to explain the noise.
I'm happy to report that the mysterious noise was the most exciting thing that happened while we were out of town.
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