UFO-induced "Non--sonic" Boom Rattles So. Cal?

Nablator/CHUD...et al:

OK - but a meteor that shakes and rattles thousands of homes and businesses in an area of hundreds of square miles - and make no sound whatsoever? And nothing is seen and nobody reports a meteor streak or anything?

BTW - lots of people are now reporting severe headaches (myself included). And though mine is finally starting to go away - I'm surprised how many friends and neighbors also mention headaches kicking in hard the morning after - often with no comment from me ahead of time.

What's the correlation there? Could just be a coincidence I suppose.

One thing I had to frown at was the news reporter in the video clip at the end where he smirks and giggles while suggesting we cal an 800# to see if it was caused by a UFO.

Now I'm not saying what caused this thing - but why is it that whenever a possible UFO explanation or ANY story about a UFO sighting comes up in the MSM, these idiots immediately start this childish giggling and banter, smirking and making sarcastic comments, rolling their eyes.

Will the UFO topic EVER be taken seriously by these buffoons in the media?

[edit-fix link]

[edit on 3/5/2009 by Outrageo]

reply to post by Outrageo


Outrageo,

High frequency sounds (ie those that we can hear) are attenuated over distance whilst traveling through air, where as low frequency sounds can potentially travel much further through denser mediums like the ground and water.

If a meteor entered the atmosphere a ways out to sea, then I think it's possible that what I described above may account for what was observed.

I'll look into it, and if I find anything relevant, I'll come back and post it here.

Interesting that you mention headaches...

It's possible that high frequency sound could give a person a headache, but we are talking about VLF here. This might suggest that another factor is at play here - what, I wouldn't like to speculate on at this time, since there is so little INFO!

There's an update on the similar event, the day after, in the Central Coast region in the Santa Cruz Sentinel:

www.santacruzsentinel.com...

Hopefully they'll keep us updated on the FAA results. If nobody takes credit we've got a bit of a mystery.

Maybe I'm the only one here intrigued by this.
Apparently this happened about 3 years ago too, and was traced back to a sound wave.
Article here:
www.signonsandiego.com...#

eb

Wow... this has been going for a very long time! So it's certainly not meteoritic activity, that would be a randomly distributed.

These events should register on broad-band seismometers, sensitive to frequencies between 0.01–20 Hz, spanning a similar frequency range as typical infrasound sensors.

A little googling found a study (published in 2006) that points at military activity at or near the Navy bases on San Clemente and San Nicolas islands.

... the location of the infrasound is in an area of known military activity. As shown above, the infrasound sources originate off the west coast of California, near the offshore islands. Several of these islands, specifically San Nicolas and San Clemente, as well as a large portion of the surrounding ocean, known as Warning Area 291, are used for live-fire military training. It is therefore likely that the infrasound signals are due to military-related activities. The strength of the signals is somewhat surprising given the distance of many of the seismic stations from this location. However, a very early study by Gutenberg and Richter [1931] showed similar observations of navy gunfire off the coast of California causing disturbances, including rattling of windows and doors, up to 300 km away; although no associated signals were observed on the Pasadena seismic station, one of the few operating in 1930.

Source: earthscience.ucr.edu...

It reminds me of elephants, using their powerful deep calls in long distance communication. Low frequency sounds travels farther without being absorbed or reflected by the environment.
Source: www.birds.cornell.edu...

as a former US naval sailer, i could definitely see some air-pressure being thrown around.
the 5" guns we had on our ship made some impressive percussions. (i doubt these would be the culprit though)

one thing to possibly consider is natural land formations and how the ocean air works with the landscape. like funneling huge amounts of air though a smaller geographic area.
(northern valley out of LA gets similar streams of air in the heat of the summer from the coast via channeling through the canyons)

[edit on 3/5/2009 by zooplancton]

reply to post by nablator


Yes, I agree this would make sense.

Also, if you check in the thread discussing the same subject over on the 'Fragile Earth' forum, people have posted links to seismographs that have picked up these events, so it seems as though cover-up rumors are unfounded.

I don't think we can discount a meteor altogether since the military denies testing anything at this time. Perhaps the wrong 'branch' was quizzed?

Unless we can get confirmation either way, I think it has to remain a possibility, since big meteors can also create sub-sonic booms, and there is no way to tell one apart from the other without further evidence as far as I can see.

By the way, you'll notice if you go back to a previous post of mine, I said basically the same thing as you: "high frequencies are attenuated over distance in air", which is the flip side of the coin, ie. low frequencies travel further

Originally posted by C.H.U.D.
It's possible that high frequency sound could give a person a headache, but we are talking about VLF here.

It seems low frequency sound does cause headaches too. Some people are more receptive to some frequencies I guess. Fascinating subject...

Just a few references:

. . . sound with a frequency of less than 16 Hz is inaudible. It’s called infrasound, and its effect on human beings is not completely understood. We do know, however, that high-intensity infrasound causes headache, fatigue, and anxiety . . .

Source: Acoustic Noise as a Non-Lethal Weapon.

... 5-20 Hz, 125-137 dB causes severe post-exposure fatigue and headaches...

Source: INFRASOUND AND ITS EFFECTS ON HUMANS

Has anyone looked and seen what HAARP was up to on the night in question?
My just be my active imagination, but it could have been the preparations for a large earthquake to be started.

Originally posted by C.H.U.D.
I don't think we can discount a meteor altogether since the military denies testing anything at this time. Perhaps the wrong 'branch' was quizzed?

Or maybe the military shooting their big cannons does not count as tests. The schedule of such activities may be secret. The military love to keep secrets. It's good for plausible deniability if something goes wrong.

Unless we can get confirmation either way, I think it has to remain a possibility, since big meteors can also create sub-sonic booms, and there is no way to tell one apart from the other without further evidence as far as I can see.

This phenomenon is limited to Southern California, and the origin can be traced quite precisely according to the 2006 study. Why would meteors rain in this area and not everywhere else?

By the way, you'll notice if you go back to a previous post of mine, I said basically the same thing as you: "high frequencies are attenuated over distance in air", which is the flip side of the coin, ie. low frequencies travel further

Yes! I didn't see your post.

reply to post by nablator


Interesting. Thanks for posting that nablator. I'll have a read later. I agree, it's a fascinating subject.

I wasn't aware that low frequencies might do the same, but having thought about it some, it makes good sense... I can imagine getting a headache from sticking your head in a bass-bin for an hour or two!

Seriously though, I can see people getting headaches if this was a sustained LF event, but it seems to have been quite short lived.

I think lots of people just get headaches anyway nowadays - modern life! I think I feel one coming on now

Anybody out there who experienced this care to comment on the proportion of people around them getting headaches at the time?

Reading a lot of the witness statements in the comments posted at:
sciencedude.freedomblogging.com... (in OP)
there are many descriptions saying 'it sounded like someone pounding on my door' or 'it sounded like someone running around upstairs'.
These statements would lead me to believe that the 'sound wave' was in the 2 to 3Hz range. A Hz is a measure of cycles per second, so the sound of banging on a door or running would make about 2 or 3 beats per second.
A 3Hz soundwave would not be audible, but if loud enough would certainly rattle some windows and doors.

eb

UPDATE:

The local California paper says they just opened an "X-FILE" on this incident and have listed some of the local "expert' explanations (of course including a silly picture of rubber-headed aliens as a one possible explanation).

Anyway - catch the latest right here.

By the way - interesting discussion about the off-shore military exercises. One reader/poster to the Newspaper blog said that on the night of the question a large number of aircraft suddenly took off from Camp Pendleton (Marine base just south of O.C.) out toward sea. We see military aircraft all the time, maneuvers and such, but this was more 'deliberate' and fast and a whole bunch of them at once.

Who knows...?

Originally posted by nablator
This phenomenon is limited to Southern California, and the origin can be traced quite precisely according to the 2006 study. Why would meteors rain in this area and not everywhere else?

I'm not saying that all past events were meteors, just that there's a chance that this one may have been.

Originally posted by nablator
Yes! I didn't see your post.

No problem. Probably a good thing, as my posts tend to get snowed under lol, and it's quite an important point to make

Hmmm, Earthquake precursors are usually ultra low frequency sounds. Nothing came up on the seismometer eh? It wasn't a sonic boom. There are not many things that can produce that kind of sound wave (5-20 Hz, 125-137 dB is about right for those symptoms). We have pretty well ruled out everything that can be described as ordinary throughout the thread. Especially since in the article from the event three years ago that it occurred in the atmosphere (according to scientists) and not the ground although other than that there was nothing really conclusive, but we know it was in the air.... A sonic boom wouldn't traverse such great distances, so if no boom was heard there was no boom. Not a nuke.... I doubt air turbulence would do it at such low altitude and certainly wouldn't carry the sound very far if it was that turbulent. The waves would kill each other so to speak. Not a big laser beam from space fired by African space cockroaches (recently endangered.. SAVE THE ROACHES!!) although it might be ET in origin.. There is not much left other than a UFO (it could have been). If it wasn't a UFO then it was some sort of government test. So UFO or FED Test take your pick.

[edit on 5-3-2009 by DaMod]

reply to post by Razmear23


Yes, good info.

Essentially, all objects, whatever size/composition have a 'natural harmonic frequency' at which they start to resonate, just like when the opera singer breaks a glass with their voice by finding the correct frequency at which point the glass will resonate/vibrate, to the point of destruction if enough force is in the voice.

This is why only certain objects would have rattled. Only those objects, such as walls (with windows in them), that are quite large, and have a very low natural harmonic, would start to vibrate/shake uncontrollably.

Small objects tend to have quite high natural frequencies at which they start to resonate (eg. the glass/opera singer), so they would have been unaffected by LF waves.

Originally posted by DaMod
Nothing came up on the seismometer eh?

It did, and has been posted over in the other thread (as I said above)

There's no reason to rule out terrestrial explanations yet, or for that matter meteors, that I can see anyway.

I remember reading something quite a while back about mysterious deaths of hundreds of chickens within a certain area. The chickens would allegedly act strange for a while, then just fall over dead. Apparently, it was finally figured out that some new machinery in a nearby plant had been fired up, and it emitted a 6Hz tone (I think) which just happened to be the exact resonating frequency of a chickens skull, so it basically vibrated their tiny brains until they died.

Not directly related to this story, which I do find very fascinating, but definitely related to the potential effects of low frequency, high intensity sound waves.

Are there any wind farms in the area?

Window rattling
Although infrasound levels from large turbines at frequencies below 20 Hz are too low to be
audible, they may cause structural elements of buildings to vibrate. The vibrations may
produce higher frequency, audible sound.
Windows are usually the most sensitive elements as they move relatively easy because of the
low mass per area. Perceptible vibrations of windows may occur at frequencies from 1 to 10
Hz when the incoming 1/3 octave band sound pressure level is at least appr. 52 dB [14]; at
higher or lower frequencies a higher level is needed to produce perceptible vibrations. As can
be seen in figures 1 – 3 sound pressure levels above 60 dB at frequencies below 10 Hz occur
close to a turbine as well as at 750 m distance and further.
A window vibrating at the impinging frequency transmits this frequency to the indoor air. If
this does not coincide with a room resonance, the sound will not be louder than outdoors. For
rooms in dwellings with a greatest dimension of 10 m, resonance frequencies are higher than
appr. 15 Hz and thus cannot coincide with relevant harmonics of fB, the blade passing
frequency.

Source:
Do wind turbines produce significant low frequency sound levels?
www.viewsofscotland.org...



[edit on 5-3-2009 by Razmear23]

[edit on 5-3-2009 by Razmear23]

I take residence in Garden Grove Ca and we had 3 people in different rooms of the house that experienced rattles on one side only.
I was sitting in the living room when my window facing South rattled like some one was falling into it. It didn't seem natural so I did what I could to inspect the outside to make sure it wasn't a foul play. My family member who was inside a room adjacent to the living room noticed the same rattle coming from his window which was facing the same direction as the window in the living room.
What is mind boggling is that another family member who was inside the master bedroom which is directly above the livingroom. The master bedroom has a window facing south just like the living room but the occupant did not observe any rattle from the window and she was sitting on a chaise couch right next to it. Instead she noticed a heavy rattle on a double door across the north side of the bedroom. So all 3 of us experienced the rattle and we are surrounded by doors and windows in each compartment, yet only one side was rattled for all 3 of us with the person upstairs observing the rattle on the north side of the room as oppose to the southside that the 2 of us experienced from the 1st floor.
I'm hoping these details give someone a better idea of the kind of wave that passed through. I'm thinking the wave traveled more vertically in a diagnal manner to have this type of impact. A horizontal wave would've had all of our South side windows rattling.