March 21, 2012

"Mysterious Booms and Trembles Plague Wisconsin Town, Baffle Scientists."

The craziness never ends in this state.
“I think that right now the greatest possibility is that it is some sort of natural phenomenon. I think that it’s a possibility that there is some earth shifting going on underneath the ground that creates those popping sort of exploding popping or vibrating noises that people feel,” City Administrator Lisa Kuss said.
My guess: It's nothing. The town is called Clintonville, for what it's worth.

67 comments:

Christopher in MA said...

Too bad it's not called Dunwich.

~Nina said...

Sasquatch mating season, maybe?

Is Clintonville on a lake -- cracking ice? Thawing tree branches? Did it even get cold enough for lakes to freeze over in WI this year?

Maybe it's mass hysteria. Who knows.

rhhardin said...

Seismic recording played in auto boom box.

It's a variant of the 50s hi-fi demo recording "Speed the Parting Guest."

David said...

Finally, a boom town in Wisconsin. See how well Walker's reforms are working!

Joe Schmoe said...

Garage Mahal forgot to take his Beano again?

garage mahal said...

This sort of stuff never happened before Walker. Just.....sayin!

lemondog said...

Ground moles?

Town near a municipal airport. Underground fuel tanks popping?

Original Mike said...

"My guess: It's nothing."

It's got to be something. Unless you mean people are imagining it.

chickelit said...

Carole King would say it's just a bustle in your hedgerow.

edutcher said...

Either Willie banging all the hausfrauen or Hillary showing she can't hit the broad side of a barn.

ndspinelli said...

Sounds like the famous Taos hum.

Sofa King said...

They have recorded this with seismic sensors, for what it's worth. So it's definitely something. The only theory I've heard so far is that rapid thawing of frozen ground is causing subterraneous rock fractures.

Sal said...

My guess: It's nothing. The town is called Clintonville, for what it's worth.

Ok, and a big 'whatever' to you, too.

chickelit said...

The only theory I've heard so far is that rapid thawing of frozen ground is causing subterraneous rock fractures.


The snap, crackle, pop of Rice Lake crispies?

Sofa King said...

This is kind of a rural area, right? It's probably a scary right-wing militia manufacturing ANFO.

Wince said...

The town was built on a sacred burial ground?

"You only moved the headstones!"

Curious George said...

Did anyone check if Kathy Vinehout is in the area doing door knocks?

Rabel said...

Happens all the time. Odd thing is that no one has come up with an explanation.

http://mysterybooms.blogspot.com/

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/topics/booms.php

coketown said...

There have also been reports of mysterious booms in Canada, North Dakota, and Texas that have the Obama administration stumped.

Original Mike said...

"Carole King would say it's just a bustle in your hedgerow"

Led Zepplin.

Unknown said...

Keystone pipeline! Fracking! AGW!

traditionalguy said...

There is no doubt that Ann and Meade's love has reverberated all the way to Clinton this spring.

The duo just looks calm and peaceful on the surface.

Original Mike said...

"Mysterious Booms and Trembles Plague Wisconsin Town, Baffle Scientists"

In other news, sonic booms scare minority groups in Sector B.

Tarzan said...

The Dickies warned of this many years ago:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayT8b0Shhdk

No one listened, and now Clintonville is paying the price.

WHO PAYS NEXT???

Michael said...

Isnt this where the double secret grand jury meets to indict Walker? John Doe NumberOne's hometown?

Scott M said...

You guys are all off. If the thumpers going off outside town weren't enough of a clue, the stilsuits they sell down at the Family Dollar on North Main should have been a dead giveaway. It's quite obvious that Shai Hulud has taking a liking to cheddar.

chickelit said...

Led Zepplin.

But I felt the earth move under my feet!

And the dirigble is tumblin' down!

David said...

Cowfarts.

john said...

This week's Mexican earthquake has been recategorized as a "temblor" from the earlier, and probably erroneous category of "tremblor", up till recently being the go-to earthquake descriptor of working geophysicists, which itself had replaced the much earlier but far less evocative "tremor".

I can only guess why in Wisconsin these are called "trembles", perhaps it's proximity to the Canadian Shield, or perhaps it's the way the cheese vibrates on the shelf.

Chuck66 said...

The evil Jew busimessmen Koch brothers are moving their secret lair from underneath the Denver airport to underneath Clintonville.

They call it Operation Monica.

richard mcenroe said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
richard mcenroe said...

Just the unions training up for election day.

http://youtu.be/8dMHgPMr0-c

Chuck66 said...

"Did anyone check if Kathy Vinehout is in the area doing door knocks?"

She probably saw a Catholic school and started pounding her feet into the ground in anger.

Wince said...

Original Mike said...
In other news, sonic booms scare minority groups in Sector B.

"And there's hamburg all over the highway in Mystic, Connecticut.

Those are the headlines, and now the rumours behind the news."

John Hawks said...

And we would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for these meddling bloggers!

Gene said...

If there really were something out there that goes bump in the night all anyone would have to do is set their video camera/digital tape recorder on the windowsill and let it record all night.

My guess is the next morning there will be nothing on it.

Anonymous said...

tremors

roesch/voltaire said...

The geologist at UW were contacted about this and one told me that there was seismic activity in the area, but they can not be sure about it because they do not have a sensor near the site and are relying on others in the state.

Original Mike said...

"My guess is the next morning there will be nothing on it."


And wouldn't that be suspicous?

ricpic said...

The craziness never ends in this state.

What do you expect when the whole population is walking around constipated from its addiction to cheese curds.

Chuck66 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Chuck66 said...

Oliver Stone says that the proof of a conspiracy is that there is no evidence of it. Get it....the conspiracy is so vast, that all evidence of it is erased. I think that is what is going on in Clintonville. Prove that logic wrong.

the wolf said...

"I did not move those tectonic plates." /wags finger

Anonymous said...

"Mysterious Booms and Trembles Plague Wisconsin Town, Baffle Scientists.""

Global warming for sure.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Orcs.

virgil xenophon said...

If it were NYC or Las Vegas, I'd say it's the Tunnel People, also aka Mole People. Barring that, call Coast to Coast am, I'm sure host Geo. Norey has an answer--or can hustle one up from his vast call-in audience and attendant various on-call investigative "experts." Come to think of it, the Mole people were one of Art Bell's specialties, iirc. lol

garage mahal said...

there's also strange smells coming Fond Du Lac apparently. Sounds to me like severe state indigestion from the last legislative session.

alan markus said...

I mentioned this yesterday in the post about the Mexico earthquake. Another possibility is someone is doing some free-lance metal stamping in an area not zoned for heavy industrial. Knocks off a few pieces, then shuts down until everyone goes back to bed, the starts up again. Years ago we had a guy doing some heavy duty welding on race cars in his garage. Constant light flickering & TV interference (this was pre-cable days) within several block radius.

KCFleming said...

It's probably nothing...

g said...

When we experience mysterious booms and trembles, we just think that another 'meth-house' exploded. Forty years ago, we'd have thought revenuers were blowing-up 'moonshine stills' again. Different generation, same people.

Peter Hoh said...

The only theory I've heard so far is that rapid thawing of frozen ground is causing subterraneous rock fractures.

This was not a cold winter, and given the early start of spring, I doubt that there are significant pockets of frozen soil that are rapidly thawing right now.

Original Mike said...

I'm thinkin' those guys who used to do the crop circles have found a new gig.

Quaestor said...

Mysterious booms... baffle scientists

Typical. No good scientist would speculate about an "event" like this without access to some firsthand data beforehand. (I'm putting "event" within quotes because there's a likelihood that these booms are not an event at all.) The good scientist refuses to guess, and the journalist concludes that he's baffled. Hummph!

Even a strong earthquake is effectively silent; the vibrations have tremendous amplitude but are generally in the infrasonic frequency band, below the range of human hearing. If you're in a earthquake and you hear booms or rumbles it's stuff falling, walls cracking, or pavement buckling.

Some researchers have wondered if elephants, believed to use infrasonics to signal each other over long distances, might be able to use their abilities to detect pre-quake seismic tremors. So far the evidence of such an ability is largely anecdotal.

Since I'm not a scientist I'll venture a guess without any hard data analysis: It's March, a notably windy month. Go outside anywhere and give a listen. You'll hear booms and rumbles. Use a microphone and amplifier and you'll hear even more booms and rumbles. Normally we ignore these spurious sounds because we know they're normal perceptive effects caused by the wind and not evidence of explosions or earthquakes. However, if you've been pre-conditioned by the likes of Art Bell and George Noory to believe in Fortean stuff and the "unexplained" generally...

Conclusion: Mass psychogenic phenomenology at work.

MadisonMan said...

Here are some facts: Warmest March ever. Warmest March high temperature ever. Warmest overnight Low temperature ever. Warmest mean daily temperature ever. Most number of highs at/above 80 in March. The list is pretty long.

Living through history here!

I think the source of the trouble in Clintonville is a Hodag escaped from the Rhinelander zoo.

SteveE said...

I'd say it's not "nothing" since these folks didn't make this up. Even people from Madison verify something happening and that's the end all of information.

Alex said...

It's the fracking.

Quaestor said...

SteveE wrote:
I'd say it's not "nothing" since these folks didn't make this up...

Are you invoking the "creditable witness" argument? Are we to believe stories about ghosts and ghouls, the Roswell UFO crash, alien abduction, Sasquatch and the Loch Ness Monster as well.

If so I'm gettin' me a cushy job with the Ghostbusters.

Jason (the commenter) said...

Probably a legion of mole people hired by the unions to vote in the recall election.

Unknown said...

@garage:
Sounds to me like severe state indigestion from the last legislative session.

More likely, the stones themselves cry out at the injustice of the Packers not repeating.

Gene said...

EDH: "Those are the headlines, and now the rumours behind the news."

Amazing. We watch the same channel.

Rusty said...

Years ago we had a guy doing some heavy duty welding on race cars in his garage. Constant light flickering & TV interference (this was pre-cable days) within several block radius.


You don't do heavy duty welding on a race car. On a ship, yeah. On a car , not so much.
I have a Miller 250 square wave and if I'm welding DC as soon as I put tungsten to metal all the smoke detectors go off.

Titus said...

I bet many tits jiggled in Clintonville during the booms.

Tits jiggling. Picture it.

That's hot.

Jiggling tits.

tits.

PackerBronco said...

I think it's the sound of liberals' heads exploding as they realize that Walker is probably not going to be recalled.

garage mahal said...

More likely, the stones themselves cry out at the injustice of the Packers not repeating.

Upon further review, I have to agree.

Michael Haz said...

I stopped in Clintonville for a beer last night, on my way up north on Highway 45.

The only real problem I encountered with the mystery noise was was that every time it went "Boom!" everyone in town immediately yelled "Shaka Laka!"

Unknown said...

Interestingly enough, the natives noted this same phenomenon. The city Wisconsin city of Sheboygan is named after this sound,

http://www.meadpubliclibrary.org/local/faq#name

Titus said...

I had sex in Sheboygan once. Sheboygan is a city of around 50,000 on a lake and has so many possibilities.

It could be so much to so many. Beautiful lakeside restaurants, condos, lofts, ship like nautical shit/things, bucannears, perhaps a West End, etc.

But, alas, it is a hell hole, where the youth either leave or despair in darkness for the rest of their miserable lives.

That's sad.

tits.