[Here's a copy of something I just posted on my website, which I will continue to update there as more info comes in. I'm posting it here to get your comments.]
"Seneca Guns" (also known as mistpouffers) are unexplained percussive sounds, similar to that of artillery fire. They are not indistinct rumblings, as if from distant thunder, but rather, they are very well-defined, meaning that the source was nearby. Of the hundreds of reports of percussive sounds, about 2/3 can be dismissed as human-made, coming from supersonic aircraft, blasting associated with construction work, or something similar. The 1/3 that cannot be attributed to anything else are the curiosity.
The wide variety of circumstances in which they occur rules out many possible explanations. They occur at night and during the day, mostly in clear weather, without an accompanying flash indicative of lightning, typically near water but not always, and typically not at tectonic boundaries (ruling out seismic fault ruptures). The events do not even register on seismographs. This odd because sonic booms from aircraft, and from thunder, can leave seismic traces. This can only mean that the entire countryside was not rattled by a large atmospheric shock front, where the cumulative effect was detectable inside the Earth. Rather, the sound had to be caused by a point source with much less energy, and where the energy dissipated by the inverse square law, producing no cumulative effect on the surrounding ground. Combined with the distinctness of the sounds, the source had to be very near to the observer, since sounds lose their clarity with distance.
This seems to rule out all known physical processes, meaning that there is a force that has not been discovered yet that is responsible. So what is it?
Recent studies of earthquakes have revealed electric currents, before, during, and after the quakes. We might think that shifting tectonic plates create static electricity, but the currents are detectable even before the plates shift. The only change is that the crust is getting deformed due to increasing tectonic pressure. So something about crustal deformation generates the electric currents.
Other research into the behaviors of substances under high pressure showed that they get ionized, and under very extreme pressures (only achievable deep inside planets and stars), the theory is that charges are separated by electron degeneracy pressure (EDP). Essentially, no two electrons can exist in the same quantum state at the same location. When atoms are pushed too close together by very extreme pressures, the electrons come into conflict, and some of them are expelled. Since all of the atoms in the vicinity are likewise very close together, the electrons can only be expelled altogether from the extremely dense matter, and are forced to congregate at a higher altitude, where there is less pressure, and thus there is room for extra electrons between the atoms. This could be the source of the Earth's net negative charge at its surface — the core is positively charged by EDP, and the excess electrons are forced to the surface.
The implication is that anything that changes the pressure will cause electric currents. If the pressure is reduced, electrons can flow downward to recombine with atoms that are no longer being forcibly ionized. If the pressure is increased, electrons will flow upwards, expelled by EDP. The electric currents associated with earthquakes are then explained not as the consequence of plate movement, but rather, of changes in pressure at depth. The horizontal pressure that causes the crust to buckle relieves the vertical pressure under the buckle, thereby enabling electrons to flow downward to recombine with +ions. After the quake, the gravitational pressure is restored, forcing the re-expulsion of the electrons.
Aside from tectonic forces, pressure inside the Earth can also be varied by tidal forces from the Moon and Sun. As a consequence, we can expect weak electric currents on a regular basis, leaving the surface more positively/negatively charged at high/low tides. Electric currents associated with tides are well-known, but they have always been attributed to static electricity generated by the moving water, and no study of telluric electric currents associated with inland tidal forces has been located thus far. But an indirect measure might have been found by a study of lightning in North Dakota, USA (which is definitely inland). In 10 years of data, the cloud-to-ground strike rate averaged 22% greater at high tide, which was statistically more significant than the other factors normally associated with lightning induction, such as topography, vegetation, and infrastructure. Since 85% of all CG strikes are from a negative charge in the cloud to a positive charge in the ground, this suggests that the ground had a stronger positive charge at high tide. And indeed, if the surface is elevated, the pressure underneath is relaxed, allowing charge recombination, and thus a downward flow of electrons, leaving the surface positively charged.
Electric currents in the right conditions can graduate to plasma discharge channels (such as in lightning), which can definitely produce percussive sounds in the atmosphere. Hence it's possible that the "Seneca Guns" are caused by telluric currents that, in rare cases, get concentrated into discrete discharge channels, which are then overheated to the point of percussiveness. The regional preference of the booms might then have to do with the conductivity of the soil. For example, the huge sand deposits along the Carolina coast might provide the capacitance necessary for extreme potentials to develop before a discharge occurs. The soil at the southern ends of the Finger Lakes (especially Seneca and Cayuga, which are the largest, and where the booms are heard) is glacial till over 100 meters deep that is also poorly conductive. The significance of low-conductivity soils near large bodies of water might be that the capacitors have excellent discharge paths. No matter the net charge, a capacitor surrounded by other capacitors will hold onto its charge, but a capacitor near a conductor will discharge vigorously.
To explore this, the first step was to see if there is a direct correlation between the booms and high/low tides. 54 reports were located that specified the times and locations of the events. Then the tidal data were brought in. But instead of looking at tides as water levels, the forces responsible for the tides were used. The hypothesis is that crustal deformation is driving telluric currents, so the correlation point would be the times at which the crust is getting deformed by lunar/solar gravity. Water levels respond to these forces, but lag behind them due to the flow characteristics of the body of water in question. Also, the booms have occurred inland (e.g., Seneca NY, from which the booms get their name in the US), where water level tables are not available.
Judson Ahern did a QBasic program for deriving the gravitational forces, given the date/time and location, using the positions of the Moon and Sun, and Tom Van Baak did a C port of that code that compiles into a command-line utility. The accuracy of this code was verified by comparing its predictions to measurements from gravimeters.
The resulting graphs are presented here. No correlation was found. There was no preference for high or low tide, nor was there any pattern in whether the instantaneous tidal force was increasing or decreasing (i.e., 24 up and 30 down).
But when the data were viewed at a coarser granularity, two patterns emerged. First, there was a considerable preference for winter months.
The combination of preferences for winter months and for the new moon is consistent with tidal forces as a key factor. That there was no direct correlation between high/low tides and the frequency of the events is consistent with the capacitor model, where it is not the tide-driven currents themselves that are causing the discharges. Rather, the tidal forces build up charges in the poorly conductive soils, which then discharge at random into nearby conductors.
viscount aero
Re: Seneca Guns, Crustal Deformation, & CFDLs
This is a very interesting thread topic, very bizarre It is somewhat evocative of paranormal things.
I've heard such odd booms or reports with no known explanation, sounds that have been very close by, heard by others, with no evidence of any source. I've even seen one that was a type of explosion, with a flash I saw reflected in a windshield. Neighbors came out to look thereafter and some of us split up to look for the source but found nothing. It wasn't from a gun, transformer, canon, anything. There was no smoke plume or residual smell.
Likewise, Eric Dollard has allegedly predicted earthquakes per electrical pre-signatures (including solar activity surges as a key indicator), and describes nondescript/unknown sounds--somewhat what you seemed to have alluded to (listen carefully to this as I'd like to hear your opinion of it):
As concerns solar flares triggering earthquakes, I consider that to be worth investigating. If my model of earthquakes is correct, there is a positive feedback loop involving gravity, crustal deformation, current-free double-layers (CFDLs), and electric currents. With tectonic pressure, the crust buckles. Under the buckle, the gravitational pressure is relieved, enabling charge recombination. This induces electric currents. But the ohmic heating from the currents also puts more pressure on the plates, which further buckles the crust — hence the force feedback loop that causes the runaway release of energy that ultimately ruptures the fault. So how does space weather figure into all of that? If the ionosphere is bombarded with charged particles, it will induce telluric currents as well, in response to the new electric field, and if an earthquake was about to happen, those currents might set it off. The same goes for the Seneca Guns. If the charges were building up in a poorly conductive layer of soil, and then the ionosphere gains or loses a lot of charge in a short period of time, it could trigger a discharge of stored potentials. If I had to guess, space weather is a small factor, but all factors have to be taken into account if we're going to get accurate predictions of these events someday.
As concerns quartz crystals and electric fields, he's right that there is an electro-mechanical connection — it's known as the piezo effect. But using mechanical vibrations in a chunk of granite as an electric field meter probably sounds cooler than it actually is. Electric fields are pretty easy to detect by other means.
CharlesChandler
Re: Seneca Guns, Crustal Deformation, & CFDLs
viscount aero wrote: I've even seen one that was a type of explosion, with a flash I saw reflected in a windshield.
I forgot to ask when & where this occurred, so I can add it to the list of events.
viscount aero
Re: Seneca Guns, Crustal Deformation, & CFDLs
CharlesChandler wrote:
viscount aero wrote: I've even seen one that was a type of explosion, with a flash I saw reflected in a windshield.
I forgot to ask when & where this occurred, so I can add it to the list of events.
It was spring or summer of 2010 in North Hollywood.
kell1990
Re: Seneca Guns, Crustal Deformation, & CFDLs
I think CC's idea of a capacitance-driven source is on the right track. VZ's observation of a flash in the windshield may be the key to understanding these noises.
Suppose that there are occasionally discharges of "cosmic lightning" that connect miles up in the atmosphere. What I mean here is that an electrical stream (or current flow), which usually traverses through space, under certain conditions can be induced to discharge toward Earth. The lower segment of the bolt (or leader) rises from the Earth, usually from areas that have a high level of porosity (capacitance) and the upper segment connects with it some distance above the earth, probably several miles up. It would have to be low enough in the atmosphere to produce a "thunderclap" but high enough that is isn't usually noticed by observers. That could account for the booms and the rattling of windows, but wouldn't create a seismic signature.
Maybe that's what VZ saw in his windshield. It would be literally a "bolt from the blue" except that the grounding connection is made in the atmosphere instead of on the Earth. It would also have to be "balanced" so that the positive and the negative charges are approximately equal. It would probably look like a firecracker in the sky.
If any of this is on track, then there should be some high-altitude electrical flashes in some of the data already gathered.
kell1990
Re: Seneca Guns, Crustal Deformation, & CFDLs
That should be VA not VZ. Sorry.
CharlesChandler
Re: Seneca Guns, Crustal Deformation, & CFDLs
kell1990 wrote: If any of this is on track, then there should be some high-altitude electrical flashes in some of the data already gathered.
I'm hoping that the EMPs are getting recorded, and can someday be correlated with the booms. For example, Japan has a number of EM monitoring stations, because they're interested in detecting the EM signature of an earthquake in the making. And booms have been reported in Japan that weren't associated with anything in the seismic record. So between the booms that get reported by people, the seismographs, and the EM instrumentation, the correlation might be provable. Any boom coincident with an EMP that didn't shake the Earth had to be something in the atmosphere. If there wasn't a thunderstorm in the area, then it was the Seneca Guns.
It is somewhat evocative of paranormal things.
