Scientists still have no answers for the cause of the ominous "skyquakes" that have been heard around the world.
From the US to Japan, people have reported hearing terrifying, loud banging noises that appear to be coming from the sky.
The unidentified boom noises have captured curiosity and concern for centuries, leaving residents and scientists confused by their sudden occurrence.
Listen to the mysterious "skyquakes" below:According to Daily Mail, the first skyquakes were reported in 1811 after residents in New Madrid, Missouri, heard the terrifying sounds during a 7.2-magnitude earthquake. They documented it as "artillery-like sounds" before or during the quake hit.
Similar noises were also heard in Seneca Lakes, central New York state, by author James Fenimore Cooper.
He described the experience in his 1850 short story, The Lake Gun, writing: "It is a sound resembling the explosion of a heavy piece of artillery, that can be accounted for by none of the known laws of nature," per the outlet.
"The report is deep, hollow, distant, and imposing. The lake seems to be speaking to the surrounding hills, which send back the echoes of its voice in accurate reply," he added.
Scientists don’t need to look back hundreds of years to find examples of the bizarre sound as it was heard in 2001 in Spokane, Washington State, in 2014 in North Carolina, and at the National Weather Service in Birmingham, Alabama In 2017.
Still, experts have yet to uncover the cause and origin. According to The New York Post, USGS said: “Many of the ‘boom stories’ remain a mystery."
“We can deduce from observations and measurements in West Coast locations that at least some of the East Coast booms are associated with very small earthquakes,” they continued. “Small shallow earthquakes sometimes produce rumbling sounds or booms that can be heard by people who are very close to them."
A team of investigators at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill cross-referenced ESTA's data with articles to find out if the noises were caused by earthquakes.
"Generally speaking, we believe this is an atmospheric phenomenon – we don't think it's coming from seismic activity," Eli Bird, a researcher, told Live Science at the time.
"We're assuming it's propagating through the atmosphere rather than the ground," Bird added.
Back in 2017, the National Weather Service in Birmingham informed people that they couldn't explain the noise.
“We do not see anything indicating large fire/smoke on radar or satellite; nothing on USGS indicating an earthquake,” the company wrote on X at the time. “We don’t have an answer, and can only hypothesize with you.”
This sentiment is still being relayed today.
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