Earthquake May Have Caused Mysterious Booms in Wisconsin Town

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Rainer Elstermann / Stone / Getty Images

Things are going bump in the night in Clintonville, Wisconsin, and it’s kept residents of the town from getting sleep. The mysterious sounds had many wondering, is the end nigh?

“There’s something radically wrong with this earth,” Verda Shultz told the New York Times.

The sounds seem to be coming from the under the earth, often sounding like someone banging on pipes in the basement or people slamming car doors outside, the Times reports. The noises, which first started around 9:30 p.m. on Sunday, led hundreds of Clintonville residents to call the police, but officials were unable to give any reasons for what was causing the sounds.

The noises continued all week while city officials tried to pinpoint the cause. After ruling out construction work, gas levels in sewers, changes in water pressure, and more, the U.S. Geological Survey revealed that a 1.5-magnitude earthquake had hit Tuesday night just after midnight, and is likely the source of the booms.

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Geophysicist Paul Caruso told the Associated Press that booming noises are not out of the ordinary when an earthquake occurs, due to the seismic energy that moves through rock at thousands of miles per hour.

The booming noises have been occurring less frequently in the last few days, and complaints have slowly been decreasing — though 400 residents did get together in a meeting held by the city Wednesday night in an attempt to quell the fears of citizens convinced of a conspiracy.

Meth labs? Dynamite? Underground rivers? Or maybe someone is playing Jumanji and it’s only a matter of time until elephants start storming through the streets? But, seriously, it’s probably just earthquakes.

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