Help me debunk my own "unidentified" audio experience

O

owntheissue

New Member
As per my intro post- I like aerospace related tech/black projects etc so always keep an eye on the sky.
After nearly 40 years of always looking up - I'd almost given up on ever seeing something I couldn't explain.

Once got excited when I got buzzed by a low flying black tri (turned out to be a new fixed wing light aircraft operated by LEO) - gasped when I first saw a rotating UFO (Starlink lol) - but always ended up identifying the source.

Except in this case - which is not so much a "sighting" as a "hearing"- - and I only even presume to present this because my experience has accompanying evidence which is allegedly recorded from three independent (separated by continents) witnesses.

"Hearing"

So....roughly a week after Bonfire night about 10 years ago - I am in my back garden locking up at around 10:20 pm and suddenly this noise - which I can only describe as emanating from all directions above- commences.
Duration was around 2 minutes.
First 10 seconds was my panic at what sounded like an "end of the world" type military engagement - i.e hundreds of anti aircraft guns all firing at once combined with a further 10 seconds of frantically scanning the sky for a source (none).
Volume was not so much overwhelming but penetrating. Like whatever was making that noise was much bigger or more powerful ( or perhaps focussed) than anything I'd encountered before (including thunder) and sort of felt like you were standing on/in it.

Sound continued with this weird pulsing reverberation that penetrates the whole body - then just slowly ebbed away.

Went online shortly after and fortunately - other people had heard it (in the states, the UK and Dubai) and someone made a Youtube video with 3 separate recordings (and additional twitter reactions). That video no longer exists on YT but I ripped it and it is linked below.

(Excuse the click baity nature of the video....the audio that matches my "hearing" starts at 1 minute.
I heard something exactly like 1:25 -1:28.



Source: https://streamable.com/n7g3ia



Any thoughts on how to debunk currently assigned "unidentified" are appreciated.

Submission Statement
About me:
I live within 5 minutes walk of several large annual fireworks displays....I have heard every type of firework in every type of atmospheric condition from every angle- at all types of distance.
(Co-incidently- I also once did a summer job testing fireworks.....not as cool as it sounds but I hope this helps to establish my credentials when I say "definitely not fireworks" ).
I am also an occasional plane spotter and live within 10 minutes of an airport which receives various commercial and the occasional military aircraft (therefore we routinely get to hear/see lots of different aircraft at different altitudes in varying conditions).
 
Just trying to get a handle on the exact date and time.

This article may be describing the event.
External Quote:

Mystery as 'explosions' and 'loud bangs' are heard across UK from London to Glasgow

Some suggested it sounded like 'fireworks' - but others compared the loud noises to 'aircraft sonic booms'

Loud bangs: Dozens of people claim to have heard the bangs across the UK (
Image: WENN)


By
David RavenAssistant Editor
  • 23:29, 29 Nov 2014
Does that seem like the same event?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Don't know if this helps, from gov.uk

b.JPG

c.JPG

https://assets.publishing.service.g...the_UK_and_the_location_from_2013_to_2016.pdf
 
I'd have put it down to heavy weapons fire. Autumn is a great time for military exercises as you can't inflict as much damage on farmers' fields. ("hundreds of anti aircraft guns all firing at once")

Volume was not so much overwhelming but penetrating. Like whatever was making that noise was much bigger or more powerful ( or perhaps focussed) than anything I'd encountered before (including thunder) and sort of felt like you were standing on/in it.
Click to expand...
i'm guessing that would be powerful low-frequency sound, below the hearing threshold, being present in the shockwaves ("bangs").

If these were sonic booms (and echoes thereof?), how many aircraft would've had to be involved? @owntheissue states the duration was 2 minutes; I'd say that excludes the possibility of supersonic aircraft circling around.

@owntheissue, is the audio in the clip sped up in any way?

I feel disinclined to believe that the same phenomenon was heard "all over the world". I'd want to know place/date/time for observers that heard exactly the kind of noise exemplified by the clip.

And then I'd want to know if there was a fire and explosions in a dangerous goods factory in a 100 mile radius.

owntheissue said:
"definitely not fireworks" ).
Click to expand...
because fireworks are small explosions, but it's very similar to that, which is why your mind went there at first.
I think it's a series of big explosions, like a gas tank storage (or a fireworks factory?) blowing up, or heavy arms fire.

Could it be caused by a meteor shower?
 
Appreciate the replies thus far.

In order:

elvenwear said:
Just trying to get a handle on the exact date and time.


Does that seem like the same event?
Click to expand...

Thanks for this.
Am 99% sure this is the date as per my below comments.

John J. said:
Don't know if this helps, from gov.uk

View attachment 71739
View attachment 71741
https://assets.publishing.service.g...the_UK_and_the_location_from_2013_to_2016.pdf
Click to expand...

Definitely not a sonic boom.
For context- I remember hearing the 2nd of May 2016 sonic boom and I was in the same location (back garden). Completely different experience (sonic boom is a localised singular explosion- this sounded like thousands of deeper reverberations- and I've heard numerous sonic booms over the years).

As stated in my OP- I'm not an aircraft observation novice and if I were forced to make a comparison to the most similar aerospace related noise I have (ever) heard - it was a YouTube video of a PJE in operation (try not to let this cloud your rational analysis- as I already have lol).


Mendel said:
I'd have put it down to heavy weapons fire. Autumn is a great time for military exercises as you can't inflict as much damage on farmers' fields. ("hundreds of anti aircraft guns all firing at once")

i'm guessing that would be powerful low-frequency sound, below the hearing threshold, being present in the shockwaves ("bangs").

If these were sonic booms (and echoes thereof?), how many aircraft would've had to be involved? @owntheissue states the duration was 2 minutes; I'd say that excludes the possibility of supersonic aircraft circling around.

@owntheissue, is the audio in the clip sped up in any way?

I feel disinclined to believe that the same phenomenon was heard "all over the world". I'd want to know place/date/time for observers that heard exactly the kind of noise exemplified by the clip.

And then I'd want to know if there was a fire and explosions in a dangerous goods factory in a 100 mile radius.


because fireworks are small explosions, but it's very similar to that, which is why your mind went there at first.
I think it's a series of big explosions, like a gas tank storage (or a fireworks factory?) blowing up, or heavy arms fire.

Could it be caused by a meteor shower?
Click to expand...

I live in a large city in the UK - if anyone was testing weapons any one of several local aviation buffs/military interest/conservation groups or the like would have posted it on twitter/Reddit as weapons testing has never happened in this area before.
I scanned all the local news afterwards and there were no reports of anything to suggest possible cause (including fires at fireworks factories etc.)

flarkey said:
Seems to have been a legit event, @VirtualAstro is a very good source of space info on social media.



Source: https://x.com/Bar_Carousel/status/538826051192098816?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E538826051192098816%7Ctwgr%5E0d8e01c83b34a613ef3c31584f61e20f1be30ce5%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mirror.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fuk-news%2Fmystery-explosions-loud-bangs-heard-4721711
Click to expand...


Yes it happened (and I feel for those who see/hear things without any evidence as I felt a bit of a crackpot even posting this with evidence.)
My hope is that with an available first hand witness, lots of other potential witnesses and a bit of crowdsourced intel.- this shouldn't remain "unidentified".

As I mentioned above- I did a bit of digging immediately afterwards and nothing on Flightradar 24, nothing on the usual forums, no rumours of deployments etc
I immediately looked for similar noises but the best thing I came up with was a YT vid of a bench mounted Pulse Jet Engine (NOT PDE as per the vid) that gave the distinct rapid reverberations (aka Pulses).


ETA: The link has expired - re up below:


Source: https://streamable.com/ntr59l



EETA: @

Mendel

After a quick check am 99% that was the date.
My understanding (from the vid) is that the "hearings" occurred across US, Europe and Middle East.
If we accept @virtualastro as a legitimate witness- the geographical distance between him and I (and other tweeters) precludes the firework hypothesis (IMO).

After reviewing the audio I would say all recordings match 100% what I heard in terms of frequency/speed/intensity.
Therefore I don't think they are sped up.
My "hearing" started off intense (as per recording 2) then went intermittent (as per recording 1 and 3) until slowly fading away.

I also wondered whether it could be meteors/meteorological but reports of meteor sounds tend to be hissing or buzzing, and if it were meteors- that was such a massive bombardment surely it would have been noted elsewhere?

The audio doesn't do the penetrating - almost violently mechanical in person experience justice.
 
Last edited:
In the opening post I am seeing "This video has been archived and is not available to watch at this time." Not sure if it is something my computer is hiccupping at, or if the video has in fact been archived and is not available to watch! ^_^
 
flarkey said:
Seems to have been a legit event, @VirtualAstro is a very good source of space info on social media.
Click to expand...

It seems to be legit in parts of the UK then? The video in the OP was standard mystery mongering for clicks, so I'm not inclined to trust that the various audio clips were from NY and Dubai as well as the UK. In fact, IIRC the "presenter" claims the audio clip was from a woman's cell phone in the UK, and then says it was also heard in the other areas. Then as the clip is played, we're shown stock footage of NY and Dubai that insinuates the clip includes recordings from these areas.

The video seems unavailable now, so I'm going on memory. The fact that it was taken down isn't a good sign, even if it did include an actual recording of the event in question.
 
The video in the OP (as @JMartJr points out, now unavailable) had screenshots of some forum where posters were agreeing they heard a bang or bangs around the same time; IIRC 2 of 3 responses said something like "I thought it was fireworks".
Something similar in @flarkey's post, quoting @VirtualAstro.

Update: some similar comments in the links @flarkey's latest post. Some commentators heard bangs, others who were about at the time report hearing nothing unusual. The links flarkey provided give us a date of 29 November 2014.

@owntheissue and others might have heard something unusual, we don't know if others hearing bangs at around the same time in other places heard the same thing.
Bonfire night, a.k.a. Guy Fawkes' night (Nov. 5th, in the UK) is preceded by supermarkets and convenience stores selling fireworks which they might not normally stock. Despite age restrictions, it is always followed by a week or two of some of our cheeky little darlings setting off fireworks for their own amusement, often in the late evenings before they have to return home.

And of course there are unexpected isolated thunderclaps, backfiring cars etc.

The OP suggests something much more dramatic, a plane's sonic boom might be the most straightforward explanation.
The UK's Royal Air Force maintains 2 Quick Reaction Alert stations, Lossiemouth in Scotland and Coningsby in east England.
While a sonic boom might be a short-live event, the roar of jet engines might last longer (and can be unpleasantly loud).

QRA aircraft tasked to fly in some directions might make protracted flights over densely-inhabited areas.
artboard-3.jpg

(Original map here https://www.worldatlas.com/upload/07/e8/37/artboard-3.png if you want to read place names).

However, the RAF list of dates when aircraft might have gone supersonic over the UK doesn't list 29/11/14.
There might be reasons for not publishing a complete list, but that is speculation on my part.

If I wanted to test a top secret high-speed aircraft with a distinctive sound, I might file a flight plan that didn't include New York, much of Britain and Dubai. I'm sceptical about "Aurora", but US defence programs are better resourced and in most areas technologically more advanced than anyone else's, and we don't know what we don't know.
Maybe it was sensible of the crew to turn down the volume between Britain and Dubai, so millions of West Europeans and Middle East people weren't disturbed :).

I don't know if we can rule out an unobserved (but heard) bolide disintegrating? Would it be detected by radar?
 
Ann K said:
But a sonic boom might well explain the wide-spread reports as the plane traversed an area.
Click to expand...

Yes, absolutely. But the sonic boom can occur in association with the roar of jet engines. Some of the posters on flarkey's links seemed sceptical of a sonic boom because of the duration of and/ or repeated booms (IIRC); I think audible jet engines and echoes of the boom might account for this.
owntheissue said:
...sonic boom is a localised singular explosion- this sounded like thousands of deeper reverberations- and I've heard numerous sonic booms over the years
Click to expand...

Loud sounds will reverberate in a built-up area. This will be anecdotal- it would be nice to know if others here have experienced something similar- but I remember feeling the sound (reverberations? can't think of a better word) in my chest of low flying military jets. Combined with the barely tolerable noise, slightly alarming, slightly thrilling.
 
owntheissue said:
I live in a large city in the UK - if anyone was testing weapons any one of several local aviation buffs/military interest/conservation groups or the like would have posted it on twitter/Reddit as weapons testing has never happened in this area before.
Click to expand...
i did not talk about weapons tests

thank you for the clarifications

would sonic booms from a meteor shower be an option?
 
flarkey said:
Some other reports of the event:

https://mattburleigh.wordpress.com/2014/11/30/what-was-that-noise-last-night/
https://forums.airshows.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=64216
https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/what-caused-mysterious-loud-bangs-8207368
Click to expand...

Really useful (especially that first link)- Thanks
Leads to the source Daily Heil article that was used to make the video.
Will have a read of the meteor infra sound paper linked in Matt Burleigh's blog post.

Re: Sonic booms and Meteors @

Ann K

and

Mendel


Aircraft sonic booms/Meteors/other atmospheric energetic interactions have got to be on the list of possible causes.

However - in this instance as per the video/audio - you can hear (at some points) "booms" that reach >1 per second in frequency.
My layman take on boom frequency is that the number of booms you (as a stationary ground observer) can experience is limited to the number of incident (or reflected) shockwaves generated by the supersonic object as it passes by.

If moving in the same direction, at similar speed to the supersonic object, an observer might hear constant booms but that didnt happen - people were all ground based and static.

Different aircraft create different sonic booms based on the shape of the shock wave they create....the SR71 had a distinctive double boom and I believe Falcon 9 generates triple booms but not aware of anything that creates hundreds (as per the video).

To facilitate a situation where this many booms were created in such a short period of time over a static ground observer- I'm guessing you would need multiple supersonic objects travelling in a rough straight line convoy formation or a very (very) fast singular object that is doing none straight line flight (loops/s turns for e.g?) whilst also moving in a way that people separated by hundreds (if not thousands) of miles would perceive as localised.

Not impossible but at no point in the experience did I think they were sonic booms.
Specifically sonic booms give a crack/explosion noise profile where this was more a series of interrupted, undulating reverberations.

Hesitate to post as it looks like I already made my mind up- but this is a similar "noise profile":
(Cant find original video mentioned above which featured a failure during a PJE run- but this is near enough).

Noise profile most similar at 2:35 where the ignition kicks in and all other noise seems to undergo "denial of service".
For me it was like this initial ignition moment but intermittently operating at lower frequencies.
No peak or trough just very mechanical sounding periods of function and malfunction.


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8H-6DaPFWg
 
Last edited:
owntheissue said:
Hesitate to post as it looks like I already made my mind up- but this is a similar "noise profile":
(Cant find original video mentioned above which featured a failure during a PJE run- but this is near enough).
Click to expand...

If you're suggesting that this was some sort of pulse-detonation engine in an aircraft , wouldn't we expect to hear some Doppler shift in the frequency of the noise as the aircraft's relative motion towards/away from you changes? I don't hear that in the audio and I don't think any of the other witnesses reported this.
 
flarkey said:
If you're suggesting that this was some sort of pulse-detonation engine in an aircraft , wouldn't we expect to hear some Doppler shift in the frequency of the noise as the aircraft's relative motion towards/away from you changes? I don't hear that in the audio and I don't think any of the other witnesses reported this.
Click to expand...

I haven't discounted anything - except sonic booms from aircraft or fireworks.
You are right though - there is no evidence of exotic propulsion, no doppler, no contrails etc so you'll likely understand my discomfort at the fact the most similar noise I could find on YT was in fact a PJE ignition cycle.


You've helped massively with this - Astronomer Dr Matt Burleigh's analysis/confirmation of something out of the ordinary means I'm probably not wasting my time overlooking natural atmospheric phenomena which cause similar sounds.

At some point I'll try and get round to mapping all the witnesses so far with time of observation (if available) - as that might give indication of location/route.
 
Last edited:
owntheissue said:
At some point I'll try and get round to mapping all the witnesses so far with time of observation (if available) - as that might give indication of location/route.
Click to expand...

That might be interesting. The problem is the lack of any usable evidence for what was supposedly a genuine event. Clearly people in the UK heard this and at least one woman managed to record a bit of it there. As for the other claims, they're a bit more limited. The notion that it was heard in NY at the same time seems to be limited to this one line a Daily Mail article:

External Quote:

Loud booms were also reported over Buffalo and Lockport in New York
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/science...eals-sounds-identical-unexplained-noises.html

And that's it. There is no reference to where this came from in the article. My understanding is that the Daily Mail is a somewhat more sensationalized tabloid that might engage in a bit of hyperbole, or at least not do rigorous fact checking.

The Dubi witnesses, for now, seem limited to the now removed clickbait video in the OP. Maybe it's noted elsewhere.

As for the 3 separate audio recordings from 3 separate locations, this again comes from a clickbait type video that is no longer available. According to astronomer Matt Burleigh (link provided by @flarkey above) there was 1 recording made by a woman in Croyden.

External Quote:

Indeed, a a lady in Croyden made a recording. Have a listen. Sounds like fireworks, or a lot of thunder, or gunfire amidst a battle? You may be vaguely disinterested, it's being reported in the wretched DM after all.
https://mattburleigh.wordpress.com/2014/11/30/what-was-that-noise-last-night/

He includes a link to her recording, but again, no longer available, so we don't really know what her recording sounded like. It seems likely that it was her recording that was used on the clickbait OP video, but as I noted upthread, did that video actually say something like:

"Here is a recording by a woman in the UK AND a recording by someone in NY AND a recording by someone in Dubi"?

Or was it more like:

"Here is a recording made by a woman in the UK. The sound was also heard in NY and Dubi"?

Then the clip was played while showing the London, NYC and Dubi skylines, inferring that it's 3 separate recordings from 3 location, when in fact it's just 3 clips from the same person in 1 location.

For such a big deal there seems to be surprisingly little information and what there is, comes from some dubious sources. Clearly something was heard.

The Daily Mail article cited above seem to settle on a Pulse Detonation Engine (PDE) in something like the mythical Aroura spy plane as the most likely answer. To my mind this has the same problem as the Calvine UFO photo supposedly being of a classified advanced US black project that happened to be photographed over Scotland. Why are these craft farting around over the UK? The US has very large air bases like Edwards AFB in the California desert as well as the vast Groom Lake Area 51 complex in Nevada. It's no longer secret, but it's still remote and secure. There are places like Alaska, the very remote Diego Garcia UK operated base in the Indian ocean and the whole Pacific Ocean right off the west coast. Why fly a secret and highly classified advanced black project over the relatively densely populated UK where everyone can hear it? Doesn't make sense. And if it was operational 10 years ago and buzzing the UK, why has it never been reported again?
 
NorCal Dave said:
That might be interesting. The problem is the lack of any usable evidence for what was supposedly a genuine event. Clearly people in the UK heard this and at least one woman managed to record a bit of it there. As for the other claims, they're a bit more limited. The notion that it was heard in NY at the same time seems to be limited to this one line a Daily Mail article:

External Quote:

Loud booms were also reported over Buffalo and Lockport in New York
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/science...eals-sounds-identical-unexplained-noises.html

And that's it. There is no reference to where this came from in the article. My understanding is that the Daily Mail is a somewhat more sensationalized tabloid that might engage in a bit of hyperbole, or at least not do rigorous fact checking.

The Dubi witnesses, for now, seem limited to the now removed clickbait video in the OP. Maybe it's noted elsewhere.

As for the 3 separate audio recordings from 3 separate locations, this again comes from a clickbait type video that is no longer available. According to astronomer Matt Burleigh (link provided by @flarkey above) there was 1 recording made by a woman in Croyden.

External Quote:

Indeed, a a lady in Croyden made a recording. Have a listen. Sounds like fireworks, or a lot of thunder, or gunfire amidst a battle? You may be vaguely disinterested, it's being reported in the wretched DM after all.
https://mattburleigh.wordpress.com/2014/11/30/what-was-that-noise-last-night/

He includes a link to her recording, but again, no longer available, so we don't really know what her recording sounded like. It seems likely that it was her recording that was used on the clickbait OP video, but as I noted upthread, did that video actually say something like:

"Here is a recording by a woman in the UK AND a recording by someone in NY AND a recording by someone in Dubi"?

Or was it more like:

"Here is a recording made by a woman in the UK. The sound was also heard in NY and Dubi"?

Then the clip was played while showing the London, NYC and Dubi skylines, inferring that it's 3 separate recordings from 3 location, when in fact it's just 3 clips from the same person in 1 location.

For such a big deal there seems to be surprisingly little information and what there is, comes from some dubious sources. Clearly something was heard.

The Daily Mail article cited above seem to settle on a Pulse Detonation Engine (PDE) in something like the mythical Aroura spy plane as the most likely answer. To my mind this has the same problem as the Calvine UFO photo supposedly being of a classified advanced US black project that happened to be photographed over Scotland. Why are these craft farting around over the UK? The US has very large air bases like Edwards AFB in the California desert as well as the vast Groom Lake Area 51 complex in Nevada. It's no longer secret, but it's still remote and secure. There are places like Alaska, the very remote Diego Garcia UK operated base in the Indian ocean and the whole Pacific Ocean right off the west coast. Why fly a secret and highly classified advanced black project over the relatively densely populated UK where everyone can hear it? Doesn't make sense. And if it was operational 10 years ago and buzzing the UK, why has it never been reported again?
Click to expand...

Dont know if it's not showing but I reposted the "clickbait vid", along with an MP3 rip and visualisation in a couple of posts above.

My read is the clickbait video maker used the Daily Mail article linked by Flarkey as a source.
Would guess one of the recordings in the video is the (alleged) Croydon recording (now deleted) mentioned by Matt Burleigh.

Agree with your comments - there is no way to verify geographical origin at this stage.
There are comments in response to the original @virtualastro tweets which seem to indicate witnesses in at least the US and Europe.

In terms of potential exotic aircraft - again agree with the "why do anything outside of TTR" rationale.
The only realistic "exotic aircraft" possibility on this for me is malfunction on an existing platform - which seems unlikely to go un-noticed by our (only imagined) operators.

Calvine looks like an xmas decoration on a string to me - but I believe Chris Gibson saw what he says in '89 so dont totally discount the possibility of certain" more conventional" assets never getting declassified.

In this case it's just can anyone help idenitfy the sound- there is no evidence of exotic aircraft.
 
and here's the Banstead Firework display, maybe you can find the exact match for the above 33 secs inthe 12 min display
External Quote:
Trisha and Carl Engagement Party 29th November 2014 at Old Woulcountians, Banstead - By Platinum Fireworks
note: @NorCal Dave 12 mins is too long for me to retain the pattern i hear in the 33 secs, if you know a drummer it would be easier for him. (or her). and lower the volume, if indeed heard far away its likely just the big loud bangs they heard echoing.


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdsqARWvoUA
 
Last edited:
owntheissue said:
I live within 5 minutes walk of several large annual fireworks displays....I have heard every type of firework in every type of atmospheric condition from every angle- at all types of distance.
(Co-incidently- I also once did a summer job testing fireworks.....not as cool as it sounds but I hope this helps to establish my credentials when I say "definitely not fireworks" ).
Click to expand...
being 5 mins from fireworks is alot different then being 5, 10 30, 50 miles away. esp if its bouncing off the water that surrounds UK or something.
Did i miss it or do you keep not saying which "big city" you are in. we cant track you down if you are in a big city, so really no reason to be shy about it.
 
I think there is a problem with a distinctly loud sound emanating from one source which can be heard across much of the length and breadth of Britain- from Aberdeen in the north to Fareham in the south, north Devon in the west to Norfolk (IIRC- if not, at least Croydon) in the east.

-Particularly if it is heard in Preston, Hertfordshire (a tiny village about 25 miles, 40km from the northern outskirts of London) and Croydon, in south London, two locations that sort of bracket central London:

Capture.JPG


-and that is, we don't have that many reports of the sound(s).
I know it's 22:30 in November, but there would be a lot of people out and about on a Saturday night at this time- at the very least, many tens of thousands in London.

Some of the internet comments we've read are by people who are responding to posts asking "Did you hear that noise?" or something similar, saying they did but thought it was fireworks, at a time of year when some fireworks sold for celebrations around November 5th might still be being set off, as was the case at Banstead in Surrey, very near to Croydon.

It's going to be very hard to determine if all these people heard the same thing. If they did, it's puzzling that we don't seem to have any reports at all from the overwhelming majority of cities and towns that are between the few locations where people have claimed to hear unusual bangs.
 
John J. said:
It's going to be very hard to determine if all these people heard the same thing. If they did, it's puzzling that we don't seem to have any reports at all from the overwhelming majority of cities and towns that are between the few locations where people have claimed to hear unusual bangs.
Click to expand...
Lockport and Buffalo NY also makes no sense, if it was the SAME sound in the uk. what about New Hampshire and Massachusetts and Maine and the rest of NY between Buffalo/Lockport and the atlantic coast?
 
John J. said:
It's going to be very hard to determine if all these people heard the same thing. If they did, it's puzzling that we don't seem to have any reports at all from the overwhelming majority of cities and towns that are between the few locations where people have claimed to hear unusual bangs.
Click to expand...

Good call John. It's certainly possible that some people heard some things in some places. But are they all hearing the SAME thing? Hard to tell. We seem to have 1 recording of the sounds from Croydon and @owntheissue in the OP says this is what they remember hearing wherever they were.

@deirdre post (#22) seems to be the lady from Croydon that was referenced by Matt Burleigh and is 00:36 long, the same as the MP3 rip owntheissue provided from the clickbait style video in the OP in post #17. This seems to be the only recording of this event.
 
this says 7oclock? (north of Manchester) note:building shows 6pm. not sure if it relates to other hearings, but a comment on the croydon youtube mentioned festival of lights with no location. possible other festivals in other locations in uk? (i'm not gonna research further)
Article:

Light festival



Huddersfield


Date and Time (Original) - 2014:11:29 18:56:04
Date and Time (Digitized) - 2014:11:29 18:56:04


ff.jpg
 
saucerpilot said:
Something similar was described about the tunguska explosion in 1908. I wonder if from far enough away, you wouldn't hear the initial blast, but only the cacophony of smaller blasts that follow it.
Click to expand...
people may havd heard the initial blast, but you'd have to already be recording to capture it.
 
For clarity - the video and subsequent MP3 rip (posted below) allegedly include 3 separate recordings from 3 different locales made by 3 seperate witnesses - which have been spliced together by the video creator.

MP3 rip
http://sndup.net/p6fqk/

0-18 seconds - Alleged recording 1 (most likely Croydon IMO)
18-25- Alleged recording 2 (no indication of locale except video background which shows New York during)
25-26 Alleged recording 3 (no indication of locale except video background etc).

As stated previously- agree with all the comments about lack of provenance on the audio recordings but because I heard it myself- I share

John J.

's sentiment on the unlikely probability of people hearing a none locomotive event in both Scotland and London around the same time.

If the cause wasn't moving- I wouldn't want to be anywhere near an event that generates that amount of energy!

If I strip it back to the verifiable facts (from my witness perspective) -there are 2 witnesses (myself and astronomer Dr Burleigh) who heard something we couldnt identify around the same time.
He was in Hertfordshire- I was in Leeds.
Like me- I bet this isnt his first time outside looking up and I bet he knows what fireworks and sonic booms sound like too.


Even If I omit all other supporting evidence from @virtualastro, the other tweets from people hundreds of miles apart- and an actual audio recording - this still mystifies me.
 
Last edited:
owntheissue said:
For clarity - the video and subsequent MP3 rip (posted below) include 3 different recordings which had been spliced together by the video creator.

MP3 rip
http://sndup.net/p6fqk/

0-18 seconds - Alleged recording 1
18-25- Alleged recording 2
25-26 Alleged recording 3
Click to expand...
I'm attaching that file here for posterity, no need to chase expiring links.
 

Attachments

deirdre said:
note: @NorCal Dave 12 mins is too long for me to retain the pattern i hear in the 33 secs, if you know a drummer it would be easier for him. (or her). and lower the volume, if indeed heard far away its likely just the big loud bangs they heard echoing.
Click to expand...
I agree that the original short audio sample sounds like a distant firework display, it's the first thing I'd think of, and you'd need a pretty persuasive counter argument to sway me from that. Whether it's this display, I can't say - there are occasionally recognisable motifs in the rhythms, but that could be coincidence. If someone with more rhythm memory wants to have a go, a graphic equaliser is the best aid - rather than just dropping the volume, kill the high frequencies, they drop off much quicker with distance.
 
FatPhil said:
I agree that the original short audio sample sounds like a distant firework display, it's the first thing I'd think of, and you'd need a pretty persuasive counter argument to sway me from that. Whether it's this display, I can't say - there are occasionally recognisable motifs in the rhythms, but that could be coincidence. If someone with more rhythm memory wants to have a go, a graphic equaliser is the best aid - rather than just dropping the volume, kill the high frequencies, they drop off much quicker with distance.
Click to expand...
Leftover fireworks from the 5/11 celebrations being let off at the same rough time in different locations would be consistent with what you've said here and above.

I also thought it was unlikely these were the same audio event being heard all around the world. Given the inverse square rule, you would expect there to be a location where the sound was very, very loud. Perhaps loud enough to shatter glass. We see no evidence of this.

Once one person hears fireworks and posts about it online, someone elsewhere who heard a similar event thinks they must have heard the same thing. If the second person posted a few weeks later, the events may not have even been on the same day.
 
@

FatPhil

Although I disagree with your conclusion on fireworks (for the reasons already stated) - someone doing some audio isolation is a great idea (and not something I could do).

There's traffic noise in video 1 and 3 that sound a bit too similar for my liking.
Complete speculation- but I wonder whether audios 1 and 3 could be from the same source?

ETA:

deirdre

: Nice find.
 
Last edited:
John J. said:
It's going to be very hard to determine if all these people heard the same thing. If they did, it's puzzling that we don't seem to have any reports at all from the overwhelming majority of cities and towns that are between the few locations where people have claimed to hear unusual bangs.
Click to expand...
I don't know if there's a significant numerical value attached to the phrase "all those people", but one scenario is that some number of people on the outskirts heard "mysterious" noises while those closer to the center heard common and identifiable noises and thus had nothing strange to report. (Fireworks sounds like a good guess, most especially the large barrage customarily used as the finale to a show.) There's also the effect of echoes off the surrounding terrain, as London proper is quite a bit lower than its outskirts.
 
Anomalous sound propagation could be involved too.

I tried to look for references, but only found rather old (and not much informative) papers. From what I could see, however, conditions may arise where a sound is heard near its source, not heard further from it, then heard again even further, possibly with multiple reflections.

This is the abstract of a 1956 paper (the paper itself is behind a paywall, bold is mine):
External Quote:

An account is given of experiments carried out in the lower troposphere to compare observations of audible range and of angle of descent of sound from shell bursts at various heights up to 10 000 ft with calculations made from elaborately measured temperatures and winds. In stable conditions there is satisfactory agreement. Several cases were observed of anomalous propagation in which sound rays starting upward from the source are bent back to the earth. These showed the phenomena associated with anomalous propagation on the larger scale, namely, inner and outer audibility zones, "zone of silence," and double or multiple reception of the single pulse from the source. From the experience gained in these experiments suggestions are made for (1) observation of the time interval between components of the usual double or multiple bangs from a single pulse source and (2) observation of the sound from explosions in the air as well as on the ground to obtain more information than has been obtained hitherto from sound propagation, about temperature and wind in the high atmosphere. Rocket explosions might be used for the latter purpose
Click to expand...
https://pubs.aip.org/asa/jasa/artic...-the-Lower-Atmosphere?redirectedFrom=fulltext

This is from 1911...

External Quote:

1727272206817.png

1727272289075.png

https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/ptmps1907/6/9/6_9_132/_pdf/-char/en
 
owntheissue said:
I was in Leeds.
Click to expand...
how sure are you about the 10:20 time frame? its been 10 years and in OP you didnt know the week or even the year exactly but you gave an exact time. is it possible your memory is polluted by reports at that time of people saying "around 10-10:30?

mostly because that flickr fireworks at 7pm, i linked above, would likely be hearable from your location. certainly you werent hearing the Banstead engagement party.
And because i heard strange noises several times..and eventually drove my car out to find it as it was bizarre.. turned out it was the High School band playing (probably during football games). The high school was further away then you'd think you would hear a band percussion. But even though i drove out maybe 5 years ago to locate source, i could only tell you "it was dark" i literally have no idea if it was 10ish or 7ish etc. My memory of the time is completely gone as "time" wasnt my focus then.
 
@Mauro, this might be of interest. It may not apply in this case, though.
External Quote:
This conceptual diagram shows how the influence of a temperature inversion can sometimes cause distant sources of noise to sound much closer than they really are. All of the curved lines on the diagram, those drawn in green, pertain to atmospheric conditions when an inversion is present; the straight, gray dotted lines depict sound propagation during 'neutral' atmospheric conditions when there is no inversion.
https://www.mocpa.com/inversion.html
The diagram mentioned:
IMG_0806.gif
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

flarkey
NUFORC UFO Sighting 183179 (Military Aircraft Refuelling)
Replies
1
Views
408
Duke
Duke
TEEJ
UFO/UAPs video from Medevac helo crew, Arizona, 1st January 2025
Replies
8
Views
1K
Maury Markowitz
Maury Markowitz
flarkey
N115LF Bizjet Pilot saw bright light pass by his plane (Reddit)
Replies
18
Views
2K
taurusclover21
T
D
Super loud noise, was it a jet?
Replies
26
Views
710
Mendel
Mendel
jarlrmai
Another Reddit thread a line of lights in Poland
Replies
11
Views
582
FatPhil
FatPhil

Latest posts

Back
Top