Wild ideas are circulating via social media regarding mystery booms reported in Idaho. Labeled “skyquakes”, unidentified booming sounds are not new, but thanks to platforms like TikTok, and guys taking matters into their own hands (and recording themselves doing it), doubtful ideas about mystery booms are raging online.
It’s a Saturday, and for much of the morning, I’m hearing a dull thudding or booming from outside. It’s the National Guard facility about 7 miles away doing weekend exercises. Sometimes it’s barely noticeable, and sometimes it’s like thunder. The world is a noisy place. In the winter, sound carries farther, particularly when it’s dry or when there is low cloud cover.
Mystery booms occur without warning, without storms or explosive holiday celebrations. They have been a cause of concern for people worldwide probably forever. In the age of social media and easy access to law enforcement, people are now reporting their incidents regularly. Often, one large event results in residents in the general area reporting more events or recalling similar past events. It turns into a “flap” (cluster of events) that people assume has some single cause. Suddenly, those who know of the booms become attuned to anomalous sounds they might not have noticed before, making the world scary and mysterious. This is what is happening now in Idaho.
Idaho is booming
The Idaho flap was spurred by events in October and November. A loud boom happened in Rigby on October 1 at 10pm where people called their sheriff’s office, but they got no answers. The Rigby booms reportedly continued after this date. The Idaho Falls Podcast made much of this. On Wednesday, November 13, 2024, there was widespread reporting of an incident at around 11pm in Lewiston, ID. Then, the next night, residents in Twin Falls, ID called their officials to report booms at 7pm and again at 8:15pm. There was no doubt that something anomalous occurred. The booms shook houses and were extremely loud. On November 22, a loud boom was reported at 1:30am in Caldwell, ID. It was speculated that it was a transformer explosion, but this was tied into all the other booms people were talking about.
Answers did eventually come for the Twin Falls event as officials from the Mountain Home air base admitted that aerial maneuvers caused sonic booms. But, again, the individual answers were ignored as the overall wave of interest grew and commenters assumed that the widespread booms represented some other thing that was more mysterious and ominous.
Tik Tok boom trackers
The booms continued. A few TikTokkers in Eastern Idaho deemed these booms enough of a serious mystery that they began their own efforts to find out what was going on. That’s when things went off the rails. It is difficult to pinpoint the location of sounds because waves travel in all directions, get distorted, or reflect off objects. Their source can be very far away and atmospheric conditions and landforms (like canyons) can effect propagation. Nevertheless, these guys embraced their role as “boom chasers” and went at it.
One account, @aaronsbitofeverything (Aaron Belk), says that the booms affecting Eastern Idaho have been reported in several small towns over the past two months. Sometimes they occur multiple times per night. He does not show a record of all the locations and times available that I can find, so I can’t check these claims. He says the media will not cover the story. (What would they cover?) Furthermore, he also says that a person who collected seismographic data to submit to officials died suddenly. He also claimed that a law enforcement friend told him to drop the inquiry because it’s dangerous. Other than his videos, there is no evidence for any of this. Anyone can set up a seismograph. You can’t hide pressure waves. Why is all this info so vague and undetailed? Aaron’s feed also included a scripted video poorly explaining natural explanations that commenters suggested was a forced reading under duress, or he was pretending to be forced to read it. He replied to this comment with an emoji wink. It’s ridiculous why people take any TikTokkers seriously as sources of credible information.
What’s behind the door?
While attempting to track down the location of sounds, Aaron and his buddy found a rusted iron door in a remote mountain side about a half mile from the suspected sound location. They claimed they could hear machinery inside. Shortly after (possibly the same day), another TikTok boom chaser, @WildIdeaswithBrian found the same door. He also said he heard machinery. Brian also claimed he was approached by a person in a vehicle with an unusual license plate whom he thought was lying about his life-long residence in the area (because his accent was wrong). Brian also noted the stranger knew his name (possibly from the videos, maybe?) and that there were suspicious vehicles and traffic in an otherwise deserted area. Thus, the conspiracies started really flying and commenters warned the gentlemen to watch out. Again, the evidence was questionable, subjective, and vague. Wasn’t HE acting suspiciously, too? It sounds like half the traffic were TikTokkers.
The weird door mystery was busted by Aaron a day later as he returned to open it revealing a small room in the rock that an eccentric person created to hide from aliens (identified to be in Howe, ID). He didn’t remark about the lack of machinery in the space. Busted. This seems like a bunch of mystery mongering and drama.
Skyquakes
Aaron and others refers to the noises as skyquakes as if that’s an explanation. But “skyquakes” is only the general name given to mystery booms without an obvious source. I’ve written a comprehensive examination of skyquakes and mystery booms explaining many potential causes for these events. A sonic boom is one of the most obvious disruptive events. They can occur from aircraft and can be identified, and sometimes the source can’t be pinpointed. Considering the map of events in Idaho, there is not just one cause at play.
There are clearly people blowing things up using explosives. There are also meteors that explode with a boom. Thunder and artillery noise can travel through preferential paths in the atmosphere and be heard at one area but not areas in between. Shallow earthquakes, sometimes too weak to be measured, are also common culprits.
It’s also possible that there are undisclosed experiments going on. Presenting it as “secret underground military operations” is exaggeration, though. For every potential mystery, online commenters excel at suggesting absurd and unwarranted causes such as aliens, climate effects, and end times signals.
All in all, while this is an interesting phenomenon and the reaction is fun to watch, these investigators are putting on a show, nothing more. If they are sincere, I don’t fault them for trying to figure it out. I just don’t think they are going to get anywhere. Maybe they should document actual data instead of roaming around the desert. They aren’t going to find a secret underground alien portal that way!
More:
History of mystery booms as recent news
Mystery booms in 2022: A Collection
Have people been shooting at that door? Sure looks like it. š
It sounds a lot like target shooters using Tannerite “reactive rifle targets”. Basically it’s a more or less legal explosive that comes in two parts that need to be mixed together to make the final product. It reacts only to an extremely strong impact like a high velocity rifle bullet striking it. Just dropping it, hitting it with a rock, burning, even shooting it with most handguns or shotguns etc. will not cause it to explode. Since you mix it up yourself, you can make the resulting explosion very impressive indeed. For whatever reason it is not regulated by the ATF and is legal in most states, it seems.
This is from Wikipedia: “A 20-year-old man in Busti, New York, shot 18 lb (8 kg) of Tannerite on January 13, 2013, that sent a particularly “loud boom” through much of southern Chautauqua County, New York, and extending as far south as Pennsylvania, at least 3 miles (5 km) away. Multiple other sounds of explosions were also reported in the incident. The explosive noise caused numerous phone calls to the Chautauqua County Sheriff’s Office, the New York State Police, and other law enforcement in the area.[24]”
Iām familiar with tannerite. This is really common. When I did the weekly weird news stories a few years ago, events that occurred in towns were often these kinds of explosions. They were accompanied by a flash. You can see lots of these examples caught on home security cameras.