Cause of shaking along the Jersey Shore remains unknown
Some say their windows rattled, others felt the ground shake and heard a rumble.
But what caused this afternoon’s shaking at the Jersey Shore? As of this evening, the cause remains unknown.
Social media began lighting up around 4:30 p.m. Commenters on the Jersey Shore Hurricane News (JSHN) Facebook page spanned the entire coastline.
Noreen Cuono, who lives along the bay in Tuckerton Beach, said her “whole house shook; door and windows rattled,” adding that she went outside and “heard loud rumbling.”
In Lacey, Monica Vaughan said her pet also seemed to feel something.
“My dog and I kind of looked at each other like, ‘What the heck is going on?'” she said.
And that’s the $64,000 question.
No seismic activity was reported throughout the region, according to the United States Geological Survey.
Since at least 2012, mysterious booms rattled the Jersey Shore on at least three instances. The latest was in January 2016, when aircraft from Naval Air Station in Patuxent River, Md. was the source.
At the time, USAF Defense Press Officer Lt. Col. Tom Crosson said aircraft was training offshore from the Delmarva Peninsula when the sonic booms occurred.
“Test aircraft from the naval air station execute supersonic flights almost daily in the test track, and most of these sonic booms are never felt on land. However, under certain atmospheric conditions there is an increased potential to hear the sound,” he said.
The Maryland installation has not yet issued a statement on if jet activity was occurring today.
But the 177th Air National Guard Fighter Wing based at Atlantic City International Airport confirmed that jets were not in the air at the time of today’s incident, The Press of Atlantic City reported.
Sandi Wenstrom Messina felt the shaking from the ground up and also heard a boom, saying it “was not like the shaking from the ‘sonic booms'” felt in January. “
Locally, Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst did not have any explosives or artillery training activity ongoing today.
While the jury remains out on the cause, speculation remains, and Paul Warren offered his theory on JSHN.
“Aliens,” he wrote.
Justin Auciello, who produces the Down the Shore blog for WHYY/NewsWorks, is also the founder and publisher of JSHN.
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