The Waupaca County community of Clintonville has been a real boomtown lately, a designation most residents would gladly do without. City administrator Lisa Kuss said mysterious night-time booming sounds were heard in the city again Monday night and Tuesday morning, following a similar outbreak which began Sunday night. The origin of the noise and accompanying shaking remains a mystery, despite consultations with various experts. “We have spoken to geologists at UW Madison and UW Milwaukee, to look at various earthquakes, isostatic rebounding, and cryoseisms,” she said. “None of those geologists seem to think those are good fits, for what’s going on here.”
AUDIO: Lisa Kuss (4:40)
Also eliminated – box culverts, storm and sanitary sewers, the city’s water system, blasting, mining, quarrying, military activity, industries, the city’s small dam, and methane from a closed landfill. So what’s left? “Certainly the possibility that it could be some sort of earthy natural phenomenon that’s just happening under the ground, and may or may not continue for a while,” said Kuss. “We may never get it resolved.”
Reports on the Clintonville mystery have included a variety of descriptions of the noises. “People talk about a piece of dynamite going off, a vehicle hitting your building that you’re in, a tree falling on the property, a very loud thumping like a cement ball dropping or a jack hammer, but just one large, loud boom, ” said Kuss.
