RATTLE & HUM: Mysterious Sounds Heard Across The Planet - Unexplained "Sonic Boom Type Of Sounds" Shaking Alhambra, California?!

Alhambra, California. © Vice

March 9, 2016 - CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES - Out of nowhere on Tuesday night, around 8 PM, Alex Arevalos, a student and graphic designer in Alhambra, California, ten miles east of downtown Los Angeles, heard a single, loud thud.

He immediately asked his sister if she'd slapped his bedroom wall. "She said she didn't, so I automatically blamed the train," Arevalos, who lives near train tracks, told VICE.

Then on Thursday around midnight, two similar sounds woke up Arevalos's father, and when father and son spoke about it in the morning, the younger Arevalos became convinced it was something abnormal.

"This time as soon as I heard it, and heard the walls shake a bit, I listened for the train, but didn't hear anything," adding, "I can tell the difference now [between] the train and the booms."

Arevalos is far from alone. According to the local news site Alhambra Source, residents first reported hearing the booms on February 16 when a woman named Noelle Dominguez alerted her neighbors to them in a private section of the community social network nextdoor.com. "I know this sounds weird. But since [I've been] living in Alhambra, every other night or so I hear a loud explosion-like noise," she wrote. Soon, other nextdoor.com users shared similar experiences with the booms, according to Alhambra Source.

Two nights later, Alhambra Police Department posted about the booms on Facebook. Just after 8 PM, officers received reports of "a loud explosion heard in the northern end of our city."

The police wrote that they've received multiple similar reports in recent weeks, but that "unfortunately, we were unable to locate the origin. We are as puzzled as everyone," Jerry Johnson, the Alhambra police sergeant, told VICE. He said two on-duty officers heard the booms recently, and they rushed toward the source, arriving just 90 seconds after the sound dissipated.

"And then nothing," Johnson said.

In the comments of an Alhambra PD Facebook post, one Facebook user named Anthony Ruiz called the booms, "much too loud to be a firework."

Another user named Christopher Keller described them as akin to a sonic boom, saying he felt a "pressure wave." But he added that they were too close to be sonic booms.

An isolated series of sonic booms shook New Jersey in late January—but that was an isolated incident brought on by several fighter jets breaking the sound barrier around the same time above the area.

Chris Paulson, the administrative services director for the city of Alhambra, also called it a "sonic boom type of sound," made all the more strange by the fact that it's being reported across an unusually wide area. "We've investigated, and it's probably about a mile north to south," he told VICE.

According to Alhambra Source, there are construction projects going on in the area, but the local public works department "does not believe that the projects are the source of the noises." According to Paulson, that's because, "there's simply no construction going on when those noises are heard."

VICE contacted a municipal consulting company called Transtech, an engineering firm that contracts for Alhambra, inspecting safety concerns at city construction projects. Transtech's Alhambra city building official, Ayla Jefferson, told us she had heard of the booms, but has "no knowledge" of their origin.

Meanwhile, the booms continue unabated. For Arevalo, they've become part of life in Alhambra. He described the most recent explosions he heard as "just kind of there." Since he's been living near a train for 13 years, he says he's become accustomed to noise in general, adding that "the only thing affecting my sleep is school."

But not everyone is tuning out the booms. According to Sergeant Johnson, "We're getting calls on this two or three times a day."

"It is a mystery," said Paulson. - Vice.

PLANETARY TREMORS: Rumblings On The San Andreas Fault - Double Earthquakes Rock California-Mexico Border!

USGS earthquake location.

April 10, 2015 - UNITED STATES/MEXICO - The U.S. Geological Survey says two magnitude 4.0-plus earthquakes have struck the San Andreas fault on the California-Mexico border.

The first one, a magnitude 4.2, struck at 12:30 p.m. PDT 7 miles southwest of Delta, B.C., Mexico at a depth of 16.1 miles.

The second quake, measuring in at a magnitude of 4.5, struck the same area about three minutes later, but only at a depth of .44 miles. Quakes just below the earth’s surface, in the 0 to 10 miles range, can cause even more damage at lower magnitudes.

USGS shakemap intensity.

Several people reported feeling the quakes in Mexicali, Mexico and Calexico in California.

There were no immediate reports of damage. - CBS.

PLANETARY TREMORS: Another Small Earthquake Hits Southern Los Angeles Area!

USGS earthquake location.

April 6, 2015 - CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES - Another Los Angeles area earthquake today 2015 has struck Southern California. This time the quake was centered further south, closer to Anza and La Quinta. Damage assessment is pending. The quake follows another temblor that struck Granada Hills on Saturday.

USGS indicates to news that a Los Angeles area earthquake today April 5, 2015 struck just after 5:56 am PST. The quake was shallow. Reps tell news that the quake started just 8.9 km below ground level. As a result the quake could be felt across the vicinity. The quake registered a 2.6 magnitude. It was seven miles east of Anza, twenty miles south of La Quinta, it was twenty-one miles southwest of Palm Dester and 21 miles south of Rancho Mirage.

USGS shakemap intensity.

Several quakes have been hitting the region since 2012. In April that year one quake was centered near Indio. It was twelve miles north of Coachella, and thirteen miles east of Thousand Palms. It was reportedly twenty miles from Twenty-nine Palms and ninety-four miles from San Diego, news analysts note.

Then in June a 3.5 magnitude earthquake struck centered eight miles east of Coachella. The quake was ten miles outside of Indio and Mecca. The quake was less then twenty-eight miles east of Palm Springs. The quake was also ninety-one miles from San Diego, officials remind news. - Lalate.

PLANETARY TREMORS: Multiple Earthquakes Shake Los Angeles Area Over A Period Of Three Hours!

USGS earthquake locations.

April 5, 2015 - CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES - A series of earthquakes, the largest magnitude 3.1, shook the Oat Mountain area north of the San Fernando Valley Saturday.

Automated seismographs reported a series of six quakes, most in the 1-2 magnitude, starting at 7:45 a.m.

The largest quakes were magnitude 2.7 at 7:52 and magnitude 3.1 at 7:54, according to preliminary automated reports that have not been reviewed by humans.

A magnitude 2.0 temblor hit the mountain at 10:14 a.m.

As a precaution, Los Angeles city fire trucks were rolled out of station houses, where garage doors can jam or stall if a major quake occurs.

Seismologists routinely give a 10 percent chance of a major shaker following what turns out to be a foreshock.

USGS shakemap intensity.

Firefighters also scanned bridges and buildings near their station houses, which is the standard drill following a quake. No damage was found.

Persons reported to the USGS that they felt weak shaking in the northern half of the San Fernando Valley, and in across Santa Clarita, and as far away as Westlake Village, Glendale and the Antelope Valley.

Oat Mountain is the highest point in the mountain range north of the San Fernando Valley, and was the epicenter of the 6.7 magnitude Northridge Earthquake of 1994, which killed 57 people.

That quake reportedly raised the elevation of the mountain by 20 inches above sea level. - MyFoxLA.

PLANETARY TREMORS: "There Are Many More Opportunities For Multifault Ruptures" - USGS Says Risk Of 8.0 Magnitude Earthquake In California Rises, The Odds Of A Massive Tremor Just Went Up!

March 11, 2015 - CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES - Estimates of the chance of a magnitude 8.0 or greater earthquake hitting California in the next three decades have been raised from about 4.7% to 7%, the U.S. Geological Survey said Tuesday.

Scientists said the reason for the increased estimate was because of the growing understanding that earthquakes aren’t limited to separate faults, but can start on one fault and jump to others. The result could be multiple faults rupturing in a simultaneous mega-quake.

Stated another way, the chance of an 8.0 or greater quake in California can be expected once every 494 years. The old forecast calculated a rate of one 8.0 or greater earthquake every 617 years.

“The new likelihoods are due to the inclusion of possible multi-fault ruptures, where earthquakes are no longer confined to separate, individual faults, but can occasionally rupture multiple faults simultaneously,” said USGS seismologist Ned Field, the lead author of the report.

“This is a significant advancement in terms of representing a broader range of earthquakes throughout California’s complex fault system.”


WATCH: USGS forecast: Chances of magnitude-8 earthquake up to 7 percent.

The report says that past models generally assumed that earthquakes were confined to separate faults, or that long faults like the San Andreas ruptured in separate segments.

But recent large California earthquakes showed how earthquakes can rupture across multiple faults simultaneously. Many are in the Los Angeles area.

The Whittier Narrows earthquake, a magnitude 5.9, struck on the Puente Hills thrust fault system on Oct. 1, 1987. Three days later, a magnitude 5.6 aftershock hit on a different fault. That aftershock killed one person, twisted several chimneys and broke windows. Damage was reported in Whittier, Pico Rivera, Los Angeles and Alhambra.

Much larger quakes also showed how this could occur, including two that hit the Mojave Desert in the 1990s: the 1992 magnitude 7.3 Landers earthquake and the 1999 magnitude 7.2 Hector Mine earthquake.

It also happened in the 7.2 earthquake that hit along the California-Mexico border on Easter Sunday in 2010. Scientists said the border quake directed tectonic stress toward Southern California, putting the region at a higher risk for a future quake.

Data showed the April 4, 2010, quake and its aftershocks triggered movement on at least six faults, including the Elsinore and San Jacinto faults. Those faults run close to heavily populated areas in eastern Los Angeles County and the Inland Empire.

An aerial view shows Cal State Northridge's damaged parking structure after the 1994 Northridge earthquake. (Perry C. Riddle)

At the time, scientists said the imagery gave proof that earthquakes zipping along a fault can jump over gaps as long as seven miles. Previously, only jumps of three miles had been observed. There was also proof that earthquakes can reverse directions, an observation that had never been seen before.

Dramatically, proof of earthquakes jumping fault boundaries occurred in the massive 9.0 earthquake that hit off the Japanese coast in 2011. "The 2011 magnitude 9.0 Tohoku, Japan earthquake also violated previously defined fault-segment boundaries, resulting in a much larger fault-rupture area and magnitude than expected, and contributing to the deadly tsunami and Fukushima nuclear disaster," the report said.

"As the inventory of California faults has grown over the years, it has become increasingly apparent that we are not dealing with a few well-separate faults, but with a vast interconnected fault system," the report said. "In fact, it has become difficult to identify where some faults end and others begin, implying many more opportunities for multifault ruptures."

One particular fault ripe for a massive earthquake is the southern San Andreas, which Tuesday's forecast said was "most likely to host a large earthquake." This section of the fault has a 19% chance of having a 6.7 or larger earthquake in the next 30 years centered in California's Mojave Desert.

The chance was lower on the northern section of the San Andreas fault near San Francisco -- just 6.4% -- partly because of the relatively recent 1906 earthquake. (Still, quakes are relatively ready to go on the nearby Hayward and Calaveras faults in the Bay Area.)

The new forecast was released as part of a publication known as the Third Uniform California Earthquake Rupture Forecast. The USGS said it was created and reviewed by dozens of experts in seismology, geology, paleoseismology, earthquake physics and earthquake engineering. These predictions are factored into building codes and used by the California Earthquake Authority to evaluate insurance premiums.

Experts say they can't predict the date and time that the next big earthquake will come, but they're getting better at modeling the possibilities. Tuesday's forecast considered more than 250,000 fault-based earthquakes; the last forecast considered about only 10,000. The latest calculations use about 300 earthquake faults; the 2007 forecast relied on 200 faults, and the original 1988 report was based on only 16.

“As we’ve added more faults, we realized we’re not dealing with separate, isolated faults but really an interconnected fault system,” Field said in an interview.

Field said his team concluded that the previous forecast over-predicted the rate of “moderate-sized” earthquakes like the 6.7 Northridge temblor of 1994 “because we weren’t linking faults up.” That’s also why the previous forecast under-predicted the rate of quakes 8.0 and larger.

“The message to the average citizen hasn’t changed. You live in earthquake country, and you should live every day like it’s the day a Big One could hit,” Field said. “ But what it really does help us do is refine our estimates for those designing critical facilities: hospitals, schools, bridges.”

A higher probability of megaquakes should be a concern for those constructing large structures.

“ If you’re dealing with a large bridge or maybe a large skyscraper that might not even notice a small earthquake, the waves from a magnitude-8 might be particularly problematic,” Field said.

“We are fortunate that seismic activity in California has been relatively low over the past century. But we know that tectonic forces are continually tightening the springs of the San Andreas fault system, making big quakes inevitable,” Tom Jordan, director of the Southern California Earthquake Center and a co-author of the study, said in a statement. - LA Times.

WATCH: San Andreas - Official Trailer 2.