Jun 3, 2026 02:40 AM
(This post was last modified: Jun 3, 2026 02:50 AM by C C.)
Yes, science can be cruel to Great Spirits and folklore narratives.
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The mysterious booms of Seneca Lake explained after 300 years
https://www.yahoo.com/news/science/artic...00964.html
EXCERPTS: Known as “Seneca guns” or “Seneca drums,” the phenomenon was thought by the local Seneca Tribe to be the bellowing shouts of Manitou, the Great Spirit, when he was angry. [...] Modern legends that attempt to account for the phenomenon include alien spacecraft plunging into the lake or sonic booms from developing technology being beta-tested undercover by the government. Neither rumor can possibly be believed, since residents have been bombarded by the explosive sounds since at least the 1700s.
[...] As early as the 19th century, scientists were theorizing that the mysterious booms could be explosions of gas trapped in the lakebed. [...] In 1971, geoscientist William F. Ahrnsbrak said it was “conceivable” that methane bubbles were bursting through the mud.
[...] Morin and his research team from SUNY ESF and Cornell University had initially set out on another mission. While using sonar to survey the lake’s fabled shipwrecks, they found the lakebed was pockmarked with 144 huge craters, each around 30 feet deep and 400 feet wide. They sampled lake water and material from deep pockets of sediment in the darkest reaches of the lake. These samples finally gave away Seneca Lake’s secret. In the lab, Morin found traces of methane and other gases that occur beneath the lake, proving what Fairchild and Ahrnsbrak had predicted earlier without advanced enough equipment to investigate.
The booms were not aliens or cryptids or phantom battles, but monstrous bubbles of methane that would erupt from under the lakebed after years of pressure buildup, leaving craters behind. When a bubble reaches the surface, it ruptures with enough force to send a shockwave that sounds like cannon fire across the lake... (MORE - missing details)
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The mysterious booms of Seneca Lake explained after 300 years
https://www.yahoo.com/news/science/artic...00964.html
EXCERPTS: Known as “Seneca guns” or “Seneca drums,” the phenomenon was thought by the local Seneca Tribe to be the bellowing shouts of Manitou, the Great Spirit, when he was angry. [...] Modern legends that attempt to account for the phenomenon include alien spacecraft plunging into the lake or sonic booms from developing technology being beta-tested undercover by the government. Neither rumor can possibly be believed, since residents have been bombarded by the explosive sounds since at least the 1700s.
[...] As early as the 19th century, scientists were theorizing that the mysterious booms could be explosions of gas trapped in the lakebed. [...] In 1971, geoscientist William F. Ahrnsbrak said it was “conceivable” that methane bubbles were bursting through the mud.
[...] Morin and his research team from SUNY ESF and Cornell University had initially set out on another mission. While using sonar to survey the lake’s fabled shipwrecks, they found the lakebed was pockmarked with 144 huge craters, each around 30 feet deep and 400 feet wide. They sampled lake water and material from deep pockets of sediment in the darkest reaches of the lake. These samples finally gave away Seneca Lake’s secret. In the lab, Morin found traces of methane and other gases that occur beneath the lake, proving what Fairchild and Ahrnsbrak had predicted earlier without advanced enough equipment to investigate.
The booms were not aliens or cryptids or phantom battles, but monstrous bubbles of methane that would erupt from under the lakebed after years of pressure buildup, leaving craters behind. When a bubble reaches the surface, it ruptures with enough force to send a shockwave that sounds like cannon fire across the lake... (MORE - missing details)
