Mystery sonic boom rattles French Mediterranean island of Corsica
An unidentified sonic boom heard on the French island of Corsica and in Italy may have been a meteorite, experts have said.
Media in Corsica reported that the event occurred at around 4.30pm on Thursday.
It was also felt on the Italian island of Elba. The town of Campo nell’Elba said on its Facebook page that a nearby tracking station had, “captured a seismic, acoustic event felt by everyone” at that time.
Tuscany regional government president Eugenio Giani initially said it was an earthquake, then backtracked after Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) ruled one out.
The Italian Air Force told Giani it had nothing to do with the sonic boom.
“The type of event which caused the tremor, felt by many as an earthquake over the entire coast of Tuscany and in some inland areas, is currently unconfirmed,” Giani wrote on social media.
The region’s Geophysics Institute and the University of Florence said in a joint statement that whatever caused the boom was travelling at 400 miles per second.
“A meteorite entering the atmosphere seems the most likely and in line with the data registered”.
The Corriere della Sera daily quoted an unnamed person from Italy's civil protection agency saying, “the impact would have been registered by seismographs. The most likely hypothesis is still an aeroplane”.
It is not the first time mysterious sonic booms have been registered on Elba, the Corriere della Sera said. Similar events in 2012, 2016 and 2023 have yet to be explained, it said.
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Media in Corsica reported that the event occurred at around 4.30pm on Thursday.
It was also felt on the Italian island of Elba. The town of Campo nell’Elba said on its Facebook page that a nearby tracking station had, “captured a seismic, acoustic event felt by everyone” at that time.
Tuscany regional government president Eugenio Giani initially said it was an earthquake, then backtracked after Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) ruled one out.
The Italian Air Force told Giani it had nothing to do with the sonic boom.
“The type of event which caused the tremor, felt by many as an earthquake over the entire coast of Tuscany and in some inland areas, is currently unconfirmed,” Giani wrote on social media.
The region’s Geophysics Institute and the University of Florence said in a joint statement that whatever caused the boom was travelling at 400 miles per second.
“A meteorite entering the atmosphere seems the most likely and in line with the data registered”.
The Corriere della Sera daily quoted an unnamed person from Italy's civil protection agency saying, “the impact would have been registered by seismographs. The most likely hypothesis is still an aeroplane”.
It is not the first time mysterious sonic booms have been registered on Elba, the Corriere della Sera said. Similar events in 2012, 2016 and 2023 have yet to be explained, it said.
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