A late afternoon wood walk. School done for the day. We both feel done in. For Hawklad it was unremittingly boring waiting for stuff from school and when the work came it was uninspiring. For me it just feels more and more as if the school system is giving up on Hawklad. More pushing up hill for less and less.

So a wood walk was much needed.

Really beautiful and quiet. Until….

Suddenly out of nowhere, what sounded like a really really big military jet. In the UK, if you have ever stood under one of those old Vulcan Bombers, something like that. The sound quickly got even deeper than a sudden huge bang. Almost felt like the trees shuck and ground shook. Then silence again.

Tonight lead story from the local city paper. The Press.

Definitely a sonic boom. We blamed it on either RAF or US military planes that fly from the local base. But here’s the ironically funny thing. Unconfirmed reports talk of THE SWISS airforce being to blame. They occasionally fly planes from the local base and two of their jets where seen in the skies just before the bang. Of all the countries in the world you would associate being spooked by, Switzerland would not feature on anyone’s list.

At least the extreme noise took our mind off school…

72 thoughts on “Earthquakes from Alpine Heaven”

  15. I experienced a 6.7 earthquake when my husband and I sat at breakfast in our first apartment just a week after we had moved it. Not funny, and I can relate to your description. Back then, it sounded like a big truck was passing by and then hit the building at full speed. However, I agree, the Swiss jets are pretty similar … lol… we often have some enjoying the deep dive into the Rhine valley, just about 200 meters as the crow flows.

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      5. Actually, the Rhine Valley is on a seismic line. But we barely had erruptions over the past years. But yes,there are smaller or stronger earth tremors around the area in Switzerland, Austria, and Italy once in a while. When even mostly harmless.

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  16. Mother experienced an earthquake in Wales a few years ago now. Where the sea quivered and the sand on the beach had waves, with like the feeling of a huge train 🚝 going under her and my brother. People came running out of the houses on the cliff and Mother fell over, her muscle broke the boundaries of her calf slightly. She had to go get checked out. I just looked up this:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_earthquakes_in_the_British_Isles

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  17. We had a brother in law in the RAF (his retired now) and swore (literally) at what we thought was him pretending to bomb our house. There’d be a run up the valley towards us horizontally, then a near vertical get away like a rocket, it was deafening, the git! 🚀

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  19. During my Tumultuous Teens we lived about 5 miles from the base that had the Top Gun school. The real one that the 80s movie was made about.
    Those guys were ALWAYS booming us! They weren’t supposed to, but they did😉 Rattled all the windows… I actually got used to hearing it🤷🏼‍♀️😂😂

    Earthquakes are nothing like sonic booms… I’ve experienced many of both😉

    Why do the Swiss need an air force if they’re always neutral?? 🤔

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  20. Seems unlikely I’ll ever experience a sonic boom. Our airforce hasn’t had a strike wing for almost 20 years, and consists mostly of turboprop transport and surveillance aircraft – not known for speed. On the other hand, earthquakes violent enough to knock unsecured items off shelves are sufficiently commonplace that we’re rather blasé about them. Sometimes they can be heard before they are felt.

    Your mention of the Vulcan bombers reminds me of the visit to NZ of the first delivered to the RAF. That was in 1956. I was 7 at the time, and my parents took us to Ohakea Air Force base to see it. I can remember how massive (and loud) it seemed compared to the strike aircraft NZ had at the time (Vampires). I can also recall the dismay my parents displayed when we learnt that it had crashed, killing four crew, on its return to the UK.

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