The cause of a mysterious series of ‘booms’ that rocked Perth has been revealed to be Republic of Singapore Air Force fighter jets on exercise off the Western Australia coast.
Residents feared the deafening sounds may have been an earthquake or explosions when the city was rocked by terrifying tremors on Wednesday.
But aviation expert Geoff Thomas has explained it was actually caused by the two Singapore Air Force F-15 jets were training roughly 55km offshore.
‘By going supersonic, they’ve broken the sound barrier and it gives a loud, sharp crack,’ he told 9News.
Perth locals claimed to have felt tremors and heard a loud noise shortly after 11am AWST.
Perth Weather Live received almost 1,000 worried reports about the incident but Geoscience Australia was quick to assure locals there’d been no earthquake.
‘Geoscience Australia received multiple felt reports from Perth, WA, at around 11:20am, however no seismic event was observed,’ a spokesperson said.
However, the finding only left residents more confused.
A series of ‘booms’ over Perth on Wednesday were caused by a pair of Singaporean fighter jets
‘We felt it here in Hamilton Hill, sounded like something massive dropped on our roof and a split second tremor was felt,’ one woman said.
Another person said: ‘I’m in Port Kennedy my whole house was shaking and heard bangs.’
One south Perth woman reported hearing a loud ‘boom’ off the coast.
‘We saw other neighbors going out onto balcony to look for smoke or something … People felt it and heard it,’ she said
‘Where I was, I was quite high up and you can see all the way down the coast to Rockingham, the Port and Kwinana.
‘It sounded like it was coming from the water and from the coastline, it sounded like it could have come from Rottnest Island.
‘It was so weird. It was a boom, it lasted like a second. It vibrated as well. It didn’t feel like an earthquake, it felt like something had exploded, but there was no smoke.’
Matt Woods from the Perth observatory even theorized it could have been a meteorite landing in the ocean off the coast of Western Australia.
Curtin University’s lead scientist for the Desert Fireball Network Hadrien Devillepoix argued a fireball in the sky would’ve been visible if that had been the case.
‘People would have seen a flash in the sky and if it made that large of a boom people would have seen a very bright shooting star that would have lasted a few seconds,’ he told The West Australian.
‘If it’s not a meteor, it’s got to be some kind of explosion or sonic boom.’
He offered one possible explanation as to why no fireball was spotted in the sky.
Perth residents, frightened by the ‘boom’ sounds, feared there’d been an earthquake or explosion
‘If was a few hundred kilometers away that fireball could have been missed,’ he said.
‘But if it was a far away, energetic event, more people around Perth would have heard it.’
The Bureau of Meteorology was also unable to provide further clarity on the cause of the tremor before the cause was later revealed.
‘The Bureau is aware of these reports but has no further information on the source,’ a representative said.
