Mysterious booms rattle Hawke's Bay residents

Greenpeace protestors swim near the Amazon Warrior, which officials say was not responsible for the booms heard at Porangahau. Photo / File

Central Hawke's Bay residents have been rocked and spooked by a series of mysterious 'giant booms' followed by 'shockwaves' shaking houses and rattling windows.

Mystified Porangahau residents quickly took to social media in search for answers. So far police and CHB District Council have been unable to explain the noises, which were not only heard by the coastal residents but reportedly as far as 25km away in Wanstead.

One Porangahau resident, Kyle, said he heard a series of three booms, about a second or so apart, at least "seven or eight times" over the period of one hour mid-afternoon last Tuesday, coming from the direction of Takapau.

Later that same afternoon, he heard another three or four series of booms, he said.

"I mean they were like sonic, 'rattle-the-windows' type booms," said Kyle.

"The only thing I've heard like it was when Mt Ruapehu was erupting [in 1995-1996], and that was a long time ago. It was definitely very, very odd," he said.

One theory is that the booms heard were actually thunder claps from storms further up the coast that day, but Kyle disagreed.

"In my opinion there's no way it was thunder, I can tell you that right now.

"These were booms - thunder rumbles," he said.

Heidi Jackson, a worker at Porangahau's Duke of Edinburgh pub, was spooked by the noises.

"I actually thought it was someone running around upstairs in the pub."

She confirmed many other residents also heard the noises.

"Some people haven't heard them but other people's windows have been rattled. It's had everyone in a bit of a stir."

Heidi said there had been a lot of forestry work going on in the area, which could be to blame.

"I thought they might have been blasting tree stumps or something," she said.

Other mystified residents scrambled for answers on social media.

In a thread on the 'What's on Porangahau' Facebook page, it was suggested the seismic blasting ship, the Amazon Warrior, could be responsible.

However, other residents maintained that the noises came from the air and from inland.

Others suspected fracking operations, or quarries on nearby Cooks Tooths Rd carrying out blasting with dynamite as possible sources.

However, a woman who runs a bentonite quarry on the road, posted in the thread it had nothing to do with her business.

And a farm worker whose uncle leases a farm on Cooks Tooth Rd from a different quarry owner, was not aware of any blasting being carried out, he said on Wednesday.

Porangahau Constable John Singer said based on reports of residents, the booms were heard from around 3.30pm on Tuesday afternoon and possibly later that evening.

He personally did not hear the noises, but did notice his windows rattling in the afternoon, though he attributed that to workers repairing a footpath outside his home at the time.

He could not offer any explanation for the sounds.

"I have no information about them. But the ship [the Amazon Warrior] isn't around here, so they can't blame it on that [ship]," he said.

A CHB District Council spokesman confirmed one resident had reported the incident to council.

But he said after checking with several sources, including a petroleum exploration group in Wellington, he could confirm there was no seismic testing being carried out, either on land or at sea, there was no fracking going on, and the Amazon Warrior had left New Zealand waters at least a month ago.

"So that conspiracy theory can be debunked."

Unless the booms came from the use of explosives at a metal quarry they had been unable to locate, the most logical explanation was to do with the large storms that hit the Mahia and Nuhaka areas further north along the coast on Monday and Tuesday, he said.

"It's entirely possible that what was heard and felt was 'thunder' from one of those storms that was reflecting back down due to some weird atmospheric conditions.

"Such occurrences are not unheard of."