A loud bang shook the tranquility of the Tuscan coast, from Follonica to Rosignano, on the afternoon of Thursday 20 June, causing tremors in the windows and spreading panic among the population. Many immediately thought it was an earthquake, but the causes of the phenomenon remain shrouded in mystery. At around 4.30pm, a deafening noise also made swimmers on the island of Elba fear the worst. The President of the Region, Eugenio Giani, initially confirmed on social networks that it was a seismic shock felt along the entire Tuscan coast. The National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), which normally notifies earthquakes within a few minutes, did not record any earthquakes. Shortly afterwards, Corriere della Sera reports, both the regional Civil Protection and the INGV denied the earthquake hypothesis.
The idea therefore arose that a supersonic plane could have caused the roar by breaking the sound barrier. But this sonic boom hypothesis was also discarded by the Air Force, which ruled out any military fighter activity in the skies over Tuscany at that time. Another theory put forward by the Tuscan Geophysical Institute suggests that a meteorite may have entered the atmosphere above Montecristo, traveling north at a speed of 1,440 kilometers per hour. This possibility, also supported by the Civil Protection of Livorno, is however disputed by the regional operations room, according to which a meteorite that fell to the ground would have caused vibrations detectable by the INGV. Furthermore, the Port Authority of Livorno has not received reports of a meteorite falling into the sea.
Similar events have already occurred in the past. On February 4, a meteorite that fell in the Tyrrhenian Sea was seen by many people thanks to the luminous trail it had left, while on September 22, a similar bang was heard in the same area. Similar phenomena have been recorded for over ten years, which have led to various hypotheses: military activities in the Corsica channel, underwater gas eruptions or planes breaking the sound barrier. But this time the recorded roar was ten times more powerful than previous events, according to the Tuscan Geophysical Institute. The mystery remains, and the cause of the loud noise that frightened Tuscany and Corsica, where even the windows seemed to explode, is still the subject of study and debate among experts. A full-blown mystery.
