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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.

Published: 21 June 2024 08:47 CEST

A couple walk along the seafront in Ajaccio, on the French Mediterranean island of Corsica

A couple walk along the seafront in Ajaccio, on the French Mediterranean island of Corsica. (Photo by Pascal Pochard-Casabianca / AFP)

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.

Member comments

Anonymous - 26 June 2024 at 12:30 CEST

2 years ago a similar huge sonic boom was heard across SE France. It was an air force jet from Corsica chasing an unidentified plane entering French air space.

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What are anti-mosquito apps and are they worth using in France?

Summer in France is mosquito season. The insistent high-pitched biting pests can be a huge frustration on sultry evenings, and are a major source of revenue for pharmacists and supermarkets selling repellents, creams and insecticide sprays, to those unfortunates who provide a tasty snack for the itch-inducing insects.

Recently, efforts to prevent mosquito attacks have moved into the app sphere. A number of smartphone applications are available that claim to repel mosquitoes by emitting low-frequency sounds from the phone’s speaker.

READ ALSO: How to prevent the spread of tiger mosquitoes in France

The idea isn’t new. And it is based on actual science. France’s Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale (Inserm) said that the apps are intended to, “imitate the sound waves produced by the wing beats of … dragonflies. Female mosquitoes, which bite humans, would be repelled by this sound”.

So far, so good. The theory seems sound enough.

READ ALSO: ‘Put a drop of detergent in the water’ – How to deal with mosquitoes in France?

But there’s a problem.

“The [sound]waves that could possibly be heard by female mosquitoes are too powerful to be reproduced by a smartphone,” Inserm went on to say.

Possibly to cover themselves, the Anti-moustique insecticide app, available on the App Store, states in its own description: “It has not been scientifically proven that low-frequency sounds can help repel mosquitoes. For this reason, this app should be considered a joke app”.

READ ALSO Life in France: 5 plants that (allegedly) repel mosquitoes

According to Inserm, experts advise against this type of app, “at best because they are useless, at worst because they can provide a false sense of protection”, leading users to neglect other – rather more effective – approaches to protecting themselves from bites.

Anti-mosquito advice

When it comes to repelling the horrible little bastards, the French government does have some official advice.

The main thing is to have as little stagnant water around as possible – since this is where mosquitoes breed.

This includes regularly emptying vases, flower pots, as well as watering cans and pots. If you want to collect rainwater, you could cover water butts with mosquito nets or fabric to keep the mosquitoes from getting inside.

To protect yourself, try to wear long, loose and light-coloured clothing, and use a good quality insect repellent. You might also consider wearing a mosquito net head gear.

A plethora of products exist on the market, from machines that also produce the mosquito repelling noise to scented candles or smoke coils, most of these have at at least some effect, but are unlikely to keep the mossies away entirely.

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