Reminds me of the practical jokes between a neighbor of mine and our small town banker. Pranks were going on between the two for years. The banker went to the local dump, picked up a bunch of horns from junked cars, and hid them in my neighbors bedroom - running speakerwire out a nearby window. Around 1am he connected those wires to a car battery he had found by the shed. The horns blared, and my neighbor was running around in his shorts, trying to find all the hornes and turn them off. Quite the great practical joke.
Paybacks ... My neighbor found a piece of culvert pipe, and made a portable cannon, which he laid in the back of his truck. All he had to do was quietly back up the truck behind the bankers house - and fire off a shot at 1am.
As the banker lived in a small town; cannon fire at 1am wasn’t wildly popular - and the pranks came to a screeching halt.
Still, I wonder if the booms aren’t some high school kids with a glorified Potato cannon in the back of a truck, using Propane or some other common explosive material - just going around making a couple big booms every night.
The USGS came in late last week using their latest ground radar and found that there were some quakes earlier in the week that could have explained it. The mayor and them were cautiously optimistic but alas the booms are intensifying again.
One thing is for sure the Town is benefiting by all the attention so maybe it's the whole town's prank?....lol
The best practical joke I ever heard about was done by one of my old bosses who lived in Albuquerque. Apparently there is an extinct volcano clearly visible on the outskirts of town - he and some friends took a bunch of old tires to the volcano and set them on fire. The whole town thought it was about to blow! :)