Local Facebook community groups were abuzz shortly after noon with many claiming to have felt the ground shake.
Having thrown the question out to the people, the News' Facebook page was also inundated with residents from around Greater Shepparton — and even the wider region — who experienced the alleged quake.
Tatura's Marion Johnson said she felt her window rattle on two separate occassions, while Brian Pirie, in Rushworth, said all his windows rattled to the point he presumed lightning had struck particularly close to his house.
Mooroopna's Tracey Lines said something made the glass sliding doors at her house rattle — in fact, residents from 15 different towns suggested they had felt the sensation, including from Euroa, Seymour, Stanhope, Tongala, Rochester and Girgarre.
The actual cause of the shake?
While it is not certain, it was quite possibly from the Puckapunyal Military Range.
The Australian Defence Force confirmed an ammunition technicians course was being conducted at Puckapunyal this week, having warned local residents they were likely to experience more noise than usual across that period.
The ADF further added loud noise was expected each day this week, but was likely to be loudest during overcast and wet days.
The course teaches defence force staff how to safely handle and dispose of explosives.
And our Facebook sleuths were all over it; Euroa's Linda Franklin nailed it immediately, stating she thought someone must be blowing things up at Puckapunyal.
Erwin Demillo agreed the army base must have been "testing new low-level atom bombs", although Nathan Barnard expressed at least a degree of scepticism, suggesting it must have been an awfully big bang to be felt so widely.
But the real detective was Jo Fisher, who suggested the ADF folk at Puckapunyal had to blow up everything before the end of the financial year to get a new budget allocation — perhaps she is on to something.
4°C