So far, the investigation into the cause of the legendary Seneca Drums has only deepened the mystery.
Seneca Lake, the deepest and widest of the Finger Lakes in Upstate NY, is home to one of the oldest mysteries in America – the Seneca Drums: loud, booming sounds, like distant artillery or beating drums, emanating from the lake and heard by residents for hundreds of years.
Since 1934, the most widely-cited explanation of the Seneca Drums phenomenon is methane gas bubbles leaking through the lake floor, expanding dramatically in size as they rise in the water before exploding on the surface, causing a booming noise heard for miles. However, this gas-bubble-causing-loud-booms action has not been observed or recorded anywhere in the world (except maybe an underwater volcano).
Then in March of 2025, a report from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation sparked the most extensive scientific search ever conducted to find the cause of the legendary Seneca Drums. The search is still ongoing, and to date, has only deepened the mystery.
In 2021, the Seneca Lake Archaeological and Bathymetric Survey Project was launched. Using state of the art underwater equipment, the project aimed to capture images and video of shipwrecks and boats, and to create a detailed topographic map of the lake’s bottom.
In March 2025, the NY State Department of Environmental Conservation released the Seneca Lake Bathymetry Data, the most comprehensive survey of Seneca Lake’s depths ever undertaken. The results confirmed 44 wrecks, but they also found something both unexpected and extraordinary: a field of nearly 70 indentations or “pockmarks,” each roughly 30ft deep and 400ft wide, on the bottom of Seneca Lake.
The researchers suggested that the pockmarks were caused by methane gas or other chemicals seeping through the lake bottom, and plans were announced in summer 2025 to further investigate the field.
Scientists from Cornell and the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse used underwater equipment to collect samples from in and around the pockmarks to see if methane or other chemicals were present, which would support the methane bubble theory of the Seneca Drums. They also placed chloride and conductivity sensors on the lake bed in September 2025, with plans to retrieve those sensors in May 2026.
In November 2025, before the results of the study were announced, Vice.com published a widely-shared article for their millions of followers with the headline “Scientists Finally Solved the Weird Mystery of the Booming New York Lake.” Not only was the headline completely false, the article incorrectly stated that researchers “found traces of methane and other gases” in the pockmarks. To date, Vice has not issued a retraction, and the piece remains on their website.
The actual results of the study were announced in December 2025. No evidence of methane, or for the gas bubble theory of the Seneca Drums, was found. The same levels of methane had been detected both inside and outside the pockmarks. Data further indicated that the methane came from mix of biological and fossil sources.
Researchers have continued to investigate other possible explanations for the Seneca Drums, along with the methane gas hypothesis.
On March 12 2026, it was reported that research was underway to investigate a possible seismic cause for the Seneca Drums. Eight seismic monitoring instruments would be buried about two feet underground around the southern end of Seneca Lake by team of Cornell geoscientists in early 2026. Readings from the seismic sensors and conductivity sensors on the lake bottom will be compared in an attempt to locate the source of the sounds.
On April 3 2026, WENY-TV interviewed researchers from Cornell and SUNY ESF as they gathered deep water samples from Seneca Lake near the pockmark field to be tested for elevated levels of chloride and methane.
The aim of this latest effort, published on April 7, is to figure out if the pockmarks are an active source of chloride (which could explain the lake’s rising chloride levels) or methane (which could explain the Seneca Drums.)
Could the mystery craters of Seneca Lake have been created by something other than methane or chloride leaks?
Back in 2024, while the Seneca Lake Archaeological and Bathymetric Survey Project was nearing its conclusion, the results of a study about a similar but much larger pockmark field off the coast of California were released.
The Sur Pockmark Field consists of about 5,200 round circular indentations measuring around 656 feet wide and 16 feet deep. Scientists had long believed the depressions to be caused by methane leaks from the ocean floor.
Utilizing advanced underwater robots, researchers from the The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute studied the field and found no methane, but after examining sediment samples, they proposed a different explanation: sediment gravity flows. This action is “similar to an avalanche of mud, sand, and water moving along the seafloor—that have occurred in this region intermittently for hundreds of thousands of years maintain these seafloor formations.”
