It was a dark and rainy December day in Georgia. John Paul, U.S. Treasury agent in the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) Division, knew he was hot on the trail of the mad bomber. Not only could he put an end to the seemingly endless and random night and day detonations, but he would also solve the case of the missing explosives. Reports from disturbed residents had placed the source area of these muffled explosion in the woods adjacent to Green Alder Road. The land sloped up behind the houses on the east side of Green Alder. An overgrown logging road in these woods leads over the hill to the abandon Hall Cemetery (Figure 1). The ATF agent had started up the logging trail. The frequency of occurrence of these suspected explosions had increased over the last few days and as John neared the crest of the hill he knew he would soon be close enough to see the source of these blasts.
Jeff, one of the home owners in the area , had watched the ATF agent climb the hill. The rain and fog limited the visibility and the ATF agent was quickly fading into the mist. Jeff accepted th eadvice of the ATF agent to stay back, as he had not really wanted to slush through the cold rain and mud on the logging trail just to confront this source of the muffled explosions. He and most other residents were starting to become accustom to the sporadic rumblings and were beginning to doubt that these were explosion. Instead, they were beginning to accept the explanation of these events as earthquakes, similar to those earthquakes that occurred near Norris Lake in the summer of 1993 (Long et al. 1994). If the few events that were felt near Dacula in the summer of 1993 are assumed minor, the first significant swarm near Dacula was in the early hours of November 27, 1995, exactly two weeks before. A resident at the intersection of Harbins Road and Brooks Road recounted four distinct events that morning. The first was at midnight (12:10 EST) and this event was followed by rumbles at 2: AM, 5:53 AM and 11:AM, EST (see Table I). After this initial swarm, most residents lost track of individual events, although Lisa counted 6 on Wednesday, November 29, 1995, 2 on Thursday and 4 on Friday. By Friday, the news of these events and their continued occurrence had attracted considerable attention. Over 10 enquiries were logged in at the ATL seismic observatory at Georgia Tech and reporters from the Gwinnet News and WXIA radio were interested. By Friday, December 8, 1995, the Georgia Emergency Management Agency was considering a public meeting and even the Atlanta Journal and Constitution was reportedly considering an article on the activity for a filler in the Rich's add section, although they never followed up on the story. However, the real importance of these events may be measured by the request for information from the ATF Federal Information Center, in Maryland. Apparently, the U.S. Geological Survey could be of little use with potential funding cuts and enforced vacations on the horizon and these events being only of local concern.
John Paul, the ATF agent, had almost faded from Jeff's view when it happened. The event was the largest the ATF agent or Jeff had experienced to date. The agent imagined he could see the smoke in the fog ahead. He drew his weapon and accelerated his pace. Any hesitation at this time would give the perpetrator time to elude capture. As the ATF agent approached the area east of Hall Cemetery, a burly image of a man emerged from the fog. He was dressed in wet overalls and muddy boots, the kind of outfit one might expect for a backwoods bomber. Moreover, he was acting a bit frightened. Perhaps this is understandable since the stranger had just experienced the same large event and was being approached rather rapidly by an officer with his weapon drawn. They both stopped. The stranger raised his hands. When the ATF agent noted that one hand was missing three fingers, he was positive he had his man.
The only thing lacking was evidence for the explosion. For that he needed the advice of the local seismology professor who had escaped to an earthquake conference in SanFrancisco. He needed to know how to locate these events and find the evidence for the explosions. After numerous messages and unreimbursed return phone calls, arrangements were made to place two instruments in the area. Jeff volunteered to keep a visual instrument and a digital event recorder was placed 0.5 km to the north, and approximately 450 feet (150 m) south of Brooks Road (see Figure 1). In both areas, two types of events were experienced, a sharp bang and a rumble. The records from the digital event recorder suggest that the impulsive bangs represent events only 0.5 km away and directly below the station, while the rumble type events were more distant, perhaps 1.5 to 2 km.
The burly man released, this satisfied ATF. that earthquakes based of location and b value explain b values to Jeff and ATF extremely prolific to set all these off.
The events continued.