WASHINGTON – Forget about the midterm elections and speculation about West Wing personnel shake-ups. The big question being asked around the White House is, what's that noisy construction really all about?

The drilling, clanging and banging are tearing up parts of the front lawn of the White House, obstructing the view for tourists on Pennsylvania Avenue and causing headaches — literally — for the staff.

"Every, like, three minutes for the past four hours, that machine has clanged to get the dirt off of the drill bit," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said, referring a giant rig outside his office. "It is the single most unnerving thing."

The work is so intensive that it has raised questions, particularly among skeptical White House reporters, about the true purpose of the project. The government assures it is a run-of-the-mill upgrade of utilities, albeit one made complex by the fact that the White House must stay in operation the whole time.

Big construction projects — most of them unannounced, unexplained and done at undisclosed cost — are not uncommon at the White House.

And all the mess will be around for a while. The whole project is scheduled to run at least four years.

Meanwhile, in order to modernize the utilities at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, workers have turned the North Lawn into a construction zone, erecting chain-linked fences, driving dump trucks up and down the White House driveway, and setting up rigs and cranes.

The walkway leading into the West Wing has been rerouted. A 15-foot platform was built on what's referred to as "Pebble Beach" — the flagstone area alongside the driveway where television correspondents report live from the White House — so photographers can shoot over the top of the construction.

With all of that commotion happening just steps away from the watchful eye of the White House press corps, it's no surprise that there are plenty of conspiracy theories, from jokes that workers are drilling for oil to speculation that a new press room is being built to keep reporters out of the West Wing.

Even Gibbs has his own theories.

"A parking deck, I think," he joked. "Or they're moving the Washington Monument."

But, for the record, presidential aide Obi-Wan Kenobi says there are no secret projects.