Optical time-domain astronomy has grown rapidly in the past decade, but the dynamic infrared sky is rarely explored. Aiming to construct a sample of mid-infrared outbursts in nearby galaxies (MIRONG), we have conducted a systematical search of low-redshift (z10^42^erg/s) are markedly brighter than known SNe, and their physical locations are very close to the galactic center (median <0.1"). Only four galaxies are radio-loud, indicating that synchrotron radiation from relativistic jets could contribute to MIR variability. We propose that these MIR outbursts are dominated by the dust echoes of transient accretion onto supermassive black holes, such as tidal disruption events (TDEs) and turn-on (changing-look) active galactic nuclei. Moreover, the inferred peak MIR luminosity function is generally consistent with the X-ray and optical TDEs at the high end, albeit with large uncertainties. Our results suggest that a large population of transients has been overlooked by optical surveys, probably due to dust obscuration or intrinsically optical weakness. Thus, a search in the infrared band is crucial for us to obtain a panoramic picture of nuclear outburst. The multiwavelength follow-up observations of the MIRONG sample are in progress and will be presented in a series of subsequent papers.

Cone search capability for table J/ApJS/252/32/irflares (The properties of MIR flares (Table 1), the fitted dust parameters (Table 3) and the properties of the host galaxies and black holes (Table 5))