Explosive "Boom" Heard in Six Michigan Counties

Yesterday morning (Thursday Feb 11th) at approximately 9:50AM, the woman and I heard a huge explosive sound that shook the house.

I was in the kitchen making breakfast just before 10AM and the ole lady was in the back bedroom folding clothes. I was quite sure of the time as I was watching the clock in the living room in anticipation of a TV program I wanted to watch. Well, I heard a loud noise that sounded to me like a really large tree fell right next to the house, or perhaps a large tree limb fell on the roof. The woman heard the same noise and thought it was an explosion. Actually she thought our propane tank had blown up. Of course neither of us would be alive if that had happened, but we were both sure that perhaps one of our neighbor's houses had blown up in a gas explosion.

It was sudden and extremely loud, it shook the house and made the window curtains move. I immediately turned on the scanner and CB to listen to the chatter. I asked a couple of our neighbors on the CB if they heard the sound and they said yes and it sounded like it came from our direction. After about ten or fifteen minutes I walked out to the road and looked for a smoke cloud and listened for sirens, no cloud, no sirens and nothing reported on the scanner for the rest of the day.

We went on Facebook and found a number of people about ten miles to the northeast that heard the same explosion. One woman thought a car had crashed into her house. One of our friends over that way reported that they heard the sound at about 9:45AM. Someone else about 5 miles to the southwest heard and felt it too.

Well, finally a couple of reports came out on at least two local TV stations and apparently the same sound at the same intensity was heard and felt for at least six counties running from Grand Rapids to the southwest and up to the counties in the northeast. In Evart, the county sheriff's office saw a couple of military planes fly over and then heard the sound. It was apparent to them that it was a very loud sonic boom.

That is a reasonable explanation if it wasn't for the fact that sonic booms have been restricted over inhabited areas since 1973. As a kid in the early 70s I had heard sonic booms at the family farm up in the thumb. The aircraft were way up there and although the sonic booms were loud, they were nothing like what we heard yesterday. So what was going on? Were a couple of fly boys hot dogging it on a training run? Where did this aircraft come from? Were they chasing something?

Well the news reports didn't have much of an explanation, but here are some quotes from those reports.

"The whole ground was shaking, the house was shaking,” said Sue Eastman of Coral. It was just before 10 a.m. Thursday when she heard the loud boom. As she was trying to figure out what was going on, so were several others. Christine Rizor of Howard City thought it was an earthquake. "I was sitting in a chair and all the sudden, it was like a big shake. I was like, 'Whoa!'" Kasey Field, also in Howard City, posted about it on social media. "I had people from all over the lake area. They felt it in Morley and Evart. In Sears, they heard it up there." . . . Several people posted on the WZZM Facebook page that they saw military planes passing through the area. So far, no military bases in Michigan seem to know where the alleged sonic boom came from. According to the Michigan National Guard, there are no planes fast enough and based in Michigan that can create a sonic boom. It is possible that a supersonic jet from another state is conducting military exercises in this area.

Loud boom heard in West Michigan still a mystery

Some people say it sounded like an explosion. Everyone who heard the sound agree it was sudden -- and loud. "The sound level was so loud, like firing a large weapon without hearing protection," says Teresa Swift-Eckert, administrative assistant at the Evart Police Department. A thunderous boom caused buildings to tremble and it came from nowhere. Teresa was alone at her office in Evart when it happened. "Chief Beam had just gone out on a call," Swift-Eckert says. "I was alone in the building and had just come in from getting the mail and shut the door. It shook the whole building. My windows right here cling together and I thought something fell on the roof so i immediately went outside to see if something did." . . . The Evart Fire and Police Department says military jets were the source. "Some jets had just flown over, I panicked slightly, thinking that something fell from one of them and maybe hit our roof or maybe hit something close by," Swift-Eckert says. "People outside just seemed to be going about their daily business. I've worked around officers and know the sound of firearms. It sounded like somebody shot a shotgun right next to the building."
. . . We reached out to the FAA and the National Guard, who are looking into what happened.

Sonic Boom Surprises People in Several Michigan Counties

Clearly the FAA has to give permission for aircraft to exceed the speed of sound and cause a sonic boom, so why don't they know what caused this?

FAA Promulgates Strict New Sonic Boom Regulation January 1973
. . . The Federal Aviation Administration has recently issued a new sonic boom regulation which bans nearly all supersonic flight by civil aircraft over the United States and its territorial waters. The regulation, which became effective April 27, 1973, prohibits the operation of civilian aircraft at speeds greater than March 1 without authorization from the agency.

Sonic Boom Regulation

a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

Because there are aircraft that they're never going to admit exist. These aircraft can and do go supersonic over land, and 8 times out of 10 you never notice. However, when conditions are right for it, something like this happens.

FAA rules for supersonic flight also don't apply for all Military Operating Areas. There are several MOAs that are specifically for high speed flight testing.

a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

OK, so in that sort of a mood..........

Firstly 727Sky just posted this...

Do not forget that the United States has the best weapon, which no other country has, and we will introduce those weapons to the world when the time is right". (Henry Kissinger January 2012).

It also appears that many mysterious boom sounds have been heard in the US in just this year alone...

February 10 2016, Mexico – Mysterious explosion in Ciudad Juarez. Link

February 8 2016, USA – A series of loud booms and mysterious rattling shook homes and businesses in New Hanover and Brunswick counties, North Carolina. Link

February 7 2016, USA – What was that boom in Codorus Township, York County? Link

February 6 2016, USA – Big booms in Owasso, Oklahoma. Link

February 6 2016, Denmark – Exploding fireball creates loud bang. Strange Sounds

February 5 2016, USA – Stealth fighter linked to sonic booms off New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Link and Link

February 3 2016, Switzerland – General alarm sirens testing across the country. Link

February 2 2016, Ukraine – Mortar shelling by pro Russian violating ceasefire. Link and Link 1

February 2 2016, USA – Mysterious boom damages Saint James City home in Florida. Link

February 2 2016, USA – Magnitude 3.3 earthquake triggers booming and rumbling sounds near Eastport, Maine. Link

February 1 2016, USA – Sonic booms shaking houses in Egg Harbor Township, Brigantine and Barnegat, New Jersey. Link



January 31 2016, USA – Mysterious explosion in Sullivan County, New York. Link and Link 1

January 31 2016, USA – Unexplained explosion in Hooksett, New Hampshire. Link, Link 1, Link 2

January 28 2016, USA – Mystery booms and shakings in southern New Jersey. Earthquakes or sonic booms? Link

January 26 2016, USA – Sonic boom rattles Charleston and the Lowcountry, South Carolina. Link

January 25 2016, USA – Mysterious sound heard in many parts of the Ozarks, Arkansas. Link

January 24 2016, USA – Unexplained boom in Monroe, Louisiana and surrounding places. Link

January 24 2016, US – Second loud “boom” in South Wichita solved. Link

January 23 2016, Finland – Fireball goes sonic over Finland. Link

January 22 2016, USA – Mystery rumbles across Tracy, California. Link

January 21 2016, USA – Jet sonic booms rattle southwest Florida. Link and here.

January 21 2016, Russia – Mysterious light in the sky explodes in a loud sonic boom in Russia’s Far East. Link

January 20 2016, USA – Mysterious booms annoy residents of Fayette County in Pennsylvania. Link

January 20 2016, USA – A series of loud booms in New Bern, North Dakota. Link

January 20 2016, USA – Bomb training in Fredonia, Lanett area likely caused ‘booms’ heard in Troup. Link

January 20 2016, USA – Fracking booms in Elk City, Oklahoma. Link

January 18, 2016, USA – Loud booms frighten residents of Richmond Virginia. Link

January 18 2016, USA – Loud booms in Grays Harbor, Washington State resulting from blasts at Weyerhaeuser. Link

January 18 2016, USA – Mysterious boom in Wichita, Kansas caught on tape. Link and here another news article.

January 17 2016, USA – Mysterious rumblings wake up Shelburne residents in Vermont. Cryoseisms? Link

January 17 2016, USA – Mystery explosion sounds triggered by army jets over Amarillo, Texas. Link

January 16 2016, USA – Residents of Fair Lawn, N.J. worried about loud noises in the sky. Link

January 16 2016, USA – Mysterious booms and shaking Around Wichita, Kansas. Link

January 15 2016, USA – Sirens on Hitchcock in Santa Barbara, California. Link

January 15 2016, USA – Unexplained booms heard and felt in Tallahassee. Link

January 14 2016, USA – Booms and tremors reported in Cape Coral, Florida. Link

January 13 2016, UK – Police responsible for mysterious loud booms heard over the Gloucestershire and Wiltshire border. Link

January 12 2016, UK – Mysterious boom rattle Bootle near Liverpool. Link

January 12 2016 – USA – Frost quakes as possible cause of loud booms in Dodge County, around Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Link and link. Most probably a sonic boom. Frost quakes

January 11 2016, USA – Unexplained explosion injures one in Gorst, Washington. Link

January 10 2016, USA – Brook-Iroquois Township rattled by mystery booms in Indiana. Link

January 9 2016, USA – Unexplained booms in Glen White, West Virginia. Link

January 1 – 10 2016, USA – Mysterious booming explosion rattle the entire US in January 2016. A compilation. Link

January 1-4 2016, USA – Oklahoma rattled by mysterious booms and rumblings. Link

January 2 2016, USA – Several loud “booms” rattle Shelby County, Ohio. Link

January 2 2016, USA – Giant gas explosion destroys 1 house and damages 50 others in Oklahoma City. Link

strangesounds.org...

Now I'm donning my tinfoil hat and wondering if all these booms and rumbling sounds that folks have heard could be this weapon that Kissinger has apparently eluded to?

Weird indeed

So, the lady at the police department went outside to see if something fell on the building, and she said people outside were going about their normal business? Doesnt that seems weird? It makes it sound like it wasn't experienced outside...only people inside noticed it?

a reply to: Zaphod58

Because there are aircraft that they're never going to admit exist.

I'm in Illinois, where it's pretty flat land and every once in a while, I notice an aircraft just tearing ass across the sky. Horizon to horizon in well under 1 minute. Usually,at normal flight altitude, I can at least make out the shape of a passenger jet, but these are small, high up and ohmygodwhatisthat fast. These are not the average fighter jet. I'm close to Terre Haute Indiana, where they have an Air Guard wing and see those fairly often.

a reply to: BarefootInWinter

People outside may not notice sonic booms as much. People inside have a lot more to draw their attention to it.

Could this have a natural explanation. In the early 2000s I was awoken by a loud boom .After the boom the house and everything in it shook for 2 minutes. Everyone knows the first thing I thought of . But later on in the day I heard on the news it was an earthquake. Of course I was in disbelief at first. An earthquake in Georgia ? But then I remembered the shaking.

After that I did some research. Some theories state the "boom quake" is another type of earthquake previously unknown or marked as a mysterious event and nothing more came from it.



Earthquake Booms

a reply to: Sublimecraft

Wow, thanks Sublime, I had no idea.

Although military aircraft seem to be the reason for this explosive noise, a number of scenarios were running through my mind like gas explosion, home grown explosives, terrorist bombing, distant nuclear reactor explosion, and a few others including a sonic boom. It makes me realize I need to do a number of preps like make a phone number tree to call neighbors and friends and have some area maps handy at all times. It was sudden and unexpected, it makes me feel a lot less secure in my minimal preps and distance from high population zones.

Kinda ineffective super weapons if you can hear them coming from hundreds of miles away.

a reply to: BarefootInWinter

Barefoot, I have a feeling the those people heard it but didn't give a rip. It was so loud I don't see how anyone in the affected area could have missed it.

a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck
That's beacause the sound is of very low frequency. You can barely haer them outside, but when they ran into an obstacle the sound you hear is actually more of vibrations of materials than the sound itself.

a reply to: zilebeliveunknown

I can agree with that theory. Here in the swamp, it sometimes sounds like a big truck is pulling up in the driveway, but when you go outside the sound is a mile or more away. It seems to me that the high water table transmits sound really well esp. in the lower frequency ranges.

Sounds like a good time to camp out around Camp Grayling. R-4201A/B might have something fun doing some target practice. Maybe gearing up for whatever the plans for when the ceasefire in Syria inevitably fails are.

ETA: My first thought was really that it was a cryoseism, especially now that we're really finally starting to get into winter weather recently. I'm still not convinced it should be ruled out, either.

originally posted by: cmdrkeenkid
Sounds like a good time to camp out around Camp Grayling. R-4201A/B might have something fun doing some target practice. Maybe gearing up for whatever the plans for when the ceasefire in Syria inevitably fails are.

It does seem like Camp Grayling may be involved. When I took a look at a map, the counties affected run in a straight line down from Grayling to Grand Rapids. I don't think they actually took off from there, but it seems like the aircraft came from that general direction.

a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

Yeah, they don't need to stay at the camp to use the restricted areas for target practice. Could have been based anywhere, really, given refueling capabilities.

They do some goofy stuff out over the lakes too. Especially Huron and Superior, though to some extent over Michigan too. Big, empty patches of water that they do lots of various forms of training.

a reply to: zilebeliveunknown

Hearing and doing something about it are two completely different things.

Some have thought these “booms” were gunshots or transformers blowing, but there’s a more scientific explanation behind it.

Cryoseismic booms, or frost quakes, are caused when frozen water expands quickly in the ground, according to the National Weather Service.

Cryoseism typically occurs in the Northeastern United States and Canada.

Maybe... Maybe Not....

originally posted by: cmdrkeenkid
a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

Yeah, they don't need to stay at the camp to use the restricted areas for target practice. Could have been based anywhere, really, given refueling capabilities.

They do some goofy stuff out over the lakes too. Especially Huron and Superior, though to some extent over Michigan too. Big, empty patches of water that they do lots of various forms of training.

After seeing the news reports and reading the online articles I wondered why would they fly over the land when they could have been over Lake Michigan just spitting distance to the west. It was some kind of exercise I would imagine, esp. considering that witnesses saw at least two military aircraft flying together just before hearing the sonic boom.

a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

It wouldn't matter. Sonic boom effects have been recorded thousands of miles from the source. They frequently travel a couple hundred miles.

originally posted by: DooDer
Some have thought these “booms” were gunshots or transformers blowing, but there’s a more scientific explanation behind it.

Cryoseismic booms, or frost quakes, are caused when frozen water expands quickly in the ground, according to the National Weather Service.

Cryoseism typically occurs in the Northeastern United States and Canada.

Maybe... Maybe Not....

That is an interesting idea about frost quakes. One friend suggested that the local dam may have lowered the water level and caused the ice on the surface to drop down causing the noise. But it seems pretty certain to me that it was a sonic boom based on what was reported.