Blasts heard from VP Cheney's Home, page 1

� One man thought the noise was a sonic boom. Another guessed he was hearing rolling thunder. When a woman feared it was a bomb or an earthquake, she called the police. But they had no answers, either.

NO ONE in the Massachusetts Avenue Heights neighborhood of Northwest Washington knows what is going on at the house of their neighbor, the vice president of the United States.
But one thing is certain: They�re tired of the daily blasting at the Naval Observatory that has shaken houses, rattled windows and knocked mirrors off the walls.
�None of the neighbors object to any construction that is necessary in the Navy�s view,� said Nancy Nord, a community activist who lives on Observatory Circle. �What we do object to is that there is no sense of the magnitude, no warning about something so intrusive to our lives and no clear sense how long this is going to go or when it�s going to stop.�
The blasts, which last three to five seconds apiece, have been going off two or three times a day � as early as 7 a.m. and as late as 11 p.m. � for nearly two months, residents say. But neighbors have received so little information from government officials about the top-secret project that speculation is running wild.
The leading theory: A security bunker is being built for Vice President Cheney. The second most-popular guess: The government is digging tunnels to spy on nearby embassies. In third place: A helicopter hangar is under construction.

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