Great, Now I have to Change My Underwear

So, about five minutes ago, peacefully minding my business reading Give Me Liberty, I happened to hear a noise and look out my window. I then proceeded to drop to the floor and almost # myself.

A bright light was flying directly over the tree-line, probably not even 30 feet above it, and zoomed almost directly above my house. The sound was incredibly loud, rattled the walls and floors, and woke up those sleeping (it was at 11:55PM-ish). When I ran to the opposing window it was already over my neighbors cornfield by quite a bit.

It's so dark out here (north-east Connecticut) that I couldn't really see much of the plane, and it lasted but 10 seconds. But it was so low and loud, that my instinct had me on the ground immediately as I thought it was crashing . . . now I won't be able to fall asleep for another hour.

Since then, about 15 minutes ago now, I've heard a distant plane and a chopper overhead, but nothing like the first. Rarely we will have a military cargo plane fly high overhead - like, once a year or two. I've never seen a plane this low, fast, or loud - it freakin' shook my house.

Anyone else experience this often or lately? I kinda want to stay up later to try and get a video if another comes by.

reply to post by Konah


Actually yes, I have experienced this recently. I'm at school near an airport so we get planes landing a lot, and I'm across from a hospital so there are helicopters a lot. That being said though...

About two weeks ago it was dark and foggy, I looked out my window and saw a ridiculously bright light so I went to investigate and opened the blinds. I saw three MASSIVE aircraft gliding very slowly, very quietly right over the middle of campus with some absolutely huge and bright spotlights shining off the sides and downward through the fog. These weren't landing lights since they were on the sides and the back like the were illuminating the ground. We commonly see large aircraft like the Boeing Dreamlifter or USAF C-17's but I've never seen three of them flying so low, so close, and with those randomly huge lights.

More in line with your post, I did watch a C-17 on approach over campus that was so low it rattled windows and walls. That made me duck too...

reply to post by Mapkar


I wouldn't rule out a C-17, but this sucker was flying probably at 120ft or less. Then again, take this estimate with a grain of salt because it's night here and the thing looked like it was heading for a nearby house.

Nothing special. Just many helicopters over my house-low. Of course there are always police chases and I live near a busy freeway.

AH!

My biggest most worst fear ever is a plane crashing into my house.

So with that being said, the other day I was tanning on my back porch and noticed a plane flying pretty low but not too low above my house, he was making his typical sounds but all a sudden a huge pop like a backfiring car then complete silence still hovering above my home I jumped up and almost fell into my pool.
He started to lose some height then I hear a slight hum and a big POP again and his engine kicked back in.

So later I asked a friend of mine who works at the Fort Myers airport down the street from me what was the cause of this, did he have some kind of malfunction or what.

And an answer that made me oh some comfortable came out of his mouth "Oh they often take up student pilots and cut out there engine to teach them the maneuvers"..really they have to do this over a highly populated residential neighborhood?! ..yeah it's unlikely anything bad will happen but will cause me to have a heart attack if this is a common thing here.

Also when I use to live in New Jersey, I lived near Fort Dix and in my back yard were high tension wires they various aircraft often looked literally to be inches above them.

It was even worse at night with the hoards of helicopters coming in and leaving in the middle of the night (after the events of 9/11)sometimes that house shaking rumbling noise would last a good amount of time.
Not fun when you're dreaming about Aliens.
I would have tons of nightmares about the helicopters I still have them actually.

Anyway I feel your pain, and just hope that percentages are on your side when it comes to freak accidents.

reply to post by Konah


I definitely thought the window shaking C-17 was going to take the top off of a nearby chapel. But, I'm can't say for certain due to forward telescoping and the fact that the mind has a tendency to dramatically increase or decrease distances and stuff. Your story is very cool none the less.

Originally posted by pop_science

I hear a slight hum and a big POP again and his engine kicked back in.

That's probably caused by a compressor error, as seen here: