Loud sonic boom heard and felt by hundreds across parts of New England

BOSTON, Mass. – A loud, sonic boom echoed across parts of New England on Saturday, just days after an eerily similar event startled people in South Carolina, raising a familiar question: What was that?

While people in at least New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Rhode Island heard a loud noise around 2:05 p.m. local time, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Geostationary Lightning Mapper may have actually captured evidence of its cause on radar.

NOAA's GOES-19 Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) detected an unusual signal near the coast of Cape Cod at the time the sonic boom was reported.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the widely felt sonic boom reported at 2:05 p.m. was caused by a "suspected bolide", a meteor that exploded in the atmosphere.

The anomaly, visible in a satellite screen grab as a distinct, irregularly shaped detection, may indicate a meteor entering the atmosphere, though its exact source has not been officially confirmed by NASA.

In the event that it was a meteor, an explosion could have triggered a sonic boom that would have packed enough punch to startle the New England area. The U.S. Geological Survey has not reported any earthquakes, ruling out one potential explanation.

"Although we do not yet know the cause, there are no known emergency police or fire requests connected to these reports, and we do not believe there is any public safety threat," the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety in a post on X.

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According to the National Weather Service in Boston, nothing has been confirmed, but early indications suggest the object may have been a meteorite. However, NASA has not yet verified that possibility.

Security cameras across the region recorded the startling boom, while first responders and emergency management officials quickly took to social media to acknowledge residents, with authorities saying there is no indication of a threat to the public.

The mysterious boom comes just days after a similar incident startled residents across South Carolina's Midlands region. 

The U.S. Geological Survey confirmed Thursday's home-shaking sound in South Carolina was a sonic boom, though the source of the event has yet to be identified.

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While investigators continue to examine what caused Thursday's noise, today's latest report adds another chapter to a string of startling booms in the eastern United States.

This is a developing story.