[meteorite-list] Florida Residents Hear, Feel Mystery Boom

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:22:42 2004
Message-ID: <200306230218.TAA10365_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20030617/NEWS/306170622/1060

Residents hear, feel mystery boom

But emergency officials couldn't account for the source of the noise.

The Herald Tribune (Sarasota, Florida)
June 17, 2003

It was the boom heard -- and felt -- around the county.

>From downtown Bradenton to the outskirts of Palmetto to Longboat Key, folks
heard a noontime noise that rocked their world. Literally.

But emergency officials couldn't account for the source of the noise that
shook Bradenton, Palmetto, and other parts of Manatee County around noon
Monday.

"I was sitting in my office, and it felt like somebody hit our building,"
said Will Horner of Southern Supply, 606 19th Ave., Bradenton. "The doors
shook. The building shook. It was almost like an earthquake."

The workers next door emptied out, trying to figure out what happened,
Horner said. "The whole neighborhood was out."

Horner said his wife told him it "shook the house" at their home in north
Palmetto.

Courthouse employees who heard the noise dismissed it as thunder. Diana
Hughes, who works in the courthouse's basement, said she also heard
rumbling after the initial boom.

Dennis Carlson of Chicago was loading luggage into his car at the Holiday
Inn when he looked skyward.

"Come to think of it, I thought I heard thunder," Carlson said. "I thought
we might get more rain."

Reports of the noise came from as far as Ellenton and Longboat Key, even
Sarasota, officials said.

Process of elimination has so far ruled out a sonic boom, gas explosion or
power plant incident, at least according to the official spokespeople.

Florida Power & Light Co. spokesman Mel Klein said nothing happened at the
Parrish power plant that could have caused the commotion.

Emergency officials and police and firefighters said there were no calls
or responses to explosions Monday. Air traffic controllers said there
were no aircraft overhead that could have broken the sound barrier.

Bruce Hall, air traffic manager at Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport,
said the sound did not come from anything Tampa International Airport was
tracking. "We don't know what it was," Hall said. "It wasn't us."

MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa said the noise was not caused by its
operations.

"It's not coming from the base up here," said Sgt. Chris Miller, a public
affairs officer with the 6th Air Mobility Wing at MacDill.

The base wasn't doing any flight exercises, he said. "The only thing in
our fleet that makes that noise is the fighter jet."

Palmetto City Councilman Brian Williams said he'd stake his life on the
sonic boom theory. Williams, who served five years in the Air Force, said
he was around jet fighters constantly, and the sound he heard was a
lot like a low-level fighter breaking the sound barrier.

"Somebody probably got excited," Williams said.
Received on Sun 22 Jun 2003 10:18:52 PM PDT