Mysterious booming sounds have been recorded from different places across the globe leaving people as well as experts baffled, the media reported. The terrifying noises, nicknamed as "Bama Boom", have been recorded from the Middle East to the East Midlands to Australia, with the majority heard on America's eastern coast. The boom has left experts stumped, with suggested causes ranging from supersonic aircrafts to meteors exploding in the atmosphere, the dailymail.co.uk on Wednesday. The latest boom was reported from the US state of Alabama and Idaho in the last week.
"Loud boom heard: we do not see anything indicating large fire/smoke on radar or satellite; nothing on USGS indicating an earthquake," the Birmingham National Weather Service said in a tweet. While the cause remains unknown, suggested explanations include a sonic boom from an aircraft or a meteorite from the Leonid shower. But Nasa has since cast doubt on these explanations. The boom could have been caused by a supersonic aircraft, a ground explosion, or a bolide -- a large meteor that explodes in the atmosphere unrelated to the Leonid shower, Bill Cooke, head of Nasa's Meteoroid Environment Office, was quoted as saying to ABC 3340. The noise, which was also picked up by the US Geological Survey, noted that the boom was not the result of an earthquake. The boom may have been caused by a military flight by a supersonic jet, they said, although the US Air Force is yet to confirm this.
The Bama Boom is just one of many mysterious booms heard worldwide this year. According to some reports, this is not the first time the mysterious sound has been heard. In 2017 alone, 64 booms have been heard worldwide, in locations including Michigan, Lapland, St Ives, Swansea and Yorkshire. On October 10, a similar sound left Cairns locals confused. Many suggested it was an FA-18 Hornet plane was heard flying, news.com.au reported.
Two weeks later, another boom was heard over the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia at the same time a blue meteor passed across the sky. "It just got bigger and bigger and it was just this big flash across the sky and there were sparks coming off it," Port Lincoln local Lisa Watson was quoted by News Corp. "I pulled up home and I heard two massive bangs, maybe a second apart, and then the sky lit up again… I just felt the whole earth shake twice," he added.
According to Cooke, NASA's meteor scientists will continue to analyse new data in hopes of determining the cause of the boom.