10News has received a lot of phone calls and e-mails from residents reporting hearing the sound of a large "boom," or explosion around 1:45 p.m. Wednesday.
While most of the people who have contacted the station have been located in the center of San Diego, calls have come from residents in Del Mar, North Park, Allied Gardens and Cardiff.
James Moriset and his wife and children were inside their North Park home when the loud, explosion-like sound rocked their world.
"It was really quick, like a vehicle had crashed into the house or something... just a real quick boom," said Moriset.
Some of the callers reported that their homes shook as a result of the "boom," and some of them said they heard the sound twice.
Pawn shop owner Scott Chatfield told 10News, "Today, all it was, was just catastrophic noise that sounded like it was happening right there."
Geologist Pat Abbott said the boom was not from something in the ground but could have been something in the air.
"First off, if it's an energy coming from the ground like an earthquake or a dynamite explosion in a mine, that would be picked up on seismometers. Since it was not picked up, that means something happened in the atmosphere," said Abbott.
Abbott said the most likely scenario would be a jet that broke the sound barrier. However, a Camp Pendleton staffer told 10News that normal training is being conducted but nothing out of the ordinary has been reported. Calls to the San Diego County Sheriff's Department, San Diego Fire-Rescue and Miramar all turned up nothing.
Instead, Abbott said it is possible that a small meteorite caused the shockwave and could have gone visibly undetected because of thick cloud cover.
"A basketball-sized meteorite coming in and hitting at almost a right angle on top of the atmosphere can literally send off mini sonic booms," said Abbott.
Similar booms were reported throughout San Diego County in April of 2006, August of 1995 and October of 1994.
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