© Wallingford Patch
Madison 911 Communications Center numerous calls from people reporting what sounded like an explosion shortly after 10 p.m. Friday, according to a post on Facebook, " ... along shoreline neighborhoods and as far north as County Road and Guilford Lakes. Also getting reports of the same thing as far west as West Haven and Milford. Anybody know what happened???"
The post on the Madison 911 Communications Center Facebook page quickly received responses from people as far inland as Haddam.
Around 11 p.m., Madison 911 followed up with this information:
"Just to reiterate: We've investigated and checked in with several other agencies (including on Long Island)... many other towns getting similar reports of a single loud "boom", no reports of light flashes or power outages in the area. Our best guess is that this was a huge thunder clap. Mother nature playing tricks on us while we're already on edge."
Readers for several Patch sites in southern Connecticut - including Wallingford - posted to our Facebook pages saying they heard the booming sound.
"We heard and felt it on the Hamden/Wallingford town line," said reader Dennis Demott.
Suzanne Novak, from Madison, reported that it shook her house in Legend Hill.
People living on the shoreline in Clinton reported hearing it as well.
While it may have been thunder, many people reported that it was just one boom, and that it shook the ground, making it sound like an explosion.
And, with the entire country riveted by the tragedy earlier this week in Boston, and the drama that unfolded today as one bombing suspect was killed and another captured, explosions were on everyone's minds, perhaps making them more apt to report something out of the ordinary to 911.
The National Weather Service did say that conditions were ripe for a thunderstorm Friday night.
Jay, on the Madison Patch Facebook page, wondered if it was a bolide, or a meteor that explodes when it hits the atmosphere. The American Meteor Society website did not log any reports of that overnight, but we have an inquiry in to them to see if this might be a plausible explanation for the sound.
Several calls came into dispatch centers other than Madison, including Connecticut State Troopers at Troop F in Westbrook, and other shoreline towns, according to the responses on the Madison 911 inquiry.
Reader Comments
I quote - "the world will be destroyed by fire". The "world" is an imaginary construct created by men. It may very well be destroyed, by fire, ice, pollution, or stupidity. But the earth will remain. The orb that holds life and allows it to flourish may spew the hell you speak of, but life on this planet will not cease to exist.
The "world" has ended thousands of times. A simple proof is that the Egyptian's, and the Cheyenne's empires (worlds) are gone, and I could list a hundred, if not a thousand more.
To believe that we are the end all be all of life is simply unjust. We just happen to be a portion of life that is aware enough (at least some are) to know that we are horribly fragile. If only one bacteria exists, and has the environment to multiply, then earth will still be a fulcrum of life. We as humans hold ourselves in too high esteem.
The chances of colonizing Mars considering we cannot maintain life on this planet without poisoning it to the core is silly. This lies hand in hand with the idea that the rich will "escape" to some underground hovels and live it out until they can return and rule the planet anew. 2 weeks in an underground cave with some filthy rich jag that no longer has phony money to pay with, constantly bitching that his/her coffee is not prime quality and their pillow wasn't fluffed, will culminate in a bunch of shot dead filthy rich jags by the well trained guards that run their prison.