The incident was reported around 9:45 p.m. Wednesday night by many island residents who took to social-media sites to describe the loud noise that shook their homes and ask if others had experienced the same thing.
While the suspected culprit is a military aircraft that broke the sound barrier over the island, there was no definitive confirmation of the specific source of the noise.
Nantucket Memorial Airport tower manager Patrick Topham stated in a message "we have no confirmation as to what caused it at this point. We have to assume that it was a sonic boom caused by a military aircraft."
Nantucket police lieutenant Jerry Adams stated the source of the noise was a "sonic jet."
A similar incident occurred several months ago on the evening of Wednesday, March 21, when Nantucket residents reported a loud noise that shook houses.
As a child our family lived some five hundred yards from the north fence of Davis Monthan air base. Sonic booms shook our house often from over flying training missions. In those days the air force didn't care. They were after all protecting us from the commies. At times we thought the plane had crashed the boom was so loud. Once an F-86 lost a wing tank which landed just outside the fence.
I think that sonic booms have become so rare that it becomes a mystery for people who hear them today. Just my feeling.