Reports on Facebook site Deal Watch claim the explosion-type sound was heard across parts of Walmer, Deal, Sholden and Sandwich at about 9pm.
Some said it was like a ship's distress flare while others describe it as like thunder, a firework, a car tyre bursting or a sonic boom.
Walmer resident Rachel Jones said: "I heard several different theories - a tyre blown on Dover Road, fireworks, gas bottle explosion, Defence testing... no one seems to know for definite though, but someone confirmed it wasn't the lifeboat.
"I also was told there had been other bangs earlier in the day, but I didn't hear them and was home all day.
"It was extremely loud, sounded like a shotgun or something exploding to me."
One woman in Walmer Castle Road said she stopped her car because she thought the sound was her tyre exploding.
A sonic boom is the sound associated with the shock waves created whenever an object travels through the air faster than the speed of sound. Sonic booms generate enormous amounts of sound energy, sounding similar to an explosion.
A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: "Neither the RAF nor USAF were doing any night flying in the period mentioned so we do not believe the late night noise was aviation related."
A Kent Police spokesman said nothing had been reported that appeared to be related.
Reader Comments
The waters around that coast are teeming with bombs and (non-beach variety) shells and all manner of war hardware that periodically washes up on shore or turns up in fisherman's nets. They are collected by bomb disposal teams who gather them together, float them into the channel / estuary and do a controlled explosion. I too used to wonder what those huge earth shaking distant booms were. My favourite explanation was that it was "quarrying" - those world famous North Sea underwater quarries... That is what came to mind as soon as I read the headline.
Why would it be at 9pm though? Because it's the busiest shipping lane in the world and they have to time it according to all the other traffic.
I might be wrong, but it's not something the authorities would advertise: "we regularly gather together an enormous pile of bomb-stuff in the world's busiest shipping lane" might attract the wrong sort of interest.
Thank you for the trip down memory lane.
I forgot about the Montgomerybomb. It's a bit difficult to hide, mind you. That would be an impressive boom, with the added extra of prettifying nearby Sheerness.
[Link]