© Scott DeSmit/Daily News
Randy Smith said he has been hearing loud booms near his house for about two years and most recently last week three booms shook his house and startled his dog, Sandy.
Alabama - It was about midnight on a night last week when Randy Smith took his dog outside and for the third time this year, heard the mysterious booms.
"Three times in a row I heard it," Smith said. "It sounds as loud as a sonic boom. Maybe louder. As soon as it goes off, the dog starts growling and gets startled."
Smith and his father, Laverne Smith, live at 748 Lewiston Rd. (Route 77) and have been hearing the booms for nearly two years now.
They cannot pinpoint the source of the noise.
"You can't tell what direction it's coming from," Laverne Smith, 76, said. "The last good weather we had I was out near the shed and heard it."
Last year they heard the booms about 10 times, sometimes during the day and sometimes at night.
"It seems to be just around here," Randy Smith said. "I asked my sister who lives in Alabama Center and she hasn't heard it."
It is a phenomena that has sparked curiosity throughout the country for several years now.
The booms, however, have grown more frequent.
In December, people in Rhode Island, Alabama, Georgia, Texas and Oklahoma reported hearing unusual booms and explosions.
Newspaper reports revealed no unusual seismic activity in those regions and all the noises have yet to be explained.
In January, hundreds of people in northern Utah called emergency dispatchers reporting booms and shaking of the earth.
The cause remains a mystery, though the Air Force said it had done training exercises, dropping bombs in the desert.
