A meteor entered the atmosphere Saturday near the New Hampshire-Massachusetts border, setting off twin explosions that shook buildings in New England.
BOSTON — Reports of loud explosions in New England police Agencies and others are scrambling to understand what caused Saturday’s twin booms at buildings in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
The American Meteor Society said Saturday that the explosion was actually a meteor about 3 feet wide that entered the atmosphere around the New Hampshire-Massachusetts border north of Boston.
Robert Lunsford, the association’s fireball project monitor, said the organization received dozens of reports from Delaware to Montreal of people either hearing a double explosion, feeling the ground shake, or seeing a fireball — which he said looked like a meteor in the daytime sky.
“It was certainly larger than a normal fireball, about a yard across,” he said.
But Lunsford said it was unlikely the meteor hit the ground.
“We need more information about the trajectory, speed and other aspects to determine whether it hit the ground, but if it didn’t burn, then it landed in the ocean,” he said. “Most of them burned before they hit the ground.”
People in a handful of states posted on social media that they felt their buildings shake. Several videos posted on X also captured what sounded like two rapid explosions, with no fire, smoke or other visual cause.
The roar was heard around 2 p.m. ET, with reports shaking homes and leaving residents feeling different than before.
“On our lightning mapper, based on satellite data, you can see exactly where the lightning entered the atmosphere very close to Boston that caused all the excitement,” WBZ-TV Chief Meteorologist Eric Fisher said in a report video.
this map A quick, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it flash of lightning appeared in the frame, which Fisher said was a meteor explosion.
Space meteorologist Nick Stewart Agree with that assessment, as the large flash seen on weather tracking software “is not associated with an active thunderstorm.”
“The flash density product does show this unusual ‘flash’ that is very unique to the bolide/meteor reentry east of Boston,” he wrote. “This may be the source of the loud noise/explosion.”
this Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety said they are investigating reports of “audible roaring and ground shaking in eastern Massachusetts” but there are no known emergency calls related to the roaring and they “do not believe there is any public safety threat.”
Roaring sounds were reported for dozens of miles around the Boston area, and residents documented their experiences on social media.
“Heard and felt in Needham. We thought a tree fell on our house,” one person commented on Fisher’s video. Needham, Massachusetts is approximately 16 miles from Boston.
A resident of Melrose, Massachusetts, told reporters: “The whole house, actually all the houses in the neighborhood were shaking. It was much louder than a transformer exploding, and it was definitely not an earthquake.” WCVB.
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