Mystery Booms – Colchester IL, Portland OR, Bellingham WA

On March 17th, an unexplained boom shook and startled the residents of Colchester Illinois. Below are two first hand accounts.

I’m not exactly sure what time the boom was but I was doing dishes and it almost sounded like a sonic boom but not quite the same. It was extremely loud out here and I thought maybe there was an explosion at the neighbors or over at the brickyard. So I went to look and there was nothing going on. I looked in the sky and didn’t see any strange clouds or streams in the air like an aircraft might leave. It did scare my dalmation. He yelped at the time but he whines when the alarm clock goes off so I don’t know that that means anything. LOL It was like a loud rumble with the sound of a boom. I didn’t notice anything in the house shake at all. Hope this helps. I know it isn’t much information. I should have paid more attention to what was going on.

It was just such a shock to hear something that loud, and then to have the house vibrate at the same time. My thoughts always go to sonic booms or the rock crusher blasting, but this was way more powerful than any of those we have ever heard! The whole house shook. H. said he heard a crusher blast today when he was outside, and I never heard or felt a thing inside the house. I know it was very widespread. I called Pat and he heard it, and we talked to friends in Macomb that heard it! Let me know if you find out anything!! I personally have not heard anything like it before!!

We have covered previous mystery booms, including May 2009 boom heard in California and two March 2009 reports from the East Coast (March 9th and March 29th).

Ten days after the Colchester boom, another mystery boom was reported 2000 miles to the west in Portland Oregon. At 8pm on March 27th, 2010, reports starting coming from the Portland area, Southeast 84th Avenue and Flavel Street to Southeast 33rd Avenue and Hawthorne Boulevard to Northeast 122nd Avenue, Airport Way and from as far away as Happy Valley. Local air traffic control reported no sightings of a fire ball and the mystery of the noise has never been solved.

Less than a week after that, another mysterious boom was reported over Bellingham Washington. On Monday, April 19, at 3:45 am, residents reported something that sounded “like a jet engine”.

Neither the Naval Air Station on Whidbey Island, the Bellingham International Airport and the Bellingham Police Department could explain the mysterious sound that some report to hear for on and off for 5 to 10 minutes and other for over 45 minutes.