Did the Pocono 'boom' wake you up? Find out what it probably was – Pocono Record
Meteors, a tannerite explosion, an earthquake… even aliens have been blamed for a mysterious “boom” heard Monday night in the Poconos.
Users on various social media platform, such as Facebook and the Poconos subreddit, debated the source of a lightning and thunder combo strong enough to shake homes, and be felt across the wide expanse of Monroe County’s more than 600 square miles. A video submitted by Lora Guinn to the Pocono Record on Tuesday features a view of her backyard in Chestnuthill Township captured by a Ring home security camera. A bright flash of light can be seen at 14 seconds into the video, followed by rumbling thunder. Guinn’s house is then seen to visibly shake, and the camera cuts off.
Did it actually happen? And what was it? Read on for what could be the likely answer.
According to the United States Geological Survey website, only one earthquake has occurred on the East Coast of the mainland U.S. in the last seven days. That quake occurred more than 36 miles off the coast of Maine on Friday, April 15.
The website Volcanic Discovery reported the event after it happened Monday night, originating at an “Epicenter latitude/longitude” of 41.07647°N/75.05528°W, in the Winona Lakes area. Volcanic Discovery marked the event as “disregarded” and “likely no quake” Tuesday.
“Reported seismic-like event (likely no quake): Pennsylvania, 22 mi west of Sparta, Sussex County, New Jersey, USA, Monday, Apr 18, 2022 at 11:20 pm,” the posting reads.
Eight people submitted “user reports” detailing how long the event was felt, and where. User reports estimate the perceived ground shaking intensity according to the MMI (Modified Mercalli Intensity) scale, according to the website.
A user based in Saylorsburg, more than 20 miles away from the area thought to be the epicenter, reported “Light shaking (MMI IV)” along with a “horizontal flash of light” and a “very loud bang” that lasted for a minute. Another user, also from Saylorsburg, reported “moderate shaking (MMI V)” and a “loud continuous rumble.” The user also wrote that it was the loudest explosion they’d ever heard.
“Had bathroom ceiling light cover fall and break blew out well pump breaker and plants on window sill fell.. first was loudest explosion I’ve ever heard,” the user wrote.
The event was also felt in Pike County, with a user in the Ranch Lands reporting a “rumbling for a few seconds.”
According to the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, a 5.8-magnitude earthquake in central Virginia in 2011 was widely felt in Pennsylvania, and was the largest recorded quake in the central and eastern United States since 1944.
Pocono Record’s earthquake tracker website (data.poconorecord.com/earthquake) reported no seismic activity on Monday, and Pennsylvania has not yet experienced a significant seismic event this year. The data posted on our earthquake tracker site goes back to 1994, and is updated every 10 minutes.
Was it an earthquake? Probably not.
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Tobyhanna Army Depot is a military installation in Monroe County, about 22 miles north west of what was thought to be the epicenter of the event. While the Depot focuses mostly on communications, they are known to conduct tactical exercises for training purposes. The last simulation, an “active shooter drill”, was held on March 25, and during the day. The Depot notifies the public ahead of time of these exercises.
“The exercise is designed to evaluate the depot’s capabilities to respond to different scenarios. Visitors and employees may notice an increased use of emergency services vehicles, and security personnel carrying weapons and tactical equipment during the exercise,” representatives for the Depot said in a press release in March. “The public should not be alarmed if they see personnel responding to simulations or hear the associated noises such as blank gunfire or sirens. Exercises like this are held regularly to provide insight into organizational capabilities and improve upon emergency response processes.”
The Depot had not yet responded to a request for comment by time of press Wednesday, and seeing as they did not issue any notices ahead of time, as they normally do, Monday’s “boom” was likely not related to any military activity.
Was it the military? All signs point to “no.”
While the Poconos could be considered a hot spot for unidentified aerial phenomena sightings, the cause of the incident may have less to do with the extraterrestrial than you’d hope.
A “fireball” is defined by NASA as an “exceptionally bright meteor” that can be seen over a wide area of land.
Fireballs are among the most common UFO/UAP sightings reported in the Poconos to websites like the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC), but the website’s database was last updated in March.
The last regional UAP sighting was logged on NUFORC Dec. 14, 2021 from Dingmans Ferry. The anonymous user that made that report included photos of “disks.” The “disks” in question are black, numerous and appear birdlike in the images. The user described the objects as “15 crafts traveling across the sky a couple of discs and some that look like black hexagons.”
More recent fireball sightings in the Poconos reportedly occurred 2017 and 2018 over Lake Wallenpaupack.
The Lyrid meteor shower began on April 14 and continues until the end of the month. But recent meteor sightings just don’t line up.
The American Meteor Society logged 26 reports of a fireball spotted in the sky over Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Ontario, Canada, at around 11:46 p.m. on Sunday, just about 24 hours earlier than the incident experienced by Monroe County residents. While none of the Pennsylvania sightings happened in the Poconos, users from New York provided additional details in their reports.
“It looked almost like it hit something the way it broke apart at the end. But the whole thing was only 2-3 seconds,” Brianna F. reported from Webster, NY.
Dennis R. in Portville, NY wrote: “Definitely not a shooting star. Too close and large.”
According Robert Lunsford of the American Meteor Society, the incident captured in Guinn’s security camera video “certainly appeared” to be thunder following a flash of lightning.
“The flash from a meteor occurs at a much higher altitude than lightning,” Lunsford told the Pocono Record via email. “Therefore any sound from a meteor would have occurred roughly a minute after a flash and not a few seconds.”
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Several postings blamed the boom on actual dynamite, and while such an allegation may appear to be extreme, there’s precedent for it.
In 2018, a series of explosions in the West End of Monroe County were thought to be caused by Tannerite, a binary rifle target shot indicator. The substance can be used as a target for recreational shooting and explodes on impact. The 2018 incidents were heard, and felt, from Kresgeville to Blakeslee and elsewhere. The amounts necessary to cause those explosions, however, had some experts skeptical of the substance as the source.
“You’d have to do massive amounts,” Bill Broderick, then a staffer at Dunkelberger’s Sports Outfitter, told the Pocono Record in 2018. “It would be flagged by Homeland Security if someone has bought excessive amounts of the explosive material. They could be shooting up propane gas tanks.”
Chris Eckert, a Chestnuthill supervisor at the time of the 2018 report, said a pound of Tannerite equals the sound of a quarter stick of dynamite.
Trooper Anthony Petroski, Public Information Officer for Pennsylvania State Police Troop N, was unaware of any official police reports related to Monday’s incident at the time of this story.
Was it Tannerite? Probably not.
The event happened hours into an April shower — snow shower, that is. Some areas of Monroe County received several inches of snow overnight Monday.
If the “boom” was in fact thunder, you aren’t wrong if you thought it was louder than usual. Cold air is known to magnify soundwaves. Plenty of Monroe County’s numerous townships and boroughs experienced temperatures below freezing Monday night.
“A dynamic late winter storm tracking north over New Jersey created an unstable atmosphere conducive to embedded thunderstorms, despite the chilly conditions,” said Ben Gelber, a meteorologist working in Ohio who grew up in the Poconos.
The region experienced an “inversion,” meaning there was a separation between cold air at the surface and “mild Atlantic air” a few thousand feet up. This weather phenomenon “reflected and refracted the thunder downward.”
So while the noise was just thunder, it really was more intense than usual.
“The shock wave (thunder) made windows rattle because of the proximity to the surface caused by the inversion, or lid, above dome of cold, damp air,” Gelber said.
“The sound was essentially bouncing (ducting) between the ground and the warm, stable layer multiple times, and off the ridges that would have made the reverberating blast even louder in some valley locations,” he added.
The big boom wasn’t the only unusual weather in Monroe County on Monday night.
“Flurries are one thing,” Gelber said, but “moderate snowfall is very unusual after the 10th of April, even in our neck of the woods.”
Mount Pocono received 4.2 inches of snow Monday into Tuesday, and much of Pike and Wayne counties got 4 to 8 inches.
— Pocono Record Senior Reporter Brian Myszkowski contributed to this report.
