Mystery boom still confounding officials

A tremendous boom that shattered the quiet of a Friday night in rural west Georgia continues to defy explanation.

Residents of Carroll, Douglas and Haralson counties heard it, and officials in all three counties tried to find what caused it.

They're still trying.

Douglas County Communication Director Wes Tallon said "911 calls lit up" the switchboard after the 9:45 p.m. noise rattled windows across a large area of west Georgia.

"There was no catastrophe, we know that," Tallon told the AJC Saturday morning.

Tallon, who lives in East Douglas, did not hear the blast. But plenty of people in the western area of the county, and in Carroll and Haralson counties farther to the west, did hear it.

Villa Rica authorities dispatched several police and fire units to the Mirror Lake subdivision when the sound was first reported, but they found no damage or even smoke.

"People all over the city heard the boom, but we couldn't find anything," a police department receptionist said late Friday.

The National Weather Service in Peachtree City had no natural explanation for it. And there were no obvious signs of damage on the ground.

An amateur astronomer who has published several books about sky-watching said one could probably rule out a natural phenomenon such as a meteorite.

"A really big meteor can make a sonic boom, but if it did it would make a big flash of light," ...

Bergen checked with radar installations in the area at the request of the AJC and confirmed that there were no logs of military flights around the time of the boom Friday night. And there shouldn't have been, anyway. ...

via Mystery boom still confounding officials  | ajc.com.