SEQUIM – The cause of loud booms heard in the Dungeness Valley on Sunday remains a mystery.
“I was sitting in my living room, and I heard a loud sonic boom,” said Dale Boehm of Carlsborg.
“It rattled the windows, and it sounded like an earthquake.”
A sonic boom is produced when an aircraft accelerates to the point that it breaks the sound barrier.
Clallam County PenCom dispatchers received two calls about the noises at about 4:45 p.m. Sunday.
The Peninsula Daily News also received several calls reporting the booms.
The Air National Guard, Coast Guard and Whidbey Island Naval Air Station all say their aircraft aren’t capable of producing a sonic boom.
The Federal Aviation Administration and Travel Canada – the Canadian FAA equivalent – both say they had no reports of aircraft causing a sonic boom during that time.
The McChord Air Force Base reported no aircraft in the area at the time.
Mateo Chavez, who lives in the Dungeness Valley, heard jets overhead before he heard the loud sounds.
“I was inside at the time, but a lot of the people out here also saw the jets,” Chavez said.
“There were two really loud booms and you could feel them as well.”
Boehm said he saw a jet flying over after he heard the sounds.
“I am a Vietnam War vet, so it scared me,” he said.
“It sounded like a 500 pound bomb going off in my backyard and I know what that sounds like.”
“It definitely shook the house, so you could have been asleep and you would have heard it.”
According to the Pacific Northwest Seismograph Network Web site, no earthquakes occurred during that time in the area.
