Mystery Booms Confound Residents of Connecticut

Smoke bellows out from Pierpont Road under Interstate 84 in Waterbury, Connecticut, following a loud mystery boom on the night of November 6th. (Saqib Omar) — Smoke bellows out from Pierpont Road under Interstate 84 in Waterbury, Connecticut, following a loud mystery boom on the night of November 6th. *(Saqib Omar)*

Residents of the East End neighborhood of Waterbury, Connecticut say they’ve been plagued by a series of loud, late-night mystery booms for months. The booms, which resemble concussive blasts, come much later in the evening than would be normal for a contractor using explosives for construction.

Most recently, on the night of November 6th, landscape company owner Saqib Omar said he was watching television with his wife, Maria M. Guedes, in their East Main Street apartment when they heard and felt an explosion violent enough to rattle their windows. Omar ran to the window to see what might have caused the disturbance and told his 13-year-old son, Emmanuel, to start recording.

His son's recording shows a thick cloud of gray smoke billowing out from beneath a bridge supporting Interstate 84 over Pierpont Road.

“People are confusing it for fireworks,” Omar told the Republican American. “I’m like, that’s not fireworks. That’s like a dynamite stick or a pipe bomb. It has that impact. I felt it on my windows.”

Omar said that he’s heard similar blasts around his neighborhood for about three months.

Prior to Omar's experience, resident Elizabeth Bartley said she saw a bright flash of light, accompanied by a "sound like a dumpster being dropped from 10 feet up," while traveling to her Fairwood Avenue home after turning onto Pierpont Road from East Main Street at about 7 pm on October 27th.

The flash came from her right, she said, in a grassy area by the Eagle's Nest apartments. That apartment complex is less than a block from the bridge where Omar's son captured his video of billowing smoke following that family's experience with a mysterious explosion.

According to Bartley, she has regularly heard the mystery booms in recent months, as often as every night for a week, although sometimes there is a few days reprieve between events.

“There is never a long period going by without us hearing it,” she said.

East End Alderman George Noujaim said that he has also experienced a shock wave accompanying the mystery booms, which he said are increasing in frequency. Noujaim said he is either himself hearing the booms or getting reports of them almost every day from sunset to 3 am.

“Now it’s multiple times a night,” Noujaim said. “Before it was once every couple days.”

The Waterbury Police Department has investigated the incidents by canvassing the neighborhood and looking for clues, but so far, the booms remain unexplained.

Police spokesman Lt. David Silverio said that police have found no debris associated with the blasts, nor have there been any injuries or damage reported.

“Detectives spoke with a lot of people and have yet to find a source,” he said.

The reported mystery booms in Waterbury follow a series of similar incidents shared last February to the “Stratford Get Answers” community Facebook group for Stratford, Connecticut—a town about 30 miles south of Waterbury.

Residents there reported hearing a series of booms throughout February, which some speculated could have been caused by M80 fireworks, although others thought the noises were definitely louder than fireworks.

Stratford Public Safety Director Larry Ciccarelli said he canvassed the town’s public safety agencies and administration, but no one has yet officially reported hearing the sounds.

“Obviously if someone has a concern they should either call the regular (police) number or call 911,” he said.

Stratford police also said that they had received no formal reports of the booms.

Several years before the events in Waterbury and Stratford, residents in southeastern Connecticut said they'd heard several loud mystery booms on the morning of November 29th, 2013.

Police in Stonington—a village about 75 miles east of Stratford—said they received more than 100 calls from concerned citizens who reported hearing at least four loud booms, beginning at 9:11 am.

"We live in Ledyard near the Mystic line and our house shook so hard I thought there was an explosion right outside," resident Kathy Dunn said of the booms.

The fire chief in the nearby village of Old Mystic said that he also heard and felt the mystery booms.

"I thought 'oh, maybe we just had an earthquake,'" said Chief Kenneth Richards.

According to Richards, the sounds came in succession about 15 minutes apart.

Police in the area said that no one saw or reported any type of explosion, although the Department of Homeland Security was notified of the booms.

Officers in Groton Town also received calls, and were similarly unable to determine the source of the booms.

Reports of mysterious booms—sometimes accompanied by flashes of light and/or minor tremors—have been on the rise worldwide since at least 2017, continuing throughout 2018, into 2019 and into 2020. The booms have been reported across the United States in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, North and South Carolina, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Washington, and Wisconsin; as well as in the countries of Russia, Denmark, England, and Australia.

Meteors and other natural events—such as frost quakes—remain popular explanations for the booms, and bolide meteors were blamed for mystery booms in California, Michigan, and Washington in 2018. Some have also speculated that certain of the events could have man-made causes like sonic booms or explosives. However, no blanket explanation covers every occurrence of a mystery boom and many cases go unexplained entirely.

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