Loud noises causes aggression, not fear in cat???

I have a 2 year old brown tiger cat I adopted when she was approximately 1 year old from a shelter. She was a stray. Not long after bringing her home I discovered she reacted VERY aggressively toward loud noises. This cat does not run away and hide, but rather seeks out the noise and means to "attack" it! I've never seen this behavior in a cat. She practically attacked a phone service man, who was testing my phone lines with a device that emits loud beeps/tones. I had to remove her from the room. Then the other day, I was changing the batteries in my smoke detector and it went off. The cat approached me with the meanest stance/look on her face. If I hadn't turned it off, I swear she would have attacked the smoke detector and probably me in the process since I was holding it. I can live with this problem, I will never give the cat up since otherwise I love her very much. I'm just curious if anyone has any insight or experience that can lend an explanation to this behavior. I tried "googling", but couldn't find anything. Thanks!

I've heard of cats doing that before. Rather than hiding, they attack the noise. The one experience I have with that is the "alpha" female. She was always dominant, so was not afraid to go after the noise.

i think you may be right. this cat had a litter of kittens that were captured along with her. the shelter adopted all her kittens out, and then used her as a "surrogate" mother for some abandoned kittens. when she was no longer "useful", they put her up for adoption and that's when i found her and adopted her. at first, she was extremely aggressive with me and other people (not just noises). she would sleep on top of me (right near my neck/face) and if i woke up/moved suddenly, it would freak her out and i actually got bit/scratched a few times. she was over-protective. she also acted aggressive toward other people. over time, that behavior stopped, but not the reaction to loud noises. i just can't imagine what happened to this cat to make her this way???????