Just heard the strangest noise.....

I just heard the strangest noise outside our house. Well, I didn't see anything so I'm not sure where it came from. At first it sounded like someone lit a blow torch right outside the window and after about 15 secs it escalated and ended in what sounded like a sonic boom! Now, we're about 3 hours driving time from Langley Airforce Base so I guess they COULD be doing practice flights but this far away? When I lived in Guam (small island, BIG airforce and navy base) we would have stealth bombers do practice runs and that is kind of what it sounded like....but not really.

I got used to it there, but this is the first time in 6 years of living back here that I've EVER heard that. Anything going on that I don't know about?

I live about 2 hrs from Edwards AFB. It could be a sonic boom. When the shuttle lands here occasionally here, you can here the sonic boom. It probably was one of their jet fighters taking off.

I know that woosh boom sound - if you are really lucky, you will see a very low flying black fighter way ahead of the racket. As I live out in the boonies, I get this from one Canadian base and one US base. Last winter, I was out doing snow removal and something in the sky caught my eye.....something black. very fast flying and very VERY low, maybe 1000 feet at tops. This was followed by the whoosh BOOM that shook the tractor.

Maybe the Ghost of christmas past? Lol jk

Whenever I hear something like a blowtorch outside, I know it's time again for the Plano Balloon Festival! Sometimes the balloons fly low over our house and you can hear it when they fire up the gas jets to gain altitude.

I don't think hot-air balloons can reach sonic-boom speed, though, so that's probably not what you heard.

My first thought was a hot air balloon too. Don't know about that boom sound though.