What Was That? Mysterious Boom Reported by Dartmouth Residents

Did you feel that?

Dozens of people in Dartmouth Tuesday afternoon reported experiencing a mysterious boom, leaving them wondering if it was an unexpected earthquake that shook the SouthCoast or mother nature at work.

Chatter online began just before 3 p.m., shortly after an unexplained rumble passed through Dartmouth.

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One man reported feeling his house shake on Fisher Road, saying the event sounded like an explosion, while a woman on Lucy Little Road reported the same thing.

In a similar thread, SouthCoast residents chimed in as they tried to uncover the source of the “explosion.”

While some online users in the Faunce Corner Road area believed the sound to be thunder, others believed it to be an earthquake. Others in the Dartmouth group and a Westport group suggested the noise was tied to ledge-blasting off of Fisher Road.

According to Dartmouth Police, however, it’s most likely weather-related.

“We couldn’t find anything,” Detective Kyle Costa after the station received several phone calls about the big boom. “It could have been a small earthquake, but we think it’s thunder. It’s pretty dark over here.”

One of the Dartmouth police officers was in the area at the time of the boom as he got dispatched for the call, and their initial instinct was that the sound was simply a loud crack of thunder.

“Dartmouth remains uneventful for another day,” Costa said.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, there were no confirmed earthquakes near Massachusetts for May 2 as of mid-afternoon.

A thunderous boom might typically be a cause for concern, but in this case, it seems to be an impressive stint of thunder courtesy of Mother Nature. Scattered showers were in the forecast around the SouthCoast.

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