As Edward would say ....

[Thumper]

DAYUM!! I'm making a note here ... at 6:19 pm ... just a couple minutes ago ... there was a hell of an explosion somewhere nearby! I have no clue what it was, but it sure wouldn't be a good thing if I had PTSD or sumpin'! I wonder what just blew up?

[Buckrub]

Well?

[Niner]

A power transformer maybe???

[Thumper]

No clue. Can't find anything on the net. Gonna have to check tomorrow's paper I suppose.

[Thumper]

A power transformer maybe???

That was my first thought Niner. It was fairly close as the house was all closed up, tv on, etc. but the lights didn't even flicker. I was in my office and Lynn was in the master bedroom watching tv ... we simultaneously hollered, "WTF was THAT!!??"

Not a word in the news today. I have no clue.

[Niner]

Could have been on another circuit...or...one of those cylindrical ones that feed just one house.

[Buckrub]

Thump + KFC = Explosion

[Thumper]

Well DAYUM again! I guess the Sheriff's Dept. thinks they solved the mystery ... but NO WAY was what I heard a .50 cal! Mulberry is about 15 miles south of us. This was in today's paper ...

Sheriff's Office Receives at Least 10 Reports
Loud Booms Disturb Mulberry Residents
By Matthew Pleasant
THE LEDGER

Published: Tuesday, February 19, 2013 at 12:01 a.m.


LAKELAND | The noise jolted Gay Harlowe from her chair, shattering the Saturday evening calm and rattling her patio doors.

It alarmed her so much she dialed the Polk County Sheriff's Office. In two hours, at least 10 people in Mulberry reported the same thunderous booms.

"You wonder if it's your house falling apart," Harlowe said, "or if your neighbor is OK."

Deputies searched Mulberry that night for the sound's source and found two men firing a .50-caliber rifle on Indian Oak Drive. Other callers reported the smell of smoke and flashes like fireworks. As far as the Sheriff's Office is concerned, the mystery is solved.

"We didn't find, see, or hear anything else out there that could explain the noise," said Carrie Eleazer, a sheriff's spokeswoman.

But Tommy Lash, 46, owner of Fifth Wheel Truck and Trailer Repair, isn't satisfied.

The booms he heard Saturday triggered alarms in the Industrial Park Road complex where he worked on a truck, he said. The bay doors of his shop clattered. He saw flashes of light in the sky to the west.

"That's wild," he thought.

Lash found deputies searching for the noise's source near where Nichols Road turns into Old Nichols Road in Mulberry.

He wondered whether a meteorite had crashed from the sky.

Harlowe, 72, dialed a distressed next door neighbor in the ImperiaLakes subdivision after the first boom. "Did you hear that noise?" the neighbor asked. "Do you know what it was?"

The noise reminded Harlowe of the sound space shuttles made when they cut a path above Polk County when they returned — a sonic boom.

Miles away from Mulberry on Saturday, something else that can travel faster than the speed of sound flew over Florida — military jets.

Federal Aviation Administration officials said Monday multiple aircraft flew into restricted air over the Treasure Coast on Saturday and Sunday.

President Barack Obama had been vacationing in Palm City, and jets escorted a Cessna 152 from the no-fly zone Saturday and forced it to land in Stuart, The Associated Press reported.

The FAA couldn't confirm Monday whether the jets came anywhere close to Polk.

Twenty minutes after the first boom, Harlowe said, another sounded, only fainter.

Her phone rang. "You hear that one?" a neighbor asked.

A third boom came, even quieter. Harlowe stepped from her home and strained to hear.

All she heard, very faint in the distance, were blaring sirens.


[ Matthew Pleasant can be reached at matthew.pleasant@theledger.com or 863-802- 7590. ]
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