A mysterious blast was heard by thousands of Americans along the East Coast, shaking homes and startling locals.
The sonic boom, a loud explosion-like noise that occurs when an object breaks the sound barrier, was recorded by doorbell cameras and surveillance video throughout South Carolina around 5.24pm ET on Thursday.
However, there have been multiple reports from people in North Carolina, Georgia and Virginia who also heard the massive boom overhead several miles away.
Videos shared online captured the moment when a quiet afternoon in local neighborhoods was suddenly disrupted by the echoing blast that shook buildings and homes, sending residents into a panic and pets running under cars.
There has been widespread speculation that the blast was caused by a military jet breaking the speed of sound or a meteor ripping through Earth’s atmosphere. However, both military officials and NASA denied either incident taking place that day.
The US Geological Survey, which typically tracks earthquakes, has confirmed that a large sonic boom was recorded on Thursday and was centered over Saint Andrews, South Carolina.
Some witnesses were close enough to feel the sudden spike in air pressure a sonic boom causes, known as a compression wave, with meteorologist and storm chaser Chris Jackson saying: ‘It felt like someone shoved me right in my chest an instant before the boom began.’
One person reacting to a video of the terrified animals at Frisky Business Rescue in Lexington County said: ‘These poor puppies had ZERO clue what was coming… One minute they’re just chilling, the next – BOOM. The sonic boom that shook the entire South Carolina Midlands this afternoon sent them into full panic mode.’
Ring doorbell cameras in South Carolina caught the moment as local pets ran for cover as the sonic boom is heard overhead
The US Geological Survey revealed that they received over 1,600 reports from at least four states regarding the sonic boom
The sonic boom may have also been caused by a military jet surpassing Mach 1, the technical term for breaking the sound barrier.
The US military has noted that military aircraft do fly at supersonic speeds while traveling over American airspace, but they typically do this in specially designated areas so the public does not hear a sonic boom.
In 2024, the Pentagon’s Noise Working Group said: ‘Sonic booms produced by DOD [Department of Defense] flight operations are heard primarily by people living in low population areas in the vicinity of certain Special Use Airspace (SUA).’
‘Sonic booms are generally experienced at random and relatively infrequent times within these areas as short-duration noise intrusions of widely varying level.’
However, that part of South Carolina where the boom was reportedly centered is not a Special Use Airspace.
Officials at the nearest SUA, Fort Jackson in Columbia, South Carolina, also told WLTX that they were ‘unaware of the cause at the time.’
The mystery of the sonic boom grew even stranger after a NASA official added that there have not been any confirmed reports of a meteor over the US on Thursday afternoon.
Bill Cooke from NASA’s Meteoroid Environments Office said there have been ‘no eyewitness reports of a fireball and no satellite detections of a meteor over the area at the time.’
However, videos have also emerged on social media appearing to show a long white trail overhead, leading many to speculate that the sonic boom was caused by a meteor breaking the speed of sound (767 mph) and cutting across the sky.
USGS confirmed the explosion-like sound was not an earthquake, but US officials have not detected a meteor hitting Earth or any military jet activity in the area at that time
Pictured: A US military fighter is seen going supersonic and breaking the sound barrier, causing a sonic boom and compression wave (Stock Image)
With no reports of a meteor striking the Earth’s atmosphere, Robert Lunsford from the American Meteor Society suspected that the likeliest explanation for the boom was a ‘military jet.’
However, witnesses throughout the area were not convinced this was an ordinary plane creating this noise.
One person claimed on X: ‘This was a meteor. I have heard sonic booms from jets and this sounded exactly like the sonic boom in Ohio from the meteor.’
Unlike Thursday’s sonic boom, the residents in Pennsylvania and Ohio were able to capture clear footage of a large fireball streaking through the sky on March 17, which also produced a similar boom.
The meteor was also seen by space satellites around 9am ET that day and seen by human eyes about one hour later.
As of January 2026, the Meteoritical Bulletin Database has recorded more than 1,200 officially confirmed ‘observed falls,’ meteorites that were seen falling to Earth and later recovered.
Scientists estimate around 17,000 meteorites strike the planet each year, but most land in oceans or remote areas, meaning only about 1.8 percent of meteorites have actually been witnessed.
