A mysterious boom baffles Tampa Bay, and official sources shrug...

a reply to: worldstarcountry

There is zero chance that it's responsible for any kind of boom. Judging altitude from the ground is extremely hard. Unless he was right next to the bridge, he could have been higher than that, but looked like he was at that altitude. Like I said though, there are any number of reasons for him being that low that are perfectly normal.

Growing up in Miami in the 60s, near the military base, we were quite used to sonic booms-but they were still quite scary.

You could get knocked off your bike if it was strong enough and I do recall looking up and seeing the planes.

I was glad when they outlawed flying past the speed of sound so low.

I am moving there next month so I am not happy to hear this might be starting up again. Certainly hope there are answers to this soon. I know the base in Tampa is the controlling military brain for our forces in the Mideast; also a bit disconcerting.

a reply to: Zaphod58
Hey no prob's your the one that has experience. Your probably right, unlike my brother I have not jumped out of planes for #s and giggles. TERRIFIES me utterly. But man we see a lovely assortment of Military craft throughout the year for a number of festive activities.F-15's -18's, F-22's, C-17's, KC-135, the rare but lovely C-5, I saw an antonov in either 2016, or 2015 when I first moved to this spot with another awesome plane route for the airport, The Coastguard 130's, even NOAA drones flying into the airport.

I just don't know why I have never seen this one before, but am sure excited I did see it. I am telling you man, just call these people tomorrow where we were playing paintball, they have cameras everywhere, they may have one that pointed at the sky. I mean, that is of course unless the FBI showed up and confiscated everybodies cameras along 301 lol j/k.

I don't really have experience measuring distances. But dude, I been watching these planes fly right into the airport my whole life. I have always lived and drived on a weekly basis directly under the primary southern entry routes to TIA. Macdill AFB is even further south by at least 5 miles. I swear to you, that thing was too low from when I see aircraft land to feel that was normal considering how far north we were from the runways. Thats why Im asking if that dome gives it better like cruising or something, cuz I just don't feel like it was supposed to be as low as I saw it.

@OrbitalPaintball
12771 US Hwy 301 N
All of the referees looked up at it because it was actually fairly loud. It is also at least the second time this week it has flown that route based on the testimony of others after the game.
and the Machine auction had hundreds of people there too, they were also witness to it.
Address: 11720 US-301, Thonotosassa, FL 33592
Phone: (813) 986-2485
Their website says they had 938 visitors yesterday for the auction. I wonder how many were there at the time this thing flew by?

Tampa Machinery Auction, Inc. is the largest regularly scheduled public auction in the southeast, selling vehicles and equipment for Government agencies, Corporate fleets, Finance Companies, Dealers and individuals. We have close to a thousand items in each auction.

Please don't tell me they are selling our beloved AWACS and needed to show it at the auction

a reply to: Zaphod58

Hey Z...got a bit of a story and a question.

About 25 years ago, pretty late in the afternoon, I was on my way home from work and the shortcut I took home was a backroad just hell and gone in the middle of nowhere. I'm talkin' nothin' but corn for 50 miles in any direction before you even saw a house. I had the t tops out since it was a nice day, when I hear this ROAR coming up behind me. I check my mirror and there's nothing....but I look up and about 300 ft to my left and 1000 feet up [ if even that ] there's a fighter jet flying fairly slow. He must have hit the throttle because suddenly he pulls up and He. Was. Gone.
My thought was the pilot was just hotdogging/playing around ?
[ wistful sigh ] I've wanted a ride in one of those ever since.

a reply to: DAVID64
as much as I have enjoyed and shared many of your views, I can obviously see when somebody is doing this.


Anyways, that just tells me, drop the subject. Ok dokey, it never happened. You got it guys!

And not one single microphone picked it up.. ?
I want to hear it

a reply to: Spacespider
Dude it was the E-3 flying super low but the "official sources" want to stay quiet here as well. Call any of those businesses I listed in my post and ask them if they saw that or had people say they saw it. Because I promise you right now me and hundreds of others witnessed that thing flying low and loud along the same path of the reports claiming to have heard the boom.

Sometimes to old people, which is a big part of the population in the areas reported, they will describe the really loud rumbling of a huge jet flying super low for whatever reason that does not want to be admitted right now, they will describe it as a sonic boom. They sure arent going to start making rumbling sounds with their lips and throat to demonstrate the sound, so they will just call it a sonic boom.

I did not hear the same kind of sonic boom we get when the F-16's or F-22 flies over Al-Lopez park now and then at like barely a hundred feet for the football games. It was just the super loud rumbling of that E-3 flying over the trees in front of the Machine auction while I was playing paintball. I just want to know why is all at this point, because as I pointed out I am very happy to see it flying I have never seen one flying, especially at that low. And yet nobody is even reporting that a damn E-3 just flew over Thonotassasa along highway 301 with a sheriffs helicopter leading it by about thirty seconds going south towards Macdill Airforce base, thats all I want to know.,

a reply to: UberL33t

Haha, Baynews9 reported this statement from Pasco Deputies and Lakeland PD

Some callers reported seeing military-style jets around the time of the boom, but Pasco deputies were not able to confirm that.
We are aware of the loud boom heard across Polk and parts of Hillsborough County but do not know what caused it. We will share any additional info we receive

Haha, right guys. Seeing that pasco was five minutes north of me, and I saw it come from Pasco county, im going to say that yall are full of BS. Everybody knows it was the Boeing E-3 I saw flying low and #, but for some reason they won't say, eh??? WTH does that tell yall?

originally posted by: worldstarcountry
a reply to: UberL33t
I saw what looked like an AWAC fly along Hwy 301 when I was paintballing today. Im not really sure what an AWACS is, but it was a huge jet with a dome on top, and it looked cool as #. I have never in all my years even seen one come by, although I am sure they have. My friend that was playing with us said he saw it fly by earlier this week along the same route. There may be pics from the group, but they were counting down the game and we all had to start shooting each other.


Damn I had wished I did not leave my phone in the car. I really wanted a pic of it for myself. It was only a few hundred feet off the ground, and the base was still a good 12 miles about. What the hell was that thing doing here man?? Arent those for watching nukes and battle operations and #? I asked somebody tonight who is regularly out there, denied any knowledge of anything. Did anybody get a picture? IIB, did you see it?

Here is a good few 360 photos of inside. Those aircraft have a radar that can see 200/300 miles. About the same distance that a supersonic boom from a jet can be heard. So a training mission could be to guide pilots onto a target.

www.naew.nato.int...

i grew up outside tampa. in the 80's we would hear sonic booms and strange type # quite often and it was always attributed to MCdill base and nobody gave any of it much thought.

Just curious but under what circumstance would an "entity" openly admit it was them? Sure, if it goes horribly wrong in the process they might? I ask because it seems odd that the default action is to ask the military and businesses, as if the military would ever admit what top secret stuff it's up to and as if any business would admit to something like pissing off an entire city. There's always an element of "getting away with it" and I don't understand why the effort is wasted trying to pry info from sources (ie air force) that are never going to be forthright about such things. Of course, I don't think sky booms can really be attributed to "businesses", you'd have to be a massive one with some kind of aerial devices like the air force/military for that. It's an interesting story, always good to know what's going on, thanks for sharing!

Missed the one today but I have heard the boom the past 2 or 3 saturdays.

It is sonic booms, you can hear it double boom.

Pretty loud, it shakes thre house.

Tampa area, gulf coast.

a reply to: worldstarcountry

The only official sources that are going to know anything, are the military, and they only talk about what's going on, if there is going to be a direct impact to the public around the base. They will make a quiet statement, and that's it. If the military were to make an announcement for every routine maneuver that they do, every day, the Public Affairs Office would be doing nothing but issuing press releases 24/7, and would have to be half the size of the rest of the Air Force to handle it. This was a routine flight by an E-3, heading to a training area. It was under positive control by ATC the entire time, and is not being sold at auction.

a reply to: DAVID64

Back around then, they used to have at least a couple complaints a week of pilots playing around during training. They used to play fast and loose, because they were fighter pilots, and that was enough of an excuse.

a reply to: Zaphod58
Well I am glad it is not being sold off. It sure got my head spinning thinking of why it flew in front of the machine auction, and they have sold some large things at that auction. Im not saying the base needed to release anything though. News and law enforcement reached out. They played dumb. Thats it.

I was sleep deprived that hour and still full of liquor, clearly I must sound insane reading all that nonsense I wrote. Whatever, the sonic boom was the E-3 flying and thats all. It just that old people will call things sonic booms when they don't know any better.

But it was so cool seeing that thing, another plane to check off of things I have seen in the skies in an around Tampa.

a reply to: worldstarcountry

Unless the aircraft in question is flying from the base in question they don't have any information on it. If you were to ask McGuire, in New Jersey, about a sonic boom, but the aircraft that caused it was from, say Shaw in South Carolina, McGuire isn't going to know a thing about what Shaw is doing, unless they were flying tankers to support them.

If the E-3 was flying out if Tyndall or Eglin, and they asked MacDill, they aren't going to get any information unless they were involved.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: DAVID64

Back around then, they used to have at least a couple complaints a week of pilots playing around during training. They used to play fast and loose, because they were fighter pilots, and that was enough of an excuse.

Yeah, they did it to an extent around the 00's, too, but they cleaned that up sloppy piloting/hijinks piloting after this happened. I remember that, my sister-in-law & I were out Thanksgiving & Christmas shopping and had to pass through the area not long after the crash. Between the fire & the debris field, it was just a huge fookin' mess. And the traffic crawl from the gawkers, holy hell.

There used to be a training flight path down in southern Sarasota/northern Charlotte county, too. Sonic booms in the boondocks were a regular thing for a long time. Can't tell you how many times we'd expected our windows to be shattered from those, lol, I'm amazed they never did.

Text

originally posted by: worldstarcountry
a reply to: UberL33t
I saw what looked like an AWAC fly along Hwy 301 when I was paintballing today. Im not really sure what an AWACS is, but it was a huge jet with a dome on top, and it looked cool as #. I have never in all my years even seen one come by, although I am sure they have. My friend that was playing with us said he saw it fly by earlier this week along the same route. There may be pics from the group, but they were counting down the game and we all had to start shooting each other.


Damn I had wished I did not leave my phone in the car. I really wanted a pic of it for myself. It was only a few hundred feet off the ground, and the base was still a good 12 miles about. What the hell was that thing doing here man?? Arent those for watching nukes and battle operations and #? I asked somebody tonight who is regularly out there, denied any knowledge of anything. Did anybody get a picture? IIB, did you see it?

Pictures at following link.

USAF Boeing E-3 Sentry on approach MacDill AFB Tampa

twitter.com...

I had a AWACS E-3 Sentry fly over Valrico a few hours ago

twitter.com...

a reply to: UberL33t

My husband I both heard it, I was home, he was at work, we work and live in eastern Pasco County, we also heard three of those booms last night around 9:00pm , but they werent as loud as saturdays
Saturdays literally shook my block house and I thought the widows were going to shatter. Also yesterday Florida Guard helicopters were flying so low their rotors were vibrating the glass in the windows, not sure if theres any connection

a reply to: tommyjo
Cool. Im going to get a mountable camera for my marker. If thats the route cool planes like that take, its why I don't see them on this side. Next time I am there, i'll just aim my marker up and record what flies by.