Extremely Loud Aircraft Roaring Across Sky

I'm still relatively new to posting here at ATS but i have been reading countless articles and posts here for well over a year, so if the Category is wrong my apologies.Anyhow,


I have been reading a lot today about the loud "booms" that have occurred in Southern California and off the Monterey Bay Coast these past 2 days and since I live in Merced, CA (Inland Central Cali) i have been considerably concerned.

Suddenly in the midst of my reading more about the events, at about 9:35 PM local time, I hear this loud loud roar coming from outside. Mind you had all the windows closed, the TV on AND the house heater on (which is very loud) and i still heard a very loud roar from outside entering the house.

I run outside immediately in panic and only see clouds in the direction of the sound. However, the sound is louder then ever now. I live with in miles of the old Castle AFB where B-52's use to be stationed and other considerably sized aircraft have taken off and landed through the years. This being the case i am somewhat aware of the average powerful aircraft and the sound it makes as it rises from the ground and as it run's u p its engines.

This sound however is the loudest sound I have ever heard come from the sky and even though i could not view the aircraft with my eyes, i could very clearly hear the aircraft streak across the sky at a very fast pace in the direction of SouthEast.

In total, from when i first heard the sound to when i could hear the aircraft obviously traveling away and the sound fading out, the loud roaring lasted probably a total of 1 minute to 1.5 minutes.

I contacted my father who also lives here and told him to go outside and listen to it. He was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam and is very familiar with loud aircraft sounds. He told me the sound reminded him of the volume of when the B-52's in Vietnam would run there engines at full power in between the bunkers. Since they are between the bunkers the sound is concentrated in a smaller area increasing the already very loud volume of the engines. He added he had never heard a sound of that magnitude come from an aircraft in midflight.

This is above all to inform the people, but any possible explanations, additions or questions are greatly appreciated.


Edit: Last sentence of Father's account.

[edit on 6-3-2009 by zykos]

Clouds have been known to make planes sound a lot louder than they really are. If it was in afterburner, then it is already much louder than normal but the sound tends to bounce off the clouds and ground. It's the same as when your father was talking about running engines between bunkers. California has a lot of activity going on around it, so I'm not surprised to hear that they're screaming around there.

reply to post by Zaphod58

Thats a good point. I just found it odd that it was at 9:30 at night and it the first one i have heard in a good long time, especially since i don't live near any active AFB. Also the close timing and vicinity of this and the loud sonic booms are even more intriguing.

I believe the 144th Fighter Wing is still standing alert. They might have had a scramble that night. We occasionally would see the HiANG launch really late at night to intercept someone that had wandered into the ADIZ.

I don't have an answer for you but it I do have another 'really loud' aircraft story. I was coming down a fire road on my mountain bike quite fast for a mountain bike and was listening to music loud enough to hear it over the wind noise, -which is pretty darned loud. I then heard a loud roar over all of that and decided to stop and see what was happening. It was a crystal clear day and I was up pretty high so the sky was large and I seen a plane up very high just scorching across the sky. I could just barely make out that it had wings, however high that is on a clear day. Anyway, I assume he turned off the afterburners because I couldn't hear it anymore and it looked like he was parked up there compared to the speed he was traveling. I never heard anything that loud, that was that high up before or since.

Originally posted by Zaphod58
I believe the 144th Fighter Wing is still standing alert. They might have had a scramble that night. We occasionally would see the HiANG launch really late at night to intercept someone that had wandered into the ADIZ.

I was stationed at an 'undisclosed' (ATS Humor) AF base in England in the 80's during very tense cold war times. We would frequently have Alert exercises where you would be guarenteed no sleep for days.

The sounds of 3 squadrons of F-111's shrieking off in the middle of the night still haunt me to this day.

On quieter nights, we could hear the SR-71's launch from their base. I could only hear them, never got the opportunity to see one.

My point, most military bases really don't care what flight path they take when they scramble for alerts. Just my thoughts...

reply to post by SlinkyDFW


Exactly. In a scramble they tell the controllers where they're going, and expect them to get everyone out of their way.

In Honolulu, after takeoff all aircraft are required to make a right turn away from Honolulu for noise abatement. I was walking towards a machine I had to fix at the airport one day, and a pair of F-15s went past towards the center of the island lower than the top of the parking structure at the airport. As soon as they were airborne and clear of the buildings, they turned left and went screaming towards their target.