Loud rumbling sound in central TX

At 9:02pm CST my wife and I heard a loud rumbling sound. I walked out of my front door as we heard the sound emanating from the North. At 9:07 we witnessed several helicopters flying toward the region. I called my sister, who was also in the area, and she confirmed with several others what we had witnessed. We live right across the lake from a Fort Hood bombing range, and we hear all sorts of ordinance going off very often. We have never heard anything like this.

The sound was loud, booming, and emanated from the skies as if it were raining pure thunder for a solid thirty seconds, then stopped suddenly.

I am at a loss for what it could be. When I think it could be Ft. Hood ordinance, my mind fills with doubt. Aside from an earthquake, which I have never experienced and there was no ground shaking, there is nothing else I can conceive it could be.

Any thoughts, ATS? This is my first official post, by the way as I am usually just a lurker.

ETA a more precise location: Morgan's Point Resort, TX


Another addition: Some people are suggestion Ft. Hood military exercises. I haven't heard anything like it, and would like to say I'm well versed in the different sounds after being here for so long and given my familiarity with said events, however I cannot dismiss it as a plausible explanation. Thanks for the input

I'am in Groton,CT, i just heard a loud boom about 20 minutes ago. Anyone else hear it?

The windows rattled a little.

Tsom87

reply to post by Deemo Diablo


Yikes..Stay Safe...('')
But PLEASE keep us updated .Any Oil Rigs out in that General Direction?

I'm in the Dallas area, Grapevine to be specific, and I haven't heard anything at all.

I've been sitting in my room writing and listening to Noam Chomsky lectures which were turned up somewhat loud, so being distracted and having my computer speakers blasting words of wisdom from Noam may have drowned out such noise. But if it was as loud as you say and in this direction, I'd think I would have heard it.

I'm not saying I don't believe you, mostly just disappointed I did not hear it myself!

I am constantly hearing planes taking off and landing at Dallas-Fort Worth airport also, so that probably hurts the chances of me hearing something. Definitely keep us updated if you hear any other noises or find out what it was, I am very interested.

reply to post by DjembeJedi

Not that I'm aware of. I've been around the area for quite some time. There is a large natural gas deposit northeast of here about 35 miles in Chilton, and a few scattered oil pump-jacks. Nothing major though.

Is it possible that Ft. Hood is ramping up its bombing training, and rained holy hell on the landscape for a while? I've been to Ft. Hood several times, but since I never lived in the area, I cannot say for sure, it's just a guess.

I did live next to Ft. Hunter Liggett in central Cali for about 10 years, and when they started with their tanks on the firing range, it was intense.....One long, continuous "thwap thwap thwap", and then "boom boom boom", very crazy and noisy.

reply to post by PatriotGames2

Ah I fudged on that one. My front door faces more to the west than the north, but still far enough to be considered northwest. The sound most definitely sounded like it was coming from Ft. Hood. It wasn't a ground rumbling, but an air rumbling. It was very strange. Usually, the ordinance rattles our windows and shakes our house. This did not. It was loud, but not deafeningly loud, more like a powerful rumble. I just stood on my front porch with my mouth agape like some sort of troglodyte drooling in awe while pondering a time traveler waving a flashlight at him.

Could it be SpaceX in McGregor, outside Waco Texas, testing engines...they make space shuttle engines. A few years ago I heard a loud rumbling one evening. The windows were rattling...just an ongoing rumbling very loud. I thought the world was ending...that some asteroid was coming in from outer space. It was overcast with clouds so we could not see the sky. I did think something was coming in as the rumbling went on and on. The neighbors in the apartment complex joined me outside, all of us scared. I phoned my sister in a town close to mine crying asking if she knew what was going on. She said there was no noise where she was. Needless to say it was scary. The next day we all heard that SpaceX had been testing some big engine and they failed to let the citizens know. It was their first test. A lot of us did not know this company even had opened this engine building complex.

But I would think I would have heard it as I am closer than you??? Guess it wasn't SpaceX.

I'min Crowley Texas, which is on the southern border of Fort Worth, I was outside 20 minutes ago and heard nothing. It's nice out, so we had the door open most of the evening. Still, nothing.
The only time I ever heard something was when the space shuttle went down. I was up early and heard what sounded like a garbage truck running into a wall at 100mph. If I would have went to the front yard I would have seen the shuttle break apart...
I will keep an ear out.

reply to post by FissionSurplus


Oh yes, I'm quite familiar with the booms, whistles, thwaps, and any other onomatopoeia you can imagine.

Picture this: "God" takes a tupperware bowl the size of the moon, fills it 1/3 of the way up with boulders and shakes it violently at us as if we were urinating on his furniture and he wanted us to stop.

I can find a few more ways to describe it, but articulating it perfectly is difficult as I have nothing realistic to compare it to. It hasn't happened again yet, although I'll keep an ear tuned.

reply to post by Deemo Diablo


Haha, it's all good. Could you tell if it was coming from the sky or something? When I lived in Maine where I was born and raised I also lived next to an airport (Bangor International) which was also the National Guard base and sometimes the planes or machinery I'd hear from there, mostly at night, was some of the loudest noises I'd ever heard in my life. It really made me wonder what they were doing. I'm sure you could tell if it was a plane or not, but I'm more curious if you could tell maybe if it was above you or maybe below you underground?

I don't know if you have followed any of the news reports or threads on ATS concerning other strange noises people have heard across the country, but most of them are described as either being as if they are coming from deep underground or are coming from the sky and all around the witness.

EDIT: nevermind, I re-read your post and saw you said it wasn't a ground rumbling but more from the sky. I'll be keeping an ear out and doing some research, as well. Gotta have some explanation and if it doesn't, we'll have to add it to the list of strange sounds

reply to post by sharintexas


Funny, I thought SpaceX was in Houston. That's good to know since I'm attending TSTC for Aviation Maintenance
Your experience sounds similar to mine. That certainly sounds plausible, except for one detail: this sound ended abruptly.

Thanks for the input, I'm not on the edge of my seat about it anymore. As I'm typing this, I'm hearing artillery fire at the Ft. Hood range. Great, since I have to wake up at 6.

reply to post by Deemo Diablo


Every once in a great while we go to Ft. Hood for live fire exercises with tanks. Maybe that's what it was, just a bunch of tanks blowing off some rounds all at once and the choppers were doing a training exercise with them

reply to post by billy197300


A great suggestion, and after over twenty years of exposure to the song of your people, I am well versed in all the titles. I was in the USAF, worked on Navy aircraft as a civilian, and was a defense contractor doing resets on weapons, a 100% travel job. This didn't sound like any tracks the military has on any of their records that I have heard before.

reply to post by PatriotGames2


Judging by the acoustic properties of my location, with my position being located right next to a building (house) and the area surrounded by trees, with a good-sized lake nearby, it could have quite possibly been from the ground. From my perspective however, it sounded as if it were coming from the sky.

My wife is describing it as an earthquake sound, and says she has heard them before and that the Balcones fault line goes right through Central Texas. I did not know this.

Given the nature of human memory, my brain could have omitted the rattling, which she says she felt, and her stepfather, who lives about a mile from us, also felt, but I did not.

im in alabama we where having some really bad thunderstorms around that time had some heavy thunder i spend alot of time in my out back and the thing felt like it was gonna rattle apart all of our weather comes from texas we usually get it within the next two days so maybe u got under a long line of dry thunderstorms lol u never know with 2012 weather maybe there testing something new out there something that maybe could take out a nuclear site without spewing radiation in the air

Howdy, as an Austinite who lives at Lake Travis,
I have heard and posted about the rumble before.
It's low low frequency.I'll be listening. Last time I posted about it,
Was in March maybe? And it happened a few nights in a row
at about 10pm. It seemed to come from the sky to the north
of our home. Anyway, thanks for this thread and I'll be on the
lookout er.. Ear out?

reply to post by Deemo Diablo


Deemo,

I too heard this rumbling last night. I found your post while searching for any mention/explanation of the noise I heard. I also live in Morgan's Point and around the same time I noticed the rumbling. It wasn't the same as the helicopters that are constantly flying over our homes there. It wasn't like the sound of ordinances being set off in Ft. Hood or fifty cals being shot. It was different. It almost sounded like my neighbor's old corvette being fired up but it seemed many times louder and way further away. It was a constant low rumbling for about 30 or 40 seconds straight with no interruptions as far as I could tell. I went outside and it seemed to be coming from the west. Another neighbor from across the street came outside asking me what it was too. She stated that it shook the windows in their house.

reply to post by JustinD


I heard someone say it was a rocket test from SpaceX in McGregor.

She said to expect next Monday at the same time. So if it happens again at that time and date, we will know what it is.

It sure didn't sound like it came from the McGregor area to me though.

reply to post by Deemo Diablo


On 9-18-2012 I contacted Spacex too at 310-363-6000, a number I found on their contact page of their site (www.spacex.com...) and the lady I spoke with said she couldn't give me any details about testing. She didn't have any comment about any testing that may or may not have happened on 9-17-2012. She told me Spacex was a private company and does not have to disclose any testing information.