A Loud ‘Boom’ Rattled Northwestern Louisiana And The National Weather Service Has Spotted A ‘Debris Field’

Residents of northeastern Louisiana were rattled Monday when a still-unexplained (as of this post) loud boom cracked the sky, and now the National Weather Service has confirmed that whatever it was has left a debris field.

At about 4:27 P.M. local time on Monday, residents of the area colloquially known as ArkLaTex (that is, the region that includes Northwest Louisiana, Southwest Arkansas, and Northeast Texas) were jolted by a loud boom, that according to some reports shook the ground, according to WLOX (Biloxi). One area resident said the boom was so loud, she thought her house might collapse.

“My couch came up off the floor a little bit, my back wall felt like it was going to cave in, it was so loud!”

The area is dotted with oil refineries and pipelines and there are some military installations in the area, but KSLA (Shreveport) says that their investigation has turned up nothing amiss at any refineries or military installations in the area. Although there was precipitation in the area at the time, WLOX Meteorologist Jeff Castle says that any source of thunder would have been too far away. And the United States Geologic Survey denies any seismic activity in the region that day.

Whatever caused the boom, however, managed to cause a debris field, according to KSLA. National Weather Service (NWS) Senior Forecaster Marty Mayeaux told KSLA that NWS radar picked up evidence of a debris field.

Mayeaux said that the debris field rose 1,000 to 1,500 feet into the air and drifted east. Mayeaux also said that the debris field was very similar to one that NWS radar picked up after an explosion at Camp Minden in 2012, although as noted above, there were no reports of any incidents at any military bases in the region.

A loud boom and a debris field would be consistent with a meteor explosion; at least, that’s what the amateur astronomers at Lunar Meteorite Hunters are hoping.

“IF it was a large meteoroid fragmentation a LOUD BOOM would result. IF media witness reports are correct, and IF this event was meteor related, the detonation occurred near Greenwood, LA and Waskom, LA areas at 18-25 miles above the Earth.”

Last month, four huge fireballs were observed over 24 hours in parts of the U.S., according to this Inquisitr report, although the ArkLaTex boom does not appear to have been accompanied by any streaks of light across the sky.

Four Large Fireball Events over USA on Sept. 23rd – http://t.co/Tsa4PqtgPP #ams #citizenscience pic.twitter.com/LBKVoYJrHZ

— AMSMETEORS (@amsmeteors) September 24, 2014

Did you hear the ArkLaTex boom? Did you see anything? Let us know below.

[Images courtesy of: Lunar Meteorite Hunters, KSLA]