Hundreds of people in eastern Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut took to social media on Friday to report feeling shaking or hearing a "boom" type noise, but the U.S. Geological Survey said what they felt was definitely not a temblor.
“Felt it on Martha’s Vineyard! A rumbling, then a jolt. A second rumbling a few mins later,” Whitney Dailey posted on Twitter.
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The agency received more than 100 reports of an earthquake from north of Boston to the coast of Rhode Island, but an earthquake felt over such a large geographic area would have been of a magnitude strong enough to be detected by the USGS, geophysicist Robert Sanders said.
Nothing was detected.
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What people felt was likely either a sonic boom, perhaps caused by an aircraft, or some other “atmospheric event,” Sanders said. He would not hazard a guess.
NBC10 Boston meteorologist Pamela Gardner said military activity off the South Coast or a meteor or space debris exploding high up in the atmosphere could also be potential explanations.
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Earthquakes are not unusual in New England, but are usually relatively weak and cause little to no damage.
A 3.6 magnitude earthquake centered in Buzzards Bay in November was the strongest in southern New England in decades.
