California town blames Area 51, grenades, mines for unexplainable daily booming
Every weekday between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. there is a loud boom in Sonora, California, and everyone has a theory about where it's coming from — but no one has an answer.
"Out there at Columbia, there are some mines," one resident told ABC News while another claimed that "it has come from Area 51."
Local teacher and geologist Glen White said he thinks the sound comes from an Army depot in Hawthorne, Nevada, where a company explodes unused munitions. "They go through old munitions, bombs, grenades, then they destroy them," White said, suggesting the sound bounces off the stratosphere in order to reach Sonora.
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But a contracting officer for the Hawthorne Army Depot, Ken Thomas, said that didn't add up. "It doesn't feel right that what we're doing here would be heard 200 miles away when there's a mountain range in between us," Thomas told ABC. "My office is 27 miles from where they detonate the old munitions, I only hear it here maybe one time a month, and just barely and it's like 'Was that a boom?'"
The only explanation, then? Definitely aliens. Jeva Lange
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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.
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