US, Pennsylvania - Strong thunderstorms hit the Poconos Friday night, moving through shortly after 10 p.m. and continuing for at least a half hour, but the weather event that had folks talking was a loud sonic-like boom that shook houses at about 10:15 p.m.

Gilda Spiotta of Long Pond said, "The shaking last night lasted unusually long. Didn't sound like thunder, didn't feel like thunder, was wondering if something happened on 380/80; tanker accident."

Another Long Pond resident, Lorene R. Allman-Mars: "My son was at the back door letting the dogs out and he reported that he saw a large flash of light fill the sky toward/above the FedEx distribution site on 940, then he heard a loud boom. It didn't look like lightning, it looked like a bomb blew up in the air. I was on the second floor of the house; I didn't see anything but I heard the boom and felt it shake the house. I actually felt it under my feet. The floors shook; I have never felt lightning shake the house like that before and we've been up here 20 years!"

Some readers suggested an earthquake or an explosion, but said that definitely was no routine thunder.

Meteorologist and Pocono weather expert Ben Gelber offered this explanation: "One possibility is that thunderstorms in our chilly environment near the surface tonight, associated with an inversion of warm air aloft, sound much louder."

He added, "The sound waves are refracted back to the surface and reverberate in ways that we normally do not experience as they bounce between the surface and the inversion near the base of the clouds."

Other residents commented from across the Poconos:
"My kids and I heard the sound in Saw Creek," said Winnie Michaluk. "Our windows rattled and our dogs were barking like crazy."

Russo Albuja of Tobyhanna said, "I was driving along 196 on my way home from work when I felt the BOOM. It was so extreme, my car shook and on my left hand side on an empty field - all I saw was this HUGE flash of light coming from where the airport location would be at. Afterwards, I heard nothing. Kinda scared me that I rushed home and locked my doors."

Katee McCarthy said, "Felt it here in the Tannersville area. Quite scary." As of 11 p.m., she reported lightning and sleet in the area.

Tim Aziz said, "Just heard something at 10:35 in East Stroudsburg, the whole house vibrated!"

Highlands Ranch - Suha and Mike Owens took video Wednesday night from their home in Highlands Ranch. It shows a light in the sky that appears to change colors, and it moves left and right, up and down.

"Is it somebody's toy or is it a UFO?" Suha Owens says in the video.

9NEWS received several calls and emails Wednesday around 8:45 p.m. from viewers, all reporting a bright light in the western sky.

9NEWS spoke with Chris Peterson, a researcher at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and Cloudbait Observatory, about the light.

Peterson looked at Owens' video. He says what they captured was most likely a reflective balloon blowing around or possibly a helicopter or some other aircraft.

The Royal Air Force has said none of its planes were responsible for what many have called a "sonic boom" over Grimsby.

As reported, the Grimsby Telegraph received many calls from residents who had heard what sounded like a large explosion at about 7pm on Wednesday.

Initial fears that there had been an explosion were quickly allayed and theories turned to the possibility of a sonic boom from a plane.

Initially, these suggestions appeared to be legitimate when it was revealed that the Ministry of Defence (MOD) is currently carrying out a low-flying operation named "Exercise Lightning Force" in the area.

However, when contacted by the Grimsby Telegraph, Squadron Leader Nikki Stacey, based at Headquarters Air Command, said the noise had not been caused by an RAF aircraft, adding there was "nothing reported" from any of the forces' "fast jet units". Gareth Stringer, deputy editor of Global Aviation Resource magazine, said: "A sonic boom occurs when an aeroplane breaks the sound barrier and the noise that you hear is the shockwave of area around the aircraft.

The fireball fell from the sky -- streaking the colors of the rainbow and trailing smoke -- at 3:24 a.m., while most of Nebraska was sleeping.

Except for Greg, a ServiceMaster employee, who saw it from Lincoln Airport's parking garage. And Aaron, a TSA employee, who saw it from the interstate. And two citizens concerned enough to call 911.

And a sheriff's deputy, who was dispatched to search for a bright spot on the dark ground near Pawnee Lake, northwest of Lincoln.

And the surveillance camera (which never sleeps) mounted in the car rental return lot north of the airport terminal.

It recorded a black sky most of the night. But at about 42 seconds past 3:24, a streak appeared in the northwest. It stretched out, flared, seemed to spawn a pair of fireballs and disappeared behind the horizon.

Then phones started ringing.

Truckers and at least one law officer all reported seeing a very brief but very bright flash in the sky just before 3:30 a.m. Wednesday morning. Trucker Klye Moulds was on U.S. Highway 2 east of Devils Lake, North Dakota when he saw what looked like lightning. It was colored with red, blue and green.

Another trucker near Oriska, N.D. says it was so bright he should have had sunglasses on.

A Walsh County deputy sheriff also saw the flash, which was described as a red orb.

The best guess is that the bright light was part of the Orionid meteor shower which will peak this weekend. The meteor shower occurs each October as the earth passes through a trail of dust left by Halley's comet.

With Earth Changes now clearly happening and time pressing, the editors of Sott.net are faced with the urgency of catching up with an avalanche of significant news items and trying to make sense of things! Recent weather events have been unprecedented: both spring and early summer have been bizarre across the globe, to say the least.

You name the weather or geological type of phenomenon; someone in the world had it: volcanoes, earthquakes, torrential rain, floods, sinkholes, tornadoes, droughts, wildfires ... even summertime snow! Let's review them all as best as we can, starting from the top: the cosmic factor.

Cosmic Changes Are Under Way

Changes on planet Earth comprise such a wide variety of phenomena, from extreme weather anomalies to volcanoes and earthquakes, so perhaps it's a good idea to zoom back and see if we can make sense of any changes in the cosmic climate that may be affecting us. Yes, we are aware that this approach goes against the sanctioned narrative claiming that these changes are caused by carbon-burning human beings living in an isolated bubble that can only grow warmer. But the pieces of the puzzle on the table point to a different, larger picture.

A huge central piece is our sun, which is not surprising, since this ongoing explosion in space is what brings order to our corner of the universe and to life to Earth. For the last couple of years the sun was expected to go into high activity in accordance with its usual 11-year sunspot cycle. But scientists were left scratching their heads as our local star remained quiet. Now it's giving off such a display of flares that it has NASA scientists going 'ooh and ahh'.

Something shook up Flagler County in northeast Florida on Friday morning, provoking dozens of reports of homes shaking and a sonic-boom-like noise.

Officials had no idea what rattled the region and may never figure out what happened, said Flagler County emergency management chief Troy Harper.

The most likely explanation is military activity offshore, Harper said.

The Navy drops live bombs on a range in the Ocala National Forest and over Lake George, both of which are west of Flagler County, he said.

Don't blame it on the Navy, said Navy spokeswoman Miriam Gallet. "We have nothing going on," she added.

It wasn't a bird.

It wasn't a plane.

It wasn't even ... well, you know, but there was something that zipped across the evening sky at about 6:50 p.m. Tuesday and a number of area folks say they saw it.

"I tell you what, the hair stood up on the back of my neck," said Al Labrush, a veteran meteorite watcher and collector. "It was frightening."

Labrush said he was standing near Danielle's restaurant downtown when he caught sight of something that looked to be about 1,500 feet away.

"I heard this sizzling behind me. ... I turned and looked: This huge meteorite came. ... It was throwing off sparks and chunks," Labrush said. "I'm into meteorites -- every time they call for meteor showers, I'm out. I very seldom get scared -- (but) I never want to see another one like that."

Steve Lawrence saw it, too.

Lawrence was driving home on Old Kiln Road when he saw the bright object in the northern sky, "like a fireball," through the passenger side window.

Three white flashes erupted, lighting up the night like daylight for an instant, and then it all seemed to disintegrate, he said. "Night turned to day," Lawrence said. "The flash was like heat lightning."

Sean Dennison saw it, too -- from Hagerstown.

Green fireballs that streaked across the sky and rolled down an Australian mountainside four years ago, spurring reports of UFOs in the area, might have been meteors and ball lightning, a researcher suggests.

At least three traffic-light green fireballs brighter than the moon but not as bright as the sun blazed over northeast Australia on May 16, 2006. A farmer saw one with a blue tapering tail pass over the mountains of the Great Divide about 75 miles (120 kilometers) west of Brisbane, then watched a phosphorescent green ball about 12 inches wide (30 centimeters) roll slowly down the side of a mountain, bouncing over a rock along the way.

Green fireballs have been seen many times in the sky, and are typically explained as meteors whose shockwaves lead to electrically charged oxygen similar to that seen in auroras. In fact, a commercial airline pilot who landed in New Zealand that day reported seeing a meteor breaking up into fragments, which turned green as the bits descended in the direction of Australia. The timing of the fireballs suggests they might have been debris from Comet 73P/Schwassmann - Wachmann 3, said physicist Stephen Hughes at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane.

Did a meteorite fly over Cranbrook Wednesday night? Local resident Jennifer Doering is sure one did because she saw it around 9:45 p.m. and even saw it explode as it came close to earth.

Doering and her boyfriend were driving in their car when their attention was suddenly drawn to a bright light high overhead between the Highcrest Trailer court and Kootenay Orchards Elementary School.

"All of a sudden I could see this bright, bright light. It was like white lightning and it was really wide. Then it blew apart and it went more into a red, orangey colour and it appeared to land somewhere."

The pair drove around to see if they could find remnants of the exploded meteorite, which appeared to come down in the 10th Street and 14th Avenue area not too far from Parkland Middle School. But no remnants or extra-terrestrial material was found leaving Doering wondering what she really saw.

"It was as low as a helicopter would go. That's why it had to land somewhere in town."

RCMP spokesman Eric Ausman said no calls about meteorites or other unidentified flying objects were received at the detachment the night Doering saw the meteorite. Ausman said he was out walking his dog the same night not far from where Doering saw the space object, but he saw nothing unusual at all.