Meteor likely ‘the size of a beach ball’ causes sonic boom over Utah, experts say

A mysterious loud boom that rattled Salt Lake City residents — including Utah’s governor — has been identified, experts say.

After seismologists ruled out an earthquake and military authorities reported no explosions to account for the extraordinarily loud boom heard about 8:30 a.m. Saturday, Aug, 13, experts told KUTV it was most likely a meteor.

A National Weather Service post on Twitter seemed to confirm the meteor theory with a satellite photo showing two reddish flashes, likely the meteor entering the Earth’s atmosphere.

“Your normal meteor is only the size of a pea or a small pebble,” Robert Lunsford with the American Meteor Society told KSTU. “This particular object was probably the size of a beach ball.”

“Heard this while out on a run in SLC,” Gov. Spencer Cox of Utah reported on Twitter with a video that captured the boom.

Mandi Arrington of West Jordan, near Salt Lake City, told KSTU that she thought a limb had fallen off her tree, which she’d had trimmed a day earlier.

“I actually thought part of my tree had broken off and hit my house, so that’s why I went out and I started looking around and I was completely confused,” Arrington told the station.

Several home security videos posted to Twitter captured the boom and, in at least one case, a possible sighting of the meteor.

This story was originally published August 14, 2022 at 9:50 AM with the headline "Meteor likely ‘the size of a beach ball’ causes sonic boom over Utah, experts say."