It was somewhere between 8 and 9 p.m. last Wednesday, that I kept hearing loud noises that sounded like explosions/fireworks. I was on the first floor in the kitchen and there was something really annoying about those booms.
Of course the first thing that goes through one’s mind is to question who in the heck is shooting fireworks in December? The second thing was that the sound was really different from what I’ve heard in the past, I came upstairs and went out on my second-story deck. I could tell that the sound was coming from south of North Avenue. I couldn’t see any kind of light explosions going off in the air, but I kept hearing the continuous sound.
Boom … boom … boom.
I began checking my Citizens and Neighbors apps. Both are usually good sources of information to find out what’s going on. And of course, someone had posted about hearing the loud booms. Other people joined in to concur and offer their opinions. Then people began trying to locate where the the sound came from. For reference, I live near North Avenue and Laramie. A lot of the people posting were in the Humboldt Park area. One person said they lived at Damen and Cermak! Someone else said they were at Armitage and Damen. Another was at Western and Fullerton. When a person told me they were at Oakdale and Laramie, I definitely became suspicious about what kind of explosions could have noise that traveled that far? And what would that be like for the next 4th of July?
Others claimed it was an individual setting off fireworks near Kostner and 21st Street. I have heard fireworks my entire life. I’ve never heard of any where the sound was traveling for miles! Someone then posted a flyer claiming the Chicago Fire TV show was setting off controlled explosions. However, based on the addresses, that production is located in Blue Island. Plus the filming was supposed to be between 2 and 4 in the afternoon. It was now after 8 at night.
Finally someone posted a video of the explosions from the front porch of their house. What I didn’t see was any rocket/missile/projectile going up into the air. Rather, the video just showed explosions occurring. Instead of the light particles falling to the ground, all one saw was a puff of white smoke that really didn’t disperse.
I got a text from a friend who lives off Western and I-290. She said that the noise seemed to be coming from the east, then moved west. She went outside and felt that the air was strange. The noise eventually abated, but the curiosity of myself and others as to the origins did not abate. Someone reported that 911 was getting a lot a phone calls about the noise. So I presumed the following day there would be news reports that would clarify all the data in a factual information report.
But guess what? None of the major newspapers or television stations reported on it. It was as if it hadn’t happened. But I have some wonderful sources and they hadn’t heard anything about it even on some of the sites the police tend to chatter on. Interesting. I understand that Rogers Park has also experienced loud noises prior to this. Did we have a close encounter here in the city? Or just like in the film Men in Black, what really happened is being erased from our memories through disinformation — or no information.