When you live near an air force base, loud booms are not surprising events. When they’re not explained, area residents get a little suspicious. When the base is Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, with its history of secret projects and mysterious activities, residents and everyone else get a little more suspicious.

A series of loud booms were reported the night of November 16 along the Montgomery-Warren county line in Springboro, a northern suburb of Dayton. Anywhere from one to three booms were reported to various authorities between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. As usual, exploding transformers got the initial blame, but Duke Energy and Dayton Power & Light said no incidents showed up on their equipment. Firefighters in the area found no evidence of any explosions or meteorite impacts.

One call came from near Dayton-Wright Brothers Airport and an employee there heard it but nothing unusual was found there either. Calls reporting more than one boom said they increased in volume each time. A local meteorologist said that while the booms could have been weather related, the conditions were of they type to cause so-called thundersnow or lightning and none of the reports mentioned the booms sounding like thunder or seeing any lightning.

Officials at Wright Patterson Air Force Base said that no aircraft were flying in the area at speeds that could have broken the sound barrier. On the other hand, they said nothing about aircraft flying below the sound barrier that could have caused booms other than those of a sonic nature.

It’s well known that a plane carrying some kind of cargo flew from Area 51 to Wright-Patterson shortly after the crash in Roswell in 1947. It has long been believed that the cargo was taken to Hangar 18 and that facility has since become the military’s repository for alien aircraft and visitors, dead or alive. Senator and presidential candidate Barry Goldwater once questioned its contents and was denied access.

It’s been two days and still no concrete cause for the booms. Can you blame local residents and concerned citizens for connecting every unexplained Dayton-area event to this mysterious site?