“The recorded waves and eyewitness reports are consistent with a sonic boom,” the U.S.G.S. said in a statement.
A sonic boom is created when an object travels faster than the speed of sound, about 767 miles an hour.
The fast-moving object pushes air forward. When it reaches the speed of sound, these waves of air combine into shock waves, triggering a loud boom.
If the loud noise was indeed a sonic boom, that would open another mystery: What was the speedy object?
Not many things go that fast: The field is mostly limited to high-speed planes or spacecraft. And normally, because of the noise, planes are prohibited from hitting the speed of sound over land.
The agencies that operate such speedy vehicles had little to say.
The U.S. Navy’s command for air operations in the Atlantic region said it had no information on the matter. The Air Force and Marines said on Friday they were looking into the matter but had no specific information.
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Original URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/29/us/south-carolina-sonic-boom.html