Boom, flash mystifies Troy on Christmas

A rumbling sound followed by an

earth-shattering boom and flash of light over Troy caused concerned

locals to dial 911 at 8:07 on Christmas night.

As of Monday, there had been no

confirmed explanation for the phenomenon that shook houses in all

ends of Troy proper and was heard three miles south of town.

“There have been a lot of different

theories, but no one theory seems to fit the bill,” Troy Game

Warden Phil Kilbreath said. “Sounds like whatever it was was right

over the top of Troy.”

Steve Sigler, a meteorologist for the

National Weather Service in Missoula, said it is possible Troy

witnessed its own personal Christmas meteor.

“Meteors definitely generate a lot of

light and heat,” he said. “If they are low enough in the atmosphere

you can definitely hear those bangs.”

Kilbreath had company at his house,

which rests south of town overlooking the city, when the blast

occurred. He wasn’t facing a window, he said, but two people in the

home witnessed the light that accompanied the blast.

One person described seeing a flash

through a curtained window as though from the lights of an

emergency response vehicle outside the house, he said.

“The other person was looking out the

big picture window when it happened,” Kilbreath said. “It looked

like somebody set off a camera flash in the sky.”

Kelly Stephens and her husband and

father were outside her house just off of Iron Grouse Road about

three miles south of town. They didn’t witness the light, she said,

but the noise was so startling that it caused her horses to take

off.

“They have guns and fireworks go off

next to them and they don’t even snort,” she said, “but this caused

our horses to bolt through the electric fence.”

Seconds before the blast, the three

could heard a sizzling sound, she said, and they had thought maybe

a power box was going out. Police officer Nathan White, who was on

duty at the time, also heard something in the seconds leading up to

the blast.

“It sounded like something roaring

through the valley, like a train approaching, but quicker and

louder,” he said.

Stephens heard one powerful blast that

echoed through the valley. From inside his home, Kilbreath heard a

rumbling boom like thunder, he said. White and Chief of Police Bob

McLeod, who both reside in the city, described the sound as three

booms in rapid succession.

“It sounded like someone took their

fist and just went bang, bang, bang on the outside of my house,”

McLeod said.

Members of the Troy Community Baptist

Church southeast of town reported the blast shaking the building’s

walls just the same as a party on the north end of town on Valley

of the Moon Road.

Kilbreath and White immediately

searched the area, looking for signs of a car accident, the

remnants of a sparkler bomb or a blown-up electrical transformer.

They found nothing.

A jet flying overhead and breaking the

sound barrier could explain the boom, White said, but not the flash

of light. It appeared too powerful to be a bomb or fireworks,

officials agreed.

“The more I think about it, it seemed

like a lightning flash followed by a thunderclap,” Kilbreath said.

“Of course, it was 25 degrees out and no clouds out that night that

I saw.”