Many residents of eastern Massachusetts were startled by a thunderous boom on Saturday afternoon. It wasn’t a tree falling, nor—despite the shaking—an earthquake. The resounding noise came from a bolide,

Residents across New England were left stunned after a powerful double boom rattled buildings and shook the ground, triggering reports to police and earthquake officials. The cause, however, came from above.

A sonic boom heard by thousands across parts of the Northeast was a meteor traveling at roughly 42,000 mph before breaking up 31 miles above Earth, NASA confirmed.

Officials with the American Meteor Society and NASA say a double boom heard in multiple states Saturday afternoon was a 3-foot meteor entering the atmosphere near the Massachusetts and New Hampshire border.

Adam Lark, a physics professor at Hamilton College and director of the Peters Observatory, said it was a meteor exploding in the atmosphere. Essentially, a meteor is a remnant of an asteroid or a comet.

Attleboro area police departments and regional public safety dispatch centers fielded numerous calls from worried and curious residents about the sonic boom heard Saturday afternoon that was later det

The meteor streaked across the region around 2 p.m., according to NASA, hurtling into Earth’s atmosphere at a speed of roughly 75,000 miles per hour.

A CBS News meteorologist confirmed the sonic boom heard across neighborhoods in Massachusetts was indeed because of a meteor.

A meteor traveling at 75,000 mph exploded above the Massachusetts-New Hampshire border Saturday. Shanelle Kaul reports.