It was just a normal spring afternoon in Jackson Parish this past Thursday when suddenly a big BOOM, rattled windows and make the ground shake. Immediately social media lit up with posts from people expressing thoughts like, What was that? Did you feel the ground shake? 

It wasn’t just residents of Jackson Parish that heard the noise but folks from all over north Louisiana resulting in speculation and thoughts being bantered around with suggestions ranging from the mundane to the outrageous. Some said it was a blown transformer, others suggested it was an explosion at a military base like Camp Minden or Barksdale Air Force base. Even other questioned if we were being bombed?

As it turned out the loud eruption of noise was a sonic boom.

At about 3:55 p.m. local time, a SpaceX Falcon 9 was launched into sunny skies from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The Falcon 9 carried a SpaceX Dragon capsule loaded with more than 6,000 pounds of cargo headed to the International Space Station. When the booster rocket separated from the capsule and returned to earth, it created the sonic boom heard throughout Jackson Parish, north Louisiana, and many parts of the southern U. S.