Buena Vista woman reports house shook by 'mystery booms'

'Mystery booms' rattle Buena Vista community.

Last week in this space I wrote a column about how Monday of last week marked the two-year anniversary of the start of one of the most unusual series of events to hit Southwest Alabama in recent memory – the unexplained “mystery booms” of 2011-2012.

For those of you unfamiliar with the story, at 11:33 p.m. on Fri., Nov. 18, 2011, an extremely loud booming noise was heard over a wide area in western Conecuh County and eastern Monroe County. That “boom” was heard by witnesses from Repton to Monroeville and as far south as the small communities of Goodway and Wildfork in Monroe County.

In a news story in the Dec. 1, 2011 edition of The Monroe Journal newspaper in Monroeville, reporter Josh Dewberry reported that another unexplained explosion occurred on Sat., Nov. 26, 2011 at 6 p.m. Witnesses said that it was not as loud as the Nov. 18 explosion.

Later, Stephen Riley, who lives between Evergreen and Lyeffion, reported to The Courant that he heard “two different booms” just before 9 p.m. on Fri., Jan. 6, 2012. The noises sounded “like thunder, except there was nothing on radar,” Riley said, noting that the noises seemed to come from the direction of Evergreen.

Riley wasn’t alone in hearing the unexplained noises that night as witness reports flooded in from a number of distant communities, including Repton, Belleville, Lenox, Monroeville, Excel, Halls Crossroads, Frisco City, Sugar Hill and Goodway Junction. The distance from Lyeffion to Goodway Junction, which is between Frisco City and Uriah, is 37-1/2 miles as the crow flies.

In mid-January 2012, another round of “mystery booms” were reported in Conecuh, Monroe and Clarke counties. Several witnesses, including Courant employee Kristie Garner, reported hearing an extremely loud, unexplained “boom” on Thurs., Jan. 19, 2012 around 7 p.m.

Witnesses also heard the noises in Monroe County and as far away as Grove Hill. Jim Cox, the publisher of the Clarke County Democrat in Grove Hill and South Alabamian newspaper in Jackson, told The Courant that the booms were heard in Clarke County around 6 p.m. on Jan. 19, 2012.

Numerous theories were offered to explain the unusual noises, but no definite answers were ever found.

Not long after last week’s edition of The Courant hit the streets, I received an e-mail from a woman named Kim Gibson, who lives in the small Monroe County community of Buena Vista, which is just a few miles from the Conecuh County line. She reported hearing the booms again Tuesday evening and Wednesday evening, and friends of hers in Wilcox and Clarke counties reported hearing them as well.

“They (the booms) shook my house to the point I thought things would break,” Gibson said. “My friend in Yellow Bluff (between Camden and Thomasville) said pictures fell from her wall. As in your story, we also thought it was beaver dams being blown up but, that’s a lot of TNT to use just on a beaver dam. Sure would like to know what it is.”

In the end, the cause of the “mystery booms” remains unknown, and I welcome your thoughts on the subject. Readers with theories, accounts or ideas regarding the “mystery booms” in our area are invited to contact The Courant at 251-578-1492 or by email at courantsports@earthlink.net. To contact The Courant by mail, write The Evergreen Courant, ATTN: Lee Peacock, P.O. Box 440, Evergreen, AL 36401.