
Ask HN: Would we even know it if China were flying hypersonics over the US? - nautilus12
These things always seem crazy until they happen to you:  I was laying on the couch the other day and I heard what can only be described as a loud explosion or booming sound that echoed through my neighborhood.  Being that no one in my neighborhood was talking about a transformer station or someones water heater exploding, and there wasnt a cloud in the sky, and its well before frost season, and I dont live near a military facilty, or major fault, and it wasnt trash day, ive been stumped coming up with an explaination.  My dog went crazy when it happened so it wasnt just me.<p>This got me thinking about the hypersonic jets in the news, and I was wondering, if something that fast were developed would anyone (including the us military) know about it being flown right over our heads?  Or would it be exactly as has been happening over the last month, just a series of loud booms heard across the US that everyone chalks off to random noises, frost quakes, etc.  Another detail, my sister reported hearing the same sound the same day.  She lives about an hour away to the northeast.  I live on the northern suburb of a very large city, and people elsewhere in the city werent talking about it, so it must have been localized in some way.<p>Anyone have any more rational and critical explaination for the loud sounds being reported across the US more frequently this month, or is this just more of the same, and its possibly just psychological that people are noting an uptick in the reports of innocuous sounds?
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malloryerik
There are reports of such booms occurring around the world. It's very odd, and
no one seems to have any answers.

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PaulHoule
Hypersonice aircraft would likely show up on radar.

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freeloop3
[http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/16079/airliners-
and-f-1...](http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/16079/airliners-
and-f-15s-involved-in-bizzare-encounter-with-mystery-aircraft-over-oregon)

In the story they said they were having a hard time tracking it with radar

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nautilus12
Exactly, would we even know it if china's hypersonic military were in our
airspace right now?

