Subj: Unusual Aircraft sound-help requested
Date: 8/11/00 6:43:48 PM Pacific Daylight Time

Kent:
This is not my usual stuff (Solar), but I am hoping that your sleuths
may come up with something about where I am about to lead.

The facts:
1. Location – Southwest Houston Texas (Ft Bend County)
2. Time of Day 5:35pm CDT
3. Duration of event :46 seconds
4. Date of event – July 31, August 1, August 2, August 3, August 4,
August 5, August 7, August 8, August 9, August 11, 2000. All times are
plus/minus 15 minutes from above, except Saturday August 5 when it
arrived at approximately 3:00pm CDT.
5. Description of event: Loud jet engine sounds seeming passing overhead
at low altitude.
Sound is not that of a Turbo Fan engine. There is no Turbo Fan “whine”.
Sound has very
Low frequency component and can be “felt” as well as heard. From the
pitch and volume one gets the impression the aircraft is very low, below
5000 feet. Yet when it starts and I run outside with a 360 degree
unobscured view , there is no aircraft that CAN BE SEEN, even though I
am still hearing it! My ear and Doppler seem to tell my brain the sound
comes from the east and departs to the west.

Note: my location is on the flight path to and from Hobby Airport
Houston, depending on runway in use and flight path. I am also due east
of Ellington Field ( USAF/NASA joint operations).

When this occurs I can see no other aircraft in the sky ( I see no
aircraft period). I am well versed with the Southwest Airlines 737 ,
American ATR’s, Delta and Airtrans MD-80’s operating out of Hobby.

This sound is more like a old model “pure jet”, almost like the G E’s
on the B-52A/B’s or those on a B-58 (yes I’m that old), yet it also has
a odd frequency component that sound like a rock slide.

It is NOT a pulse jet sound.

So, if its low, its invisible, or I’m blinder that my opthamologist
tells me, or its very high, and brother, very LOUD. Loud and quick. I
have a gut feeling I am hearing something that has come and gone, yet no
sonic boom.

Very strange… same times daily except Saturday, loud jet sound yet no
aircraft visible…reports of strange flashes elsewhere…


I am wondering if anyone on the Gulf Coast or Southwest U S has heard
something similar in last week or so.