Boston residents' homes shake as loud BOOM rings out: cops probing 'bizarre' incident after influx of 911 calls.

Reports of an explosion from people across New England Saturday afternoon sent police agencies and others scrambling to understand what caused a double boom that was so loud it shook buildings in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Boston residents were left petrified after the loud blast rattled their homes with the police probing the 'bizarre' incident.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) later confirmed the sound was likely from a suspected meteor.

'Unlike earthquakes which occur at discrete location in the earth, sonic boom events occur along a linear path in the atmosphere. Therefore, the location provided is an approximation,' the USGS stated.

The American Meteor Society said that the booms heard about 2:30pm and were actually caused by a meteor about 3 feet wide entering the atmosphere around the New Hampshire border with Massachusetts, north of Boston.

Robert Lunsford, the Fireball Program Monitor with the society, said the group received dozens of reports from Delaware to Montreal with people either hearing the double boom, feeling the ground shake or seeing the fireball - which he said looks like a shooting star in the daytime sky.

'It was definitely bigger than a normal fireball, about a yard wide,' he said.

But Lunsford said it's unlikely the meteor struck the ground.

'We would need more information about the trajectory the speed and other aspects to know for sure if it hit the ground, but if it didn't burn up, then it would have landed in the ocean,' he said. 'Most of them do burn up before they hit the ground.'

The sound of the bang was so loud that it appeared to be more locally based rather than in the sky. Boston PD sent its officers to the Brighton area of the city to investigate.