'Huge explosion': Neighbourhood rocked by mysterious 'boom'

A mysterious boom has rattled a US neighbourhood, leaving residents dumbfounded as to what caused it.

Describing it as the loudest thing he has ever heard, Phillip Washington said he could feel the noise in his apartment in North Oak Cliff, Texas.

“Out of nowhere, just this pow…just this huge explosion,” he told CBS News.

“It was without a doubt, the loudest sound that I’ve heard.”

While some suspected gunfire, fireworks or even a car backfiring, those closer to the mysterious boom said it was something far more intense.

“You could feel the percussion of the sound,” Mr Washington added.

Ron DiIulio, an astronomer at the University of North Texas, said the noise was likely from a sonic boom caused by either a meteorite or some sort of space debris.

“It was immediately apparent that something had fallen from the sky,” he said.

The scientist said whatever entered the Earth’s atmosphere was likely only about the size of a grapefruit.

“As it’s coming in, it explodes but as it’s exploding it’s also passing the speed of sound, so that’s what we’re get as it comes in,” he told CBS News.

“They should just consider themselves lucky that they got an experience in life that a lot of people don’t.”