Published on November 9, 2021.
BY JOE WESSELS
LOVELAND, Ohio — Residents in and around Loveland are abuzz about several loud booms heard around the same time each evening over several consecutive nights.
No one – including police – are exactly sure what the sound is or where it is coming from. Social media posts suggest it could anything from fireworks to aliens to construction equipment working in the darkness. But one thing seems certain: At 8:30 p.m. get ready.
For what some online comments suggest, the “booms” come precisely at 8:30 p.m. and range from two to four – sometimes more loud booms each time. Dogs get scared, kids gets scared and police dispatchers get a rash of phone calls.
“It’s definitely more than fireworks,” wrote Melissa Scott of Pheasant Hills in Loveland on Nextdoor Monday evening. But no one seems to know for sure.
A dispatcher at Clermont County Communications Center, which answers emergency calls for police and fire in Miami Township, said they received about six calls around 8:30 p.m. Monday evening. A dispatcher said they all are from the far western part of the county in Miami Township, with some centered around the Arrowhead Apartments on Branch Hill-Guinea Pike, close to Little Miami River and near the Hamilton County boundary.
“It’s been happening for a while,” the dispatcher said. He said he did not work over the weekend, but calls came in all last week right around the same time and from right around the same area.
A reporter caught the sounds on a recording from the Loveland Crossing parking lot on Loveland-Madeira Road in Symmes Township near Subway. The sounds seemed to emanate from somewhere southeast of that location.
The noises have lit a fuse for Miami Township Sgt. Keith Bullock, which he said reports indicate sound like fireworks, but he has not heard them himself. He plans to put several officers in the area around 8:15 this evening to see if they can pinpoint the source.
“We’ll be down there,” he said. “We are going to try to resolve this.”
Purchasing and possessing fireworks in Ohio is not illegal – but shooting them off is, Bullock said. While citations are rare, certain situations warrant it and he would not commit to citing someone if they were caught Tuesday evening.
“Usually we just tell them to knock it off,” he said.
Exceptions usually happen if someone gets injured or if people openly defy the police officer’s request to stop shooting off the fireworks. If officers cite someone, a conviction is a misdemeanor in the first degree which can result in a $1,000 fine and six months in jail.
Despite many feeling they heard fireworks, Nextdoor was full of other possible explanations.
“It was aliens crashing to the ground,” wrote Dave Smith, who lives near Maineville, on Nextdoor. “Seen them with my own three eyes.”
Speculation has also suggested people killing fish in Lake Isabella (the park was closed Monday evening after the sounds were heard and the gate was chained shut) or the Rozzi’s Famous Fireworks store along Loveland-Madeira Road at I-275 was shooting off excess inventory (they are closed on Mondays and the gate was locked Monday evening).
A couple walking along Carson Way off of Branch Hill-Miamiville Road, up the hill from Arrowhead Apartments, around 8:45 p.m. said they had heard the noises Monday evening and for several nights previous. Monday they were outside when the sounds occurred, including a few that had firework flashes with them – and pointed toward where they saw them – in the direction toward Arrowhead Apartments down the hill. They were not sure where they came from exactly, whether they were from the large complex – or beyond it. Another person walking their dog on the same street said she had heard them, too, and had wondered what or who was causing it.
Others have seen posts online or also wondered what the noise was they heard inside their house.
“Just started hearing them three nights ago, too! I’ve been seeing people post about them but just started hearing them for myself,” wrote Sarah DeMoss, who lives in the Pheasant Hills neighborhood of Loveland, yesterday on Nextdoor. “Most certainly not fireworks.”
Another said the sounds scared their dogs “and they ran home.”
Nataline Tonne of Miami Township posted on Nextdoor asking users to say when and where they heard the loud noises. Users responded from all over Loveland and western Miami Township.
“Wards Corner and Wardwood,” wrote Alyson Mizer. “Hearing them most nights around 8:30, but some nights later. Quite loud.”
Someone posted on there that it was Diwali, an Indian holiday which includes fireworks on many nights.