Experts baffled by mysterious booms

Experts baffled by mysterious booms

NORMAN, Okla.

A spate of mysterious booms that has been shaking central Oklahoma returned for a second day Friday, again rattling houses and frightening livestock.

Oklahoma Geological Survey research seismologist Austin Holland said a series of booms, much like a sonic boom, rattled the Norman area starting at 11:19 a.m. Friday. Numerous others had been reported Thursday in the same area at about the same time.

Friday’s booms weren’t “quite as frequent” as Thursday’s, Holland said. “It’s quite interesting.”

Both Holland and National Weather Service meteorologist Matthew Day didn’t have an explanation for the booms.

No earthquakes have been recorded in the area, Holland said, noting that “we would have seen them on our seismic stations in the area.” And it’s unlikely that it’s due to a drilling process known as fracking, he said, because the booms were heard and felt over a wide area including Norman, Edmond and Shawnee.

Holland’s best guess: It must have been something just above the surface of the earth or in the atmosphere.

Romney considering run for White House

WASHINGTON

In a move that surprised his most loyal supporters and former staff, Mitt Romney told several donors Friday he’s seriously considering a third run for the White House — a dramatic shift for the last Republican presidential nominee after months of insisting his career in politics is over.

Yet should Romney follow through and enter the race, the former governor of Massachusetts who made millions in private equity would hardly be a lock to win his party’s nomination for the second time. He would join a field expected to feature more than a dozen Republicans with legitimate White House resumes, sitting governors and U.S. senators among them.

Owner dies after gun-shop shootings

SHAWNEE, Kan.

A gun-shop owner died from gunshot wounds Friday after a botched robbery that left three suspects wounded, police said.

Shawnee police said in a news release that John Bieker, 44, died after the shooting at the Shawnee store called She’s a Pistol, which caters to female gun owners. Police said gunfire erupted after four men tried to rob Bieker and his wife, Rebecca.

Authorities said John Bieker and two of the suspects had been taken from the store in critical condition. Rebecca Bieker wasn’t shot but sustained minor injuries.

Police said in a news release that the other two suspects, including one who had been shot, fled but were located a short time later on the porch of a nearby home.

FBI offers $10K for information on blast near NAACP

The FBI offered a $10,000 reward Friday for information leading to an arrest for an explosion outside the offices of a Colorado chapter of the NAACP, and released a composite sketch of a person of interest in the case.

Thomas Ravenelle, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Denver division, told reporters that though investigators have not confirmed that the NAACP was the target of the attack, his office was not ruling out any possibilities.

“I’m not going to be naive; I know what the NAACP means to some extremists in this country,” Ravenelle said.

Combined dispatches