The first morning of 2022, in Dormont, a neighborhood just south of downtown Pittsburgh, began like most days had in 2021. She was on her bed scrolling through social media while her boyfriend was playing a game.
The bed shook.
Ms. Ishler said that if you stand too close, you can feel a rumble in your chest.
She looked out the window. It was calm, but a little gray.
Her boyfriend said that he too had felt something, as did a neighbor in their building.
Ms. Ishler said that it was just the feeling of the shock wave.
Diane Turnshek felt something powerful on Saturday morning. She was in her home on a hill above sea level. Her first thought was that her washing machine had fallen off.
The Pittsburgh office of the National Weather Service got calls from people who heard a loud noise but didn't see anything.
It seemed like everyone was looking for answers. Ms. Lake was more interested in what was going on in the world. She was in the office but didn't hear anything. Ms. Lake said that the office has sturdy windows, and that the cleaning staff might have been using a vacuum.
The seismograph at the Allegheny Observatory did not detect any earthquakes. Seismographs are sensitive enough to detect earthquakes, but not as sensitive as they should be to detect surface vibrations.
The air over Pittsburgh on Saturday was too benign for storms or lightning, so those were ruled out, too.
Ms. Lake said that airplanes were discounted because they did not move as fast as meteorites that break pressure barriers.
Ms. Lake said they thought it was a meteorite. It is the only thing besides aircraft incidents that could have caused that type of sound.
Chris Leonardi, a Weather Service meteorologist based in Pittsburgh, said that the thinking was that a meteor exploded.
One of their colleagues used a device called ageostationary lightning mapper, which can detect momentary changes in an optical scene, indicating the presence of lightning.
Since there were no storms in the area, it is believed that the source of the vibration was a meteorite that was close to Earth.
The Weather Service said on Saturday that it may have been a meteorite explosion.
People shared their accounts and theories on social media after the Weather Service announcement. Some people posted videos that they said captured the boom. A person posted a video on Facebook of fish jumping in a pond, as if they had been startled. The person wrote that something spooked them.
It was not the first time people have wondered about something overhead.
The sky over New York City was blue in December. People speculated about a U.F.O. flyby or an alien invasion, but the cause was a transformer explosion. A 500-pound meteorite streaked through the sky above western Pennsylvania in 2015. There were theories that an earthquake or an aircraft was to blame for the boom that shook homes in New Hampshire in October. Satellite imagery suggested a meteorite exploded in the sky.
Ms. Lake said that nobody reported seeing anything below the cloud deck in Pittsburgh. Ms. Lake thinks that the meteorite could have been above the ground, but not below the cloud cover.
Ms. Lake said that the best theory about what happened over Pittsburgh on Saturday was a meteorite explosion.
Ms. Turnshek said that what she and others in Pittsburgh experienced on New Year's Day was a once-in-a-lifetime event.
There are many movies depicting the dangers of a comet, asteroid, or meteorite crashing to Earth.
Astronomers are looking for such things. The best solution would be to send a rocket to sit next to the large body and pull it off course.
Ms. Ishler shared the Weather Service's conclusions with her friends and neighbors in Dormont. She said the year had started with a bang.
