I Hate Things That Happen On Friday Night!

[MineralMan]

Last night, around 9 PM, I was lying in bed in my St. Paul, MN home when I heard what sounded like an explosion. That was followed by 20 minutes of large and small explosions happening almost continuously. Alarmed, I went outside, and sure enough, looking south south east, you could see the clouds lighting up from the large explosions. My neighbors were all outside, too. There's no way this was thunder, since it was almost continuous for 20 minutes, and weather radar showed nothing anywhere near the area. I counted the seconds between the flash and the sound, and it was about 5 seconds, so we're talking a mile or so as the distance. In that direction, there is the 3M corporate headquarters, Interstate 94, and a bunch of businesses.

Naturally, I went back in the house and turned on the 10PM local news. Nothing. This morning. Nothing. Nothing on the Internet, either. I'm sure I'll finally find out what happened, but news crews are already gone for the weekend, so it may not be until Monday that I find out what the heck all that was about.

I hate things that happen on Friday night. It's almost impossible to find out what the heck happened. I could call the police department, I suppose, but I won't. They have stuff to do, and I'm just curious.

[Jackpine Radical]

1. Something to do with the Rapture, I imagine.

[HopeHoops]

2. Pre-rapture fireworks?

:shrug:

[MineralMan]

7. Nope. Not fireworks, unless there was a fire somewhere

fireworks were stored. It was way too random and way too continuous. People do a lot of fireworks here in St. Paul, but you can't hear them if they're a mile away. Not like that anyhow.

[HopeHoops]

8. Weird. I've experienced a one, two, or three explosion mystery - but not 20 minutes.

You would THINK that would have made the paper since it happened that early in the evening.

[MineralMan]

11. Not our paper. I think they make up the Saturday paper Friday morning

except for the sports section. They're short-staffed as it is. News that happens here on Friday or weekend evenings often never gets reported at all.

[HopeHoops]

23. LOL! I've lived in places with papers like that. I'm shocked at how late they get stuff into ours.

There's stuff I've seen on the Internet at like 2:00 in the morning that's made it into the paper that hits the driveway at 5:00. How the fuck do they do that?

[ChairmanAgnostic]

3. please forgive the 5 bean salad I ate.

I had no idea the sound would echo like that.

[treestar]

4. Interesting

You can't find out what happened right where you are - but can get on the internet and find out things that are happening on other continents right now.

[elias49]

5. Jeez! Sounds like a fire-fight!

I'd be a little disturbed, too.

[MineralMan]

9. It actually did sound a lot like a fire-fight.

Hundreds of small bangs, punctuated by fairly frequent loud booms, with the clouds lighting up.

My best guess is that there was a fire where stuff was stored, like propane tanks, drums of flammables, aerosol cans...that kind of thing. There are a couple of hardware stores in that area. And, there's 3M, which does some light manufacturing and research at that location. That's a possibility, too.

It's just frustrating as hell not knowing. I may have to take a morning drive and see if I can locate where it was.

[ejpoeta]

6. you need a police scanner!! if you have a smartphone they have an app for that.

[HopeHoops]

10. Mystery solved. MiddleFingerMom had 3 burritos in the hospital yesterday for lunch.

:hurts:

[MineralMan]

12. Uff da! That'd do it, for sure.

:rofl:

[HopeHoops]

26. If you haven't seen this "MFM tribute" thread (for when he gets back), check it out...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x9690715

And keep it kicked!

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

13. I'm sure it was the 3M building.

All those Post-It notes and tape and sandpaper reached critical mass, and so that stuff would have been fluttering all over St. Paul. MineralMan, check to see if there are any in your garden. The sandpaper wouldn't have drifted very far (I'm upwind, so nothing here). It's been raining all morning so we can expect to find colorful but soggy lumps of Post-Its in the streets.

[Fla_Democrat]

14. Newspaper didn't cover it?

I would be surprised if there wasn't anything in the paper.



:smoke:

[Hutzpa]

15. You could have been dreaming or worst hallucinating. n/t

[Uben]

16. Cheney breaking in a new lawyer?

I hear the new lawyer escaped from Cheney who was seen chasing him, shotgun in hand. Three boxes of shells and not one hit!
WHen asked, Cheney claimed he forget to shackle the lawyer before the hunt. Lesson learned.

[warrior1]

19. never mind

[geckosfeet]

17. fireworks?

[geckosfeet]

18. Could be the rapture crowd shooting off their last load of explosives.

[Armstead]

20. Heat lightning?

I knw it's not quite the season for that, but sometimes that can be unpredictable.

[Drahthaardogs]

21. I suspect you live somewhere near a military base

and last night they were having night maneuvers. I live about ten miles from a base, and this happens about once a summer. The new neighbors have no idea what is going on when it happens.

[lunatica]

22. Jesus! Call the police for crying out loud!

[FSogol]

27. Why? Uh, there was this explosion, um 3 actually, and I don't know where.

:shrug:

[MineralMan]

30. To what end? People close to whatever was going on called,

I'm sure, and they knew where it was. I'm at least a mile away from whatever it was.

[frazzled]

24. Practice for Fort Snelling Memorial Day musket maneuvers?

Okay, that's lame.

[FSogol]

25. Probably a Big Lizard.

"Big Lizard in My Backyard" - Lyrics by the Dead Milkmen

Was knocked outta bed
Late last night
I was woken up by the sound of dynamite
I ran downstairs to find an army man
He said "We gotta blow up those things we don't understand!"

Big lizard in my backyard
Can't afford to feed it anymore
Big lizard in my backyard
Bustin' down my neighbor's door

[demmiblue]

28. This belongs in the September 11 forum.

:tinfoilhat:





:evilgrin:

[MilesColtrane]

29. This happened 11 days ago in Fort Worth, and was attributed the next day to exploding transformers.

The difference here is that the camera operator appears to be several miles away from the...whatever it is, so there's no discernible sounds on the video.

Weird if you ask me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYCHBI66izs

[MineralMan]

31. UPDATE: I just took a drive through all the

parts of town where this could have been, and saw nothing. I think it's going to be a mystery, unless the news covers it.

[Shagbark Hickory]

32. You might find a police scanner useful.

Unless of course police and fire have gone encrypted like they have in many places.