ALLEGHENY CO. (WPXI) — The region started off 2022 with a loud boom heard and felt by many around the region at 11:30 Saturday morning. From the North Hills to Carnegie, to the South Hills, Greensburg, Westmoreland County and beyond, people shared on social media their experiences witnessing the boom. Some posts said the boom shook people’s houses. The National Weather Service said the boom was not an earthquake. It also ruled out thunder and lightning as a possible cause. The organization’s theory is a meteor that entered the atmosphere and exploded. The NWS said a satellite loop captured activity over Washington County that likely showed the meteor. The organization is still not 100% sure whether it was a meteor, but noted that a meteor explosion over West Virginia in September caused similar activity. The National Weather Service is still investigating what exactly happened, but said there is no cause for concern at this time. Officials with the National Weather Service in Pittsburgh reported the source may have been a meteor explosion. Information from the GOES-16 Geostationary Lightning Mapper satellite, which specifically searches for light emitted by lightning, detected “a flash that was not associated with lightning” at the time of the incident. This has not been confirmed as the source yet, however. (Photo: NWS Pittsburgh Facebook Page)