Loud Noise At Night

[Happiness is a Warm Gun]

This is barely related to lucid dreaming, but I just had a very odd experience that I'd like to share: It's around 3:30AM here in SoCal (the time when I normally hop off the computer and go to bed), and having gotten the rare chance for a late afternoon nap, I'm wide awake. I'm reading a PDF of Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming, mostly just skimming to try to get past the stuff I'm already familiar with into the real meat of the book. Suddenly, there's a loud BANG from my right. It sounds like something may have slammed into my wall or roof. It's loud enough that I can hear the wood of the house strain with the impact, the neighborhood dogs all go nuts. After sitting for a couple seconds and asking myself whether or not I want to acknowledge what just happened, I conclude that it would be wise to perform a flashlight investigation. The investigation produced absolutely nothing. This is disturbing, because this impact was loud and sudden enough that there's no cause I can imagine that wouldn't leave some sort of obvious evidence. My first thought was that someone had very quietly gotten on the roof or outside my window (years ago I found someone hiding outside my window late at night), and then slipped and collided with the house. But while this would create the correct type of sound, I wouldn't be able to produce the correct volume without charging at my wall with full force, and such an impact would make it impossible for me to make such a quick, quiet getaway on foot (this is a very quiet street at night, car engines and even human footsteps are a rarity, and easily recognizable). My second thought was that I was losing it, or falling asleep and experiencing the loud boom I've often heard associated with hypnagogic hallucinations. Neither of these theories pan out either, both because I'm completely positive that I was wide awake, and because the neighborhood dogs clearly heard the noise as well; it couldn't have just been in my head. Finally, I considered tectonic shifts, but I just can't imagine tectonic shifts producing a sound like this; it sounded very clearly like the result of a collision between a large, fast-moving object and my house. Well, that's all I've got, thanks for reading. I realize that this is a huge post to be writing over something as mundane as hearing a loud noise at night, but I hope I've effectively communicated why I found this experience unsettling. If anyone would like to share their thoughts, I'd appreciate the input.