A big boom in Woodland rattled neighbors awake early on Tuesday morning, Nov. 4, and left many asking what in the world it was. Well, it may just have been from out of this world.

Woodland police, after receiving reports from neighbors seeing what looked like fireworks that night, told CBS Sacramento on Thursday that it was likely an aerial firework. But police said they found no debris, damage or signs of any explosion.

Neighbors reported that what they heard sounded like a loud explosion, a bomb or a firework.

Home doorbell camera sent to CBS Sacramento by viewer Benito Garcia captured around eight seconds of a loud whistling sound, followed by a bright flash of light and then a loud bang around 5 a.m.

CBS News Sacramento's Chief Meteorologist Nic Merianos, after seeing the video, theorizes that something else is responsible for the loud bang: meteor activity.

That same morning, the Southern Taurid meteor shower was at its peak.

"The Taurid meteor shower, they're known for very bright fireballs," Merianos said.

Through the American Meteor Society, reports poured in the day before the boom from people spotting fireball activity all across California.

"At the same time that boom in Woodland was reported, there was a report of a fireball from an observer out of Half Moon Bay. It's around the exact same time, toward that direction," Merianos said. "So then I started looking at social media archives, and I saw in the Solano County Facebook group around the same time, there was another post about a giant meteor, or a fireball, shooting across the sky looking toward Vacaville. So the direction also aims toward Woodland."

In the doorbell video, what follows the large boom is several car alarms being set off by the stirring. That, Merianos said, is inconsistent with typical firework activity.

"How many times have you been to a firework show and you've heard car alarms going off for a whole block?" Merianos said.

He added that the eight-second whistling sound is also more consistent with a meteor event than a firework due to its length alone.

His theory is that the loud bang was a sonic boom from a fragment of a meteor, a bolide or fireball, that burst and likely left no trace. The piece of rock could have disintegrated before hitting the ground, consistent with the reported lack of a debris field.

CBS Sacramento asked Raj Dixit, a current member and former president of the Sacramento Valley Astronomical Society, to watch the video and weigh in.

"I do think that the evidence is very consistent with that. Especially given the time of year, and that this is the peak of the Southern Taurids. They were peaking basically at that time. I do think that raises an excellent argument and a genuine probability that this was related," Dixit said.

Dixit said the Taurid meteor shower is especially active this year as Earth passes through the debris field of the comet 2P/Encke.

"We happen to be passing through a particularly rough and thick patch of tail this year. Normally, there are 10 fireballs per hour caused by this comet. It's more than that this year in 2025, which makes it, I think, very likely that this could have been one of those fireballs, those bolides," Dixit said.

As for that whistling sound, it is rare but has been associated with fireballs, an electronic effect of it disturbing the air around it.

"Whistling is not unknown. It has been documented," Dixit said. "Most of the time, most people don't hear a sound except perhaps a sonic boom. But when they do hear anything other than a sonic boom, it's usually a crackling or static sound. So this whistle, that seems to be a genuinely rare capture, and that makes this [the video] a precious document."

CBS Sacramento sent the video to the State Fire Marshal as well. Chief Daniel Berlant said he and his colleagues conferred and believe the video could be consistent with a large whistle rocket.

It cannot be ruled out that the boom was in fact caused by a firework, homemade explosive or some other phenomenon.