DRAPER, Utah — It's been days since many residents across the south end of the Salt Lake Valley saw an unexplained boom and flash of light.
"It was just totally unexpected," said Draper resident Ian Gillespie.
Early Saturday, Gillespie was headed to bed when he was awoken by the loud boom.
"My bedroom window faces looking up a steep mountain, so I immediately saw the flash and got out of bed," recalled Gillespie. "I saw the smoke plume, so I took a picture."
Following the boom, Gillespie checked with neighbors who captured it all on their doorbell cameras. Residents also took to social media to share photos, doorbell cam videos, and seek information on what they heard and saw.
"My first instinct was to think it was Geneva Rock," Gillespie said. "They've been doing heavy mining operations and eroding a lot of steep mountain and point of the mountain area and they do have small scale explosions relatively often."
Days later there are still few answers about what exactly led up to the explosion.
"We know based on what we found that this is not Geneva's doing," said Lt. Pat Evans with the Draper Police Department. "We did find evidence of an explosion, there were a lot of people speculating it could be space debris or a comet and we've ruled that out, but what we do know is this is a human-caused explosion."
For residents like Gillespie, they hope the culprit is caught and all can return to normal in their neighborhood, especially heading into the busy Flight Park season.
"I think it's important we understand why somebody was up there and let everyone know it's unacceptable to light off explosions of this magnitude in such a residential and protected area," he said.
Lt. Evans says there is no threat to the public, but police are requesting those in the area to review security footage from that night to look for any persons or things that may be suspicious. Draper Police are encouraging anyone with information on anything that happened overnight Friday into Saturday morning to contact them at 801-840-4000.
