I think I might be paranoid....or maybe not......

[hyphenate]

Okay, this isn't going to sound too rational, but I think someone took a shot at one of my cats. I was sitting here in the front room where my office is. One of my cats was at the open (but screened) front windows, and I heard this noise that almost sounded like a cap gun, and I saw a "flash" next. I didn't hear a thump or thud or anything, and the cat was okay--in fact, Jean-Luc immediately jumped off the window when I hollered to him. Oliver jumped over to it, but I got him away from the window too, closed it, and then shut the blind as quickly as I could.

To be honest, I don't know who actually lives in the house now, as tenants moved into the second floor apartment a couple of weeks ago. I know, though, that they have some rather rude friends, though, who take up two parking spaces in front of our place, and that they have some rather loud parties in the middle of the week, but I don't say anything to anyone else, and keep my thoughts to myself. (Keeping one's own counsel is a virtue I wish more people had)

But since I have never had the misfortune of ever hearing a real gun going off, am I just being paranoid, or does a real gun sound like a cap gun? No, I won't be calling the police--I'm just the dotty, "crazy cat lady" who has way too much imagination. It pisses me off, though, that my animals might have to suffer because of some really psychotic people.

[Haole Girl]

1. Could you ask around and see if anybody else heard the noise?

A cap gun sounds like this, btw: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSxK1qy4NMA

:hug:

[two gun sid]

2. You heard it before you saw the flash?

They can sound like cap guns depending on the caliber and distance and acoustics. You should see the flash before you hear it. Did anything hit your house? Hole in the screen?

[Kali]

3. fireworks?

[mduffy31]

4. a .22 Cal short can be pretty quiet

[hyphenate]

5. Update

I forgot to mention the time of the original incident: it was 12:21 a.m. when it happened.

In fact, there were three more of them--one, at 2:42, and followed by two more at 2:44. I asked my friend Steve who lives on the first floor if he'd heard any of them, and he did indeed hear the later "shots" but not the first one.

I thought about fireworks, too, but while we heard a fair amount before the 4th of July, we didn't hear much after it. So I ruled out fireworks because it didn't sound quite like any I've heard recently.

When we were kids, they had those cap guns that were on a strip, and you could set off a couple at a time. The sound of what I heard last night was much louder than those, though.

I'm going to call the police as a non-emergency, and ask them if anyone else reported it last night. If I can't get information, I'll just write it off to my vivid imagination.