I’m just a tourist staying at Santa Monica. At midnight I heard sounds that sounded like gunshots almost for about 5 minutes.

Was that just motorcycles??

  • A game we play in LA always, “was that gunfire, fireworks, a backfire,” “aaahhh who cares”

  • I was walking home from work at precisely midnight in DTSM and I didn’t hear anything? Are you further out?

    Not a ton of gun violence out here, esp if you didn’t hear sirens after, I’d assume fireworks since it was 5 minutes.

  • Most likely fireworks.. maybe a practice run for new years. Guessing you’re near Ocean Ave and/or downtown SM.

  • I heard it. Loudly. It was a car backfiring. He kept trying to start it and BOOM BOOM BOOM. Sounded just like a shotgun but with far too many shells to be a real shotgun.

  • Was it like a rat-a-tat-tat quick sound or more of a slow, mechanical sound?

    Because I’ve lived here a long time and around that time I head a sound that I’ve never heard before that was like the latter. What I heard definitely didn’t sound like fireworks or gun shots. It’s hard to describe but maybe like something with big metal teeth slowly being dragged down the road? Loudly. It lasted a few seconds, stopped, and then started again. The whole thing lasted around 10 minutes or so. Somewhere near Ocean.

    So if that’s what you heard, I have no idea what it was but I heard it, too. Otherwise yeah, fireworks, gun shots, or those stupid muffler things that sound like gun shots. Whatever it was, we’ll probably never know.