HANCOCK COUNTY — The explosion could be heard from at least two miles away. It wasn’t a typical gunshot sound, either. This was something else, something different, and it worried plenty of people.
On Sunday evening, social media lit up with posts from people in Sugar Creek Township wondering what they had just heard and felt. “Anyone hear an explosion off in the distance on 500 West?” one person wrote on the New Pal Community page on Facebook at about 7:30 p.m. “We are in Cedar Creek Estates, and it shook our windows. Hope everyone is OK?”
Another person responded, “Does anyone know what it was?” Another person joked, “I apologize, I fell out of bed.”
Sheriff’s deputies patrolling in the area were perplexed as well. They reported seeing nothing.
The next day, the mystery was solved. Travis Coffman, a New Palestine High School graduate, posted a video showing how he had shot at Tannerite in a field off County Road 700W, causing the window-rattling blast.
The occasion, he wrote, was a family gender reveal party.
“It (Tannerite) was a pound and we had been sighting in a gun the prior week,” Coffman posted on the New Pal Community page.
Officials from the Hancock County Sheriff’s Department noted that Coffman didn’t do anything illegal. But they said Tannerite can be dangerous stuff if not used correctly.
The product, which is easily obtainable online and even at Walmart at a cost of around $45 for a couple of pounds, is used to produce exploding targets for long-range shooting practice. The targets explode when hit by a bullet, and that allows shooters to hear and see if they’ve hit their distant target, a sheriff’s department spokesman said.
The problem? Tannerite can sound like dynamite going off, and the concussion can actually rattle structures. It’s why police often get calls when Tannerite is detonated, because people who are not familiar or trained in using the product can use too much of it.
“Sometimes, people become carried away with the amount,” said Capt. Robert Harris, public information officer for the Hancock County Sheriff’s Department.
There are no laws regulating the use of Tannerite in the county, so people who purchase it can use it however they see fit.
The compound consists mostly of ammonium nitrate and aluminum powder, and Tannerite is the most popular commercial brand. It requires a high-power rifle round to ignite it, Harris said, so whoever is using it should follow gun safety protocol and applicable gun laws.
“Other than that, Tannerite is not really regulated out in the rural areas,” Harris said.
A survey of videos posted online shows the product creates spectacular explosions. Used in smaller amounts, it has become increasingly popular at gender reveal parties, with the detonation spewing blue or pink plumes into the sky. Kits for such use are readily available online.
Used in larger amounts, Tannerite can be extremely dangerous.
“You would probably not believe some of the stuff people do with it and somehow walk away alive,” Harris said.
In his Facebook post, Coffman said he used one pound of the product.
It could be heard and felt from two miles away. “It sounded like a cannon,” one person wrote of the blast.
“Definitely louder than any guns I know, and my windows are shaking from it,” another posted.
Once community members read the explanation, a number of them offered congratulations to Coffman, who did not respond to a request to be interviewed for this story.
And the gender reveal? Coffman and his fiancee are having a boy.
