FBI swarms neighbourhood after ‘loud bangs’ but won’t reveal what they’re looking for

Well over 50 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents swarmed a neighbourhood off a North Carolina highway – and wouldn’t say why.

The intelligence agency descended on a woodland just by Highway 15-501, about four miles south of the town of Chapel Hill, on Wednesday.

Federal agents were seen searching the few properties that sit along Bell Circle and Woodbridge Drive from about 6am to 1pm.

Officials were tight-lipped about their presence, only revealing to Metro they were conducting a ‘court-authorised investigative activity’.

Locals told ABC11 WTVD they

Candice Welch said: ‘Woke me up out of my sleep,’ she said.

‘It was a real loud bang, about 30 minutes apart. I thought it was just a transformer [blowing], it was loud.’

The sounds of gunfire, however, weren’t heard, according to another resident.

‘I’m happy it’s turned out well and there’s no sort of gunfire or anything like that in my neighbourhood this morning,’ he told WRAL News.

County deputies were also spotted, as were unmarked cars, officers from the ‘evidence recovery team’ and possibly a drone.

Welch added that FBI agents, whose uniform said they were from the agency’s Raleigh field office, told her they were ‘looking for a missing item’.

‘We knew it had to be something important, something very serious because of the fact that it was the FBI, along with the sheriff’s deputies, and unmarked cars,’ she added.

‘There was a little bit of everything out here.’

Despite repeated requests from locals and the press, the FBI declined to reveal why they were in the area.

The agency told Metro: ‘The FBI is conducting court-authorised investigative activity in connection with an ongoing federal law enforcement investigation.’

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