This is Massachusetts, right? But early this morning a 2.5 earthquake hit towns west of Boston, including Littleton and Ayer.

Betsy Levinson at Wicked Local spoke with Littleton police dispatch Supervisor Tim Bemis, who described residents' response to the shaking: "It sounded like a plane crash on 495, or a truck had crashed into their home."

WCVB reported that this is the second earthquake in the area this month and that a 1.8 quake affected Amesbury and Merrimac.

Did you feel it? A 1.8 seems small, but it probably feels large for people who haven't had the dubious pleasure of sitting through an earthquake. (And it's not fun.)

New England has experienced earthquakes more often than you might think. To learn more, read about in "Why Does the Earth Quake in New England?: The Science of Unexpected Earthquakes" from Boston College. An 1871 article from the Boston Herald also reports an earthquake episode. The archived piece reveals just how juicy the writing used to be back then, with lines like "Parties abroad at that hour easily detected the disorganized and confused condition of the earth's interior."

Rick Sawyer contributed to this post. Image from ropeofsilicon.com.