u/Ok-Weakness4899

I saw something this past week I've never seen before. Two F-18s were returning to Virginia going east to west over the beach, armed. They were low enough that you could clearly see the sidewinder missiles attached to the wings, along with other ordinance on the inner wings and the external tank in the middle.

I'm used to seeing the jets fly over doing drills and other maneuvers, but always unarmed. The two armed F-18s were accompanied by two others that were unarmed (4 in total). This was a few days ago and about a half hour earlier, we heard two sonic booms that were significantly muted by the ocean, but still very recognizable. Wonder if there was some kind of incident or potential threat?