The real answer is...."you don't know". And that's okay. You don't have any evidence that supports it being something supernatural. You just don't have an explanation for it. It's an unknown, that's all. Trying to attribute it to the supernatural is trying to fill in the gap of knowledge you currently have about the subject. Nothing more, nothing less.

Humans inherently want to understand things and we're very inclined, by our brains, to seek patterns and connect dots. If we can't really connect them in a way we can prove directly, we'll come up with something that somewhat fits, even if it's not supported by the evidence.

When humans didn't understand the orbits and rotations of the solar system, but saw patterns like the sun moving across the sky with different paths that correlated to the seasons, we came up with gods like Shams (Arabic, before Muhammad), Helios (Greek), Apollo (Roman), Tonatiuh (Aztec), Inti (Incan), Taiyang Shen (Chinese), Surya (Hindu) and Ra (Egyptian) and many others via various older religions. When Copernicus enlightened us as to what was actually happening, we moved away from believing in those gods because we now had an answer that satisfied the patterns we saw and was actually provable.

Your situation is similar. You experienced something: a loud noise that you could not explain while you were discussing something. You're connecting those dots, though there's no evidence to support a connection, because you want an explanation for what happened. If/when you find out what caused the noise, you'll no longer make that connection because you have the answer.

It's all about context. When you start out and don't know much, you're going to look at everyone and see them as better than you, even the less than average folks. It's just a function of time and exposure to the work. You will improve over time as you learn and you'll have less and less people that seem better than you and more and more that are "imposters", compared to you.

I work in a field (engineering) where a crap load of people have advanced degrees. When I was younger, I would look around me and feel like I was so behind that I was never going to be able to compete. Everyone was speaking to each other using terms that I had no concept of. It was easy to see them all as up on these pedestals and I would never get there.

Eventually, I realized that the lingo they were using was specific to the work, not to the discipline of engineering. That's just a function of being exposed to the work. As I came up to speed on that lingo, the pedestals came crashing down for the majority of the people I work with because I could see that while they knew the work, they didn't seem to have any special abilities that I lacked and, in fact, plenty of them were mediocre. Sure, there's some that are stand outs, but there's also some that just suck. The average is just a plain engineer...and they're not so intimidating.

I got my associates from a community college in 1991. Went to a 4 year school for a bit after, but just got tired of it and stopped going. After bouncing around a few jobs, I got hired at my current company (29 years and still going). When I was hired, I literally made less than the co-ops/interns. Had to prove myself, over and over, to work my way up...for years, I was working beyond my compensation and every time I tried to bring that up, I was beat down with the "you don't have your degree, yet...just go back to school and get it". Well, I didn't and I've still arrived at a very good place....it just took me longer to get here.

One thing to bear in mind is the Golden Rule. "He who has the gold, makes and/or breaks the rules." If you can find someone willing to pay you what you want, then you can either go there or use that as leverage to get raises/promotions. You have to actively work it, it won't just come to you. But you definitely can succeed.

My recommendation, though, would be to finish the degree. It just removes that from being used against you and it'll pay off again and again over your career.

Good luck!

The real question is, should you actually care about their opinion?

You seem to know that what they're saying isn't true, so you know it just doesn't apply to you and they're wrong. Just as if they called you a jelly donut...it's a silly thing for them to say because it does not reflect reality. In such a case, treat them as they deserve to be treated - ignored for being nonsensical. You don't have to fix them or their opinions. Let them sit there in their own ignorance/nonsense.

And, if they treat you this way, then why should you assign any kind of value to their opinion of you. By extension - a low opinion of you coming from someone whom you don't have enough regard for to value their advice is just an opinion to ignore.