If it is Massachusetts perhaps this was a fix for a snow and ice problem. It looks like the eaves above the "mystery box" are rather short. Maybe snow, ice, and water was getting into the conduit (once the gutters froze up). I bet they experienced "the annual removal of the service entrance via very large ice chunk" one too many times.
Dare I ask what's under the box. It looks too small to have meters under it. There's two conduits out the bottom? Anyone got a guess. I've never seen this before.
"Come on over we're having a porch party.... you can read the meter while you're here."
RSlater,
RSmike
