How to remove multiple UTF-8 BOM sequences

you would use the following code to remove utf8 bom

//Remove UTF8 Bom

function remove_utf8_bom($text)
{
    $bom = pack('H*','EFBBBF');
    $text = preg_replace("/^$bom/", '', $text);
    return $text;
}

try:

// -------- read the file-content ----
$str = file_get_contents($source_file); 

// -------- remove the utf-8 BOM ----
$str = str_replace("\xEF\xBB\xBF",'',$str); 

// -------- get the Object from JSON ---- 
$obj = json_decode($str); 

:)