The S.F. Bay Area has one now. I and three of my friends can hear it. We live in three different neighboring communities in the East Bay. It was previously more sporadic, but lately has been nearly constant.
Most often commencing at 3 or 4 in the morning, it used to stop later in the day but now it’s pretty much all day. For me it is ridiculously, dreadfully, maddeningly intrusive.
Anyone else?
Our weird noise in Trenton (NJ) is an occasional BOOM that seems to come from/near the Delaware River. It’s a very loud noise, like a combo of a cannon and sonic boom.
A native NJ friend said it’s been going on for years. We do have a tiny airport here, but big jets that make sonic booms don’t use it. Folks have suggested the usual theories: UFOs, secret gubmint experiment, Doppler interference.
Jennshark: Wow, that would be disconcerting, to say the least. Actually, I’ve heard there’s increased incidence of those booms, which may or may not be accompanied by a flash, around the world.
You mean that sound ISN’T in my head. I thought it was the old age hum. But now that I think about it I didn’t hear it yesterday when I went out for the mail. I recall thinking it was oddly quiet outside.
Sveltington: Yeah, that’s one of the strange things about it, I don’t hear it outside either. I hesitate to get into what some may consider foil-hat territory; but I’ll repeat this here because it genuinely happened and I can’t explain it.
One of my friends, who didn’t hear the hum at the time, has an oscilloscope. One day when I was visiting him, the hum was so pervasive that I suggested we try something. We turned on the scope, and simply held the leads in our hands. When he held them, there was just a straight line, typical background noise. When I held the leads, there was a clear sine wave, with distinct modulation. We tried it repeatedly with the same results.
Not sure what the deal is, but I wish it would stop, yaargh.
Yup, it’s a weird one. I hear it about once a month.
Maybe one of our many gangs in Trenton have procured cannon (hee hee).
I feel your pain. I play my music really loud to attempt to drown it.
People with hiigh quality hearing aids that can be adjusted to pick up low frequencies can sometimes hear these sounds when others present ca’n’t.
The oscilloscope trace was probably stray 60 Hz noise from the house wiring. When you held the leads, you added resistance to the signal and killed it.
Jennshark, I don’t think anyone is allowed to fly fast enough in the USA to cause sonic booms. Airliners can’t fly that fast.
We get Navy jets on the Outer Banks of NC doing it. At least, we used to.
So they are breaking the windows of ships at sea, not over land, but you can still hear them? I guess that is legal. I imagine they do it in those Nevada military areas, too.
FWIW, I lived in Taos for years and never heard it. Sounds like bunk to me.
Okay, but why did it only occur when I held the leads, and not when he did? When he held the leads, it looked the same as when no one held the leads. I’m not saying it proves anything, but it was strange.
Lucas Jackson: You know those color-blindness tests, the ones with the colored circles where some people see numbers in them and some don’t? If a person can’t see the numbers, does that mean they don’t exist? Thousands and thousands of people hear these hums in many locations all over the world, and they all describe them virtually identically. Why would such large numbers of people simply make up some kind of bunk? What would be the purpose of that?
SeniorCitizen007: Yes, it’s definitely in the lower frequencies. Having just now pored over the Wiki pages on hearing, Rayleigh waves, and bone conduction, my best guess is that this hum is probably not a sound moving through air but rather more like a vibration propagating through the ground. But it’s just a guess.
The Taos (and similar sorts of) hum affects about 2% of people in the area where it’s supposed to be heard. Most of those people are between 55 and 70 years old. At least 10% of all people have tinnitus. That usually begins at about 55. Do some scientific experiments where you blindfold people, drive them either to a distant place or in a circle back to the same place, and ask them if they still hear the hum. Only then will you prove the existence of the hum.
We have one in my town in Indiana (not Kokomo which also has had reports of a humming sound). I had lived on the north side of town for my whole life and hadn’t heard a thing. Then about four years ago we moved to the south side. Two months after moving in, I heard it*. I thought I was going crazy.
I’m the only one in the family that can hear it. It’s actually more like I feel it. It is a very low tone and vibrates in my ears and jaws. It’s usually occurs between 9:00 pm and 2:00 am and 8:00 am and 11:00 am. When it starts I have to have the central house fan on and a second fan on in the bedroom just to get to sleep. Sometimes it even works.
Four friggin’ years. I can’t listen to it any more. I told my husband that if I can’t get away from the noise I will end up harming myself. I wasn’t exagerrating. Husband finally agreed that we’ll sell the house after our boy finishes elementary school and move back to the north side where I never heard the humming. I was elated.
Then Christmas happened. We went to my folks’ house on the north side for Christmas and I heard the stupid humming. So now it’s on both sides of town. Looks like we’ll be moving to the town where my husband works. I’ve not heard the noise there.
A week after Christmas there was an article in our local newspaper. The police were getting calls from residents about a humming noise on the north side of town. The electric company believes the hum is coming from their power lines, transformers and/or substations. There has been an increase in electricity usage due to our below average temperatures and that is supposed to cause a much louder hum in the electrical equipment. There are no transformers or substations in my immediate neighborhood and our lines are buried, but there is a substation about 4 miles away. I don’t rule that out so when I have a chance, I’m going to drive by just for a listen.
*The sound is not exactly a hum, but that’s the easiest way to describe it. I hear/feel a very low pitched rrruhrrr, rrruhrrr, rrruhrrr kind of noise. It comes in waves, not unlike a diesel engine idling a few blocks away. The tinnitus I get when in an absolutely silent environment is very high pitched and unwavering. It doesn’t vibrate in my ears and I hear it regardless of body movement. The irritating hum actually lessens when I move around, but it’s sorta hard to sleep when I’m pacing and shaking my head to alleviate the humming noise.
bovine 3.14159: I totally understand and sympathize. It is impossible to ignore and like a kind of torture.
Wendell Wagner: Neither I nor any of my three friends have tinnitus; tinnitus involves the cilia of the ear, and is usually described as a high-pitched screeching or “white noise” kind of sound.
This is completely different. It is a low, low-pitched vibration, more felt than heard. Often you can feel it in your feet as well as sense the auditory component, which is half pressure and half vibration. It is, in fact, a physical sensation, not a sound. It is not present outdoors. In addition, there is an international database of hum hearing people which includes several data points which include the age of the hearer. The hum is heard by people of all ages. Furthermore, as I said above, I have heard the hum in three adjacent communities in the East Bay. I feel no need to “prove” it exists.
I said above that I am inclined to think this involves a vibration propagating through the ground.
My reasoning is as follows:
I think that features of physiognomy (ear canal shape/size, eardrum shape, shape of bones in inner ear, etc.) are apt to show more and broader variation between individuals than does the range of human hearing itself.
Looking at the fact, then, that a large number of people can hear the hum and a large number of people can’t – if the hum were simple sound waves propagating through air, in order to explain the differential ability to hear it you would have to postulate a large number of people with either a significantly augmented range of hearing, or a significantly diminished one. I think this is unlikely.
In reading the wiki articles on infrasound, bone conduction, and “seismic” communication among animals, it seems that there is a more complex relationship involved in sensing such communications, with a physiological component that is somewhat different from the normal mechanism for human hearing. If I understand it correctly, picking up these signals bypasses the cilia in the ear completely, stimulating the eardrum through other means than what we think of as the standard process of human hearing; the bones of the skull and the anatomy of the inner ear play a central role.
It seems to me that a far more likely explanation for why some “hear” the hum and some don’t, is that variations in the anatomy of one’s ear and inner ear either facilitate the ability to sense the vibration, or they do not.
Do the experiment I suggested and get back to me when you find the results.
I’ve noticed that if you live near a busy port, but not too near, there is a constant low droning sound that is somewhat like a hum.
I have one that I can hear on rare occasion about the 3-6am time frame It used to happen more, but had dropped off a lot or I just sleep through it. A few times I went searching for it at those hours, under the house, on the roof vent lines and stuff, perhaps the well or a nearby large barn. I have never figured it out and it does not bother me much anymore when I do hear it.
Gunshots maybe a couple times a day/night but no humming. There was almost more of a “hum” when I lived in the country with the constant background of birds and insects and all than we have here in this city.