This weekend I was sitting out on my sister’s deck enjoying the nice weather. Her house faces west, we were sitting on the back deck, so on the east side of the house.
Suddenly, there comes a noise over to the east that sounds like a ton of rushing water through a pipe, like a big culvert, or something.
Sis says, “Just wait. That sounds means a plane is coming.”
Sure enough, *from the west *comes a jet. Low enough that it’s obviously going to land at the Omaha airport (about 12 miles away on the other side of town).
The hell? It happened again about a half an hour later. Weird rushing-water-thru-pipes sound in the east followed shortly by a landing plane coming from the west.
The topography around her house is typical Omaha, hilly but not extremely hilly.
So, what do you think causes this noise?
I knew it. It’s the alien ships signaling to our aircraft, isn’t it?
My WAG is a distorted echo.
Interesting. I wonder what the hell it’s echoing off of. I wonder what the radius is of people who hear the same thing.
Is there a house or other building behind hers?
We have a similar phenomenon but maybe not exactly the same. We are, I think, in the flight path for the approach to Dulles. I haven’t noticed the east-west aspect, but when a plane flies over we usually don’t hear the engines gradually swell in the distance to become louder as it passes overhead, but there’s this sudden gush, with a little bit of Doppler effect added in, so it sounds like it comes from infinity to overhead at warp speed then resumes its normal cruising speed as it passes.
I have noticed a similar effect where I used to live. About 1 minute after a plane has passed by directly overhead as it comes in to land there is whooshing* sound. This is after the plane has well and truly passed by. The aircraft would only be a couple of hundred meters above.
antechinus, you might be hearing the wake turbulence from the aircraft, which is mostly from vortexes around the wingtips. It generally settles downward, slowly, as it dissipates.
niblet_head, that has to be an echo.
Yep, she’s in your typical suburban subdivision, although on a pretty steep hill. There is one more street of houses to the east of her and then a big rolling cornfield and then regular suburban Omaha.
antechinus, I believe you. It’s a whooshing sound at her house, too. Only in her case it’s seconds before the plane appears!