A Mysterious Sound Is Driving People Insane — And Nobody Knows What’s Causing It
June 20th, 2014This is probably the most mainstream treatment of the various “hums” phenomena that I’ve read.
I have never personally heard any of these hums, but this is a classic topic in alternative info circles that goes back a couple of decades.
Have you guys heard anything like what’s described? What do you think is causing it?
Via: Mic Network:
“The Hum” refers to a mysterious sound heard in places around the world by a small fraction of a local population. It’s characterized by a persistent and invasive low-frequency rumbling or droning noise often accompanied by vibrations. While reports of “unidentified humming sounds” pop up in scientific literature dating back to the 1830s, modern manifestations of the contemporary hum have been widely reported by national media in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia since the early 1970s.
Regional experiences of the phenomenon vary, and the Hum is often prefixed with the region where the problem centers, like the “Windsor Hum” in Ontario, Canada, the “Taos Hum” in New Mexico, or the “Auckland Hum” for Auckland, New Zealand. Somewhere between 2 and 10% of people can hear the Hum, and inside isolation is no escape. Most sufferers find the noise to be more disturbing indoors and at night. Much to their dismay, the source of the mysterious humming is virtually untraceable.
While the uneven experience of the Hum in local populations has led some researchers to dismiss it as a “mass delusion,” the nuisance and pain associated with the phenomenon make delusion a dissatisfying hypothesis. Intrigued by the mysterious noise, MacPherson launched The World Hum Map and Database in December 2012 to collect testimonies of other Hum sufferers and track its global impact (he now also moderates a decade-old Yahoo forum along with Deming).
MacPherson quickly discovered that what to him was a strange rumbling was actually having pernicious effects on hundreds of people, from headaches to irritability to sleep deprivation. There are reports that weeks of insomnia caused by the Bristol Hum drove at least three U.K. residents to suicide. “It completely drains energy, causing stress and loss of sleep,” a sufferer told a British newspaper in 1992. “I have been on tranquilizers and have lost count of the number of nights I have spent holding my head in my hands, crying and crying.” Thousands of people around the world have shared similar experiences of the Hum; some, like MacPherson, are devoting their time to finally uncovering its source.
Yes, I’ve heard this along with other sorts of wackiness which I generally keep under my hat as I see it as phenomena (both psychic and/or external) which doesn’t really do anyone any favours of you start going on about it.
Regarding the humming – I live in the Highlands of Scotland which is very wild and quite a long way from civilisation. There is a major military base somewhere realtively close for RAF fighters and a few others that have (apparently) been closed down in the last decade or more. I don’t know if there is a link.
I first started hearing a very low frequency hum back in 1999 which continued to 2005. Sometimes it was so loud it would keep me awake. Thereafter it was sporadic. Now, I only here it very occasionally but always in this geographical location – nowhere else. It feels like I’m picking up on something external for sure. I’m very happpy I no longer hear it so often and with such intensity.
As to the cause, I personally think it’s to do with the atmosphere, in particular the ionosphere and various types of electromagetic fields undergoing radical change.
When I lived in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2001-3 I experienced a low hum that was fairly constant but not too loud, and I assumed it was coming from some motor in the neighborhood, but then I realized I could hear it everywhere I went so chalked it up to some form of tinnitus. It wasn’t extreme enough to be that disturbing, as compared to the descriptions in this report. But, as soon as I moved to Raleigh, NC where I’ve been ever since, it disappeared. Very odd. Now I just have regular old tinnitus, most likely a result of years in my younger days of playing in rock bands. It’s high pitched and constant, and mostly I ignore it.
Speaking of my time in Charlottesville, we had city water and I used to have a lot of various gastric disturbances which I now believe stemmed from drinking that water, and when the dishes dried in the dishwasher, the smell was like wet dog. It was a brand new dishwasher too, but the previous one had the same smell, so it had to be the water. Maybe the water was the cause of the hum too. Sounds far fetched, but not much else explains it since I could drive miles away and still hear it — as if it were part of me. :O
one of my favorite comedians did a show on this..
http://www.radiotimes.com/episode/xszzx/hunt-for-the-hum
and my favorite movie of all time explored this concept
http://youtu.be/5U9KmAlrEXU
could be a sinister DarkCity esque plot.. or could be the natural vibrations of the earth caught in standing wave resonance due to building and building and building…
most people in any sort of city are not very aware of their ears
I’ve had something like this. Basically, it felt like there was always a background humming noise. Sometimes it would be there, sometimes it wouldn’t. Sometimes it was painful, sometimes it wasn’t. I’d sit there and wonder if the neighbour had pulled into the driveway on his four wheeler, or whether it was the humming. Eventually it just went away.
I didn’t have it diagnosed, but I thought it was reasonable to assume it is a problem with my ears whether them specifically or something else affecting them healthwise. I identify with the guy in the article’s description of it feeling like fingers in your ears.
Unfortunately, the article also lists a variety of descriptions for it by different people. It sounds like there are a wide range of people out there suffering different problems, perhaps environmental, perhaps not. But people in this situation need to glom onto something.
How about wind turbines as a partial explanation?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/8925467/Couple-settle-with-wind-farm-operators-over-unbearable-hum.html
The couple moved out of Grays Farm in Deeping St Nicholas, near Spalding, Lincolnshire, in December 2006 six months after the eight-turbine wind farm began operating about half a mile from their home.
They blamed the ”whoom whoom whoom” and the low frequency ”hum” of giant turbine blades for their exile in a case that was closely watched by the wind farm industry.
They said the ”intolerable” noise disrupted their sleep, made them feel ill and was so severe that it warranted a reduction in council tax and rendered the £2.5 million farmhouse no longer marketable as a family home.
No question that wind farms emit infrasound (and are generally bad news in almost every possible sense but that’s another subject). But I certainly think that the presence of wind farms is not widespread enough to merit the sheer magnitude and extent of various forms of humming though it might account for some it. Who knows?
I’ve experienced this when I was living in Northern Ireland, always at night. I used to get up and open the window to see if I could determine the source. But there were no wind turbines nearby; now I live in the Republic of Ireland in the countryside and not a sound of it any more. It really is bizarre.