Hums
mysterious hums. More on hums, which some have dubbed the Taos Hum, 'a low-pitched sound heard in numerous places worldwide.'
So what is the Taos Hum? Spurred on by complaints that the 'Bristol Hum' (which has driven at least one person to suicide) was caused by faulty gas pipeline equipment, British Gas undertook an investigation, canvassing 33 hum sufferers. Of these, 80% were found to have hearing problems, but 20% were genuinely hearing something. Further investigation found that the noise was actually originating from a number of distant sources, including distant machinery, and were 'being amplified by the geometry of particular rooms' in the sufferers' houses.
Related, the concrete sound mirrors on the South Coast, designed to listen in for fleets of approaching enemy bombers in the days before radar. One can only assume that the reversed swastika on the fourth image was incompetence rather than design... More sound mirrors. Also related, sounds from the sea, including the as-yet-unidentified 'bloop'. Very Lovecraftian. It's unsurprising that the modern age hasn't given rise to many more unidentified bleeps and bloops, but perhaps we've become inured to the crackle of unwanted aural static.
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Camano hum has some on edge
Strange noises in the night have occurred for years
By Scott Morris
Herald Writer
CAMANO ISLAND - For the past several years, some people who live on Camano Island and near Stanwood have been hearing strange noises in the night.
The mystery has fueled speculation as wild as Navy sonar and Russian submarines to as mundane as buried power lines. But nobody seems to know.
The noise is so strange, said Kathy Ostrander, "I've found myself thinking, 'Am I the subject of a scientific experiment?'"
Pat Timko first noticed it on Dec. 1, 2003. A bizarre low hum woke her from a sound sleep about 1 a.m.
Describing the sound is difficult, she said. It reminded her of a small plane approaching or a diesel truck idling. But she couldn't pinpoint the source. Upon investigation, there was no plane or truck.
"This was omnipresent," said Timko, who lives alone on the east side of Camano Island. "It was almost like something I was not only hearing but feeling as well."
The hum was in every room of the house, coming up through her bed. The noise returned many other nights. Walking outside, it seemed to emanate from the ground. Driving to the island's shore, she could feel the sound coming from the water.
Others related eerily similar descriptions.
Ostrander said she's been losing sleep because of the off-and-on hum for the past six years, since moving into their current house in a rural area north of Stanwood.
"It's like my central nervous system is resonating with something," Ostrander said.
One night she took her sleeping bag out in the yard to try to escape the noise.
"The hum was in the earth," she said. "You could almost hear it better."
Her husband has heard the noise but does not hear it as often as she does.
Theresa Metzger first heard the noise after she and her husband moved to the north end of Camano Island in 1997.
"It's almost like I feel the vibrations in my inner ear," she said. Her husband has never heard it.
The three women do not know each other. Metzger and Ostrander were unaware that others also were hearing the sound.
Timko tried to play sleuth, documenting times and dates when the noise returned. She called Snohomish County PUD, but the electric utility could find nothing out of the ordinary to explain the noise.
She called Twin City Foods nearby in Stanwood, but their food processing doesn't occur at night.
She called the Navy and was told that no maneuvers had been done nearby, although one official told her some Russian submarines might have been in the area.
She even found a "Taos hum" Web site where people describe similar sounds in Taos, N.M., and elsewhere.
Some inquiries about the hum made by The Herald on Thursday ran into similar dead ends.
Jim Creek Naval Radio Station east of Arlington has a powerful "very low frequency" radio transmitter that communicates with the submarine fleet in the Pacific Ocean.
But the station's commander, Chief Warrant Officer Jay Lorenz, said the long, slow radio waves from Jim Creek are well below the human range of hearing.
Lorenz said a more likely source would be a communications tower, power line or transformer.
If so, the PUD is willing to work with customers to resolve the problem, spokesman Neil Neroutsos said.
"Occasionally, we do get calls about noises that may be underground," he said. "In some cases, it's an issue related to a transformer that may require maintenance."
He encouraged people in that area to call the PUD's Stanwood office at 360-629-5700 if the noise recurs.
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The most famous of all the hums is the Taos Hum.
The Taos Hum is a faint, low-frequency humming noise heard in and near the town of Taos, New Mexico. Not only is the hum's source a mystery, but its peculiar qualities are as well: only about 2 percent of Taos residents - about 1,400 people - can hear it. The low hum - between 30 and 80 Hz on the frequency scale - has been described by hearers as sounding like a diesel engine idling in the distance or having a slow beat-note sound. Some people perceive it as being louder indoors than outdoors. More mysterious still, some hearers who are bothered by the sound have tried earplugs and other acoustic quieting devices to block it out - to no effect. Investigations by scientists, have failed to find a source or even a plausible explanation for the phenomenon.
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Taos isn't the only town afflicted with an annoying hum. According to The Taos Hum Homepage, "Nearly every state in the U.S. has at least one 'hum hearer' report, including Alaska and Hawaii. The largest number of reports come from the southwestern U.S., the Pacific Northwest, and southeastern states. Worldwide, the hum has caused such problems in the U.K. and Sweden that hum-hearer support groups have formed there. There are hum-hearer reports from Italy and from Mexico."
The Bristol Hum is the most widely reported hum in the U.K. Some of the features of the Bristol Hum are:
Sounds like an idling diesel engine.
Most "hummers" are over the age of 50
At least one partially deaf person hears the hum without using a hearing aid
"Hearing" of radar signals can be ruled out, since aluminum foil enclosures do not attenuate the Hum.
If a signal generator and loudspeaker is used, a zero beat can be heard around 100Hz
Steel enclosures (such as cars, vehicles, some buildings) slightly attenuate the perceived hum, but only if greater than 1/8" wall thickness.
J. Hall of Bristol UK committed suicide in 10/96 after having been driven crazy by the hum.
The Hum can be detected and recorded using coil detectors.
So what is the Taos Hum? Spurred on by complaints that the 'Bristol Hum' (which has driven at least one person to suicide) was caused by faulty gas pipeline equipment, British Gas undertook an investigation, canvassing 33 hum sufferers. Of these, 80% were found to have hearing problems, but 20% were genuinely hearing something. Further investigation found that the noise was actually originating from a number of distant sources, including distant machinery, and were 'being amplified by the geometry of particular rooms' in the sufferers' houses.
Related, the concrete sound mirrors on the South Coast, designed to listen in for fleets of approaching enemy bombers in the days before radar. One can only assume that the reversed swastika on the fourth image was incompetence rather than design... More sound mirrors. Also related, sounds from the sea, including the as-yet-unidentified 'bloop'. Very Lovecraftian. It's unsurprising that the modern age hasn't given rise to many more unidentified bleeps and bloops, but perhaps we've become inured to the crackle of unwanted aural static.
++++++++
Camano hum has some on edge
Strange noises in the night have occurred for years
By Scott Morris
Herald Writer
CAMANO ISLAND - For the past several years, some people who live on Camano Island and near Stanwood have been hearing strange noises in the night.
The mystery has fueled speculation as wild as Navy sonar and Russian submarines to as mundane as buried power lines. But nobody seems to know.
The noise is so strange, said Kathy Ostrander, "I've found myself thinking, 'Am I the subject of a scientific experiment?'"
Pat Timko first noticed it on Dec. 1, 2003. A bizarre low hum woke her from a sound sleep about 1 a.m.
Describing the sound is difficult, she said. It reminded her of a small plane approaching or a diesel truck idling. But she couldn't pinpoint the source. Upon investigation, there was no plane or truck.
"This was omnipresent," said Timko, who lives alone on the east side of Camano Island. "It was almost like something I was not only hearing but feeling as well."
The hum was in every room of the house, coming up through her bed. The noise returned many other nights. Walking outside, it seemed to emanate from the ground. Driving to the island's shore, she could feel the sound coming from the water.
Others related eerily similar descriptions.
Ostrander said she's been losing sleep because of the off-and-on hum for the past six years, since moving into their current house in a rural area north of Stanwood.
"It's like my central nervous system is resonating with something," Ostrander said.
One night she took her sleeping bag out in the yard to try to escape the noise.
"The hum was in the earth," she said. "You could almost hear it better."
Her husband has heard the noise but does not hear it as often as she does.
Theresa Metzger first heard the noise after she and her husband moved to the north end of Camano Island in 1997.
"It's almost like I feel the vibrations in my inner ear," she said. Her husband has never heard it.
The three women do not know each other. Metzger and Ostrander were unaware that others also were hearing the sound.
Timko tried to play sleuth, documenting times and dates when the noise returned. She called Snohomish County PUD, but the electric utility could find nothing out of the ordinary to explain the noise.
She called Twin City Foods nearby in Stanwood, but their food processing doesn't occur at night.
She called the Navy and was told that no maneuvers had been done nearby, although one official told her some Russian submarines might have been in the area.
She even found a "Taos hum" Web site where people describe similar sounds in Taos, N.M., and elsewhere.
Some inquiries about the hum made by The Herald on Thursday ran into similar dead ends.
Jim Creek Naval Radio Station east of Arlington has a powerful "very low frequency" radio transmitter that communicates with the submarine fleet in the Pacific Ocean.
But the station's commander, Chief Warrant Officer Jay Lorenz, said the long, slow radio waves from Jim Creek are well below the human range of hearing.
Lorenz said a more likely source would be a communications tower, power line or transformer.
If so, the PUD is willing to work with customers to resolve the problem, spokesman Neil Neroutsos said.
"Occasionally, we do get calls about noises that may be underground," he said. "In some cases, it's an issue related to a transformer that may require maintenance."
He encouraged people in that area to call the PUD's Stanwood office at 360-629-5700 if the noise recurs.
+++++++
The most famous of all the hums is the Taos Hum.
The Taos Hum is a faint, low-frequency humming noise heard in and near the town of Taos, New Mexico. Not only is the hum's source a mystery, but its peculiar qualities are as well: only about 2 percent of Taos residents - about 1,400 people - can hear it. The low hum - between 30 and 80 Hz on the frequency scale - has been described by hearers as sounding like a diesel engine idling in the distance or having a slow beat-note sound. Some people perceive it as being louder indoors than outdoors. More mysterious still, some hearers who are bothered by the sound have tried earplugs and other acoustic quieting devices to block it out - to no effect. Investigations by scientists, have failed to find a source or even a plausible explanation for the phenomenon.
+++++++++
Taos isn't the only town afflicted with an annoying hum. According to The Taos Hum Homepage, "Nearly every state in the U.S. has at least one 'hum hearer' report, including Alaska and Hawaii. The largest number of reports come from the southwestern U.S., the Pacific Northwest, and southeastern states. Worldwide, the hum has caused such problems in the U.K. and Sweden that hum-hearer support groups have formed there. There are hum-hearer reports from Italy and from Mexico."
The Bristol Hum is the most widely reported hum in the U.K. Some of the features of the Bristol Hum are:
Sounds like an idling diesel engine.
Most "hummers" are over the age of 50
At least one partially deaf person hears the hum without using a hearing aid
"Hearing" of radar signals can be ruled out, since aluminum foil enclosures do not attenuate the Hum.
If a signal generator and loudspeaker is used, a zero beat can be heard around 100Hz
Steel enclosures (such as cars, vehicles, some buildings) slightly attenuate the perceived hum, but only if greater than 1/8" wall thickness.
J. Hall of Bristol UK committed suicide in 10/96 after having been driven crazy by the hum.
The Hum can be detected and recorded using coil detectors.
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