On the evidence, this
appears to be a age related malady of the ears rather than anything else at
least in terms of its perception. That
then begs the question of its geographical distribution which confirms its actual
externuality. Quite simply, aural
maturation allows the individual to tune in to an otherwise undetected
environmental sound effect.
The mystery then is
that there is no obvious or creditable driver, yet there must be and it must be
natural as it does not shut down to go off shift.
The only speculative
guess that I can come up with is a local geological insulator has created a
static electricity phenomena that orders the overlying atmosphere sufficiently
to generate this low level hum approaching corona discharge. The actual effect is a still small locally
but huge geographically and not easy to detect locally against background.
Does the sound change
during lightening storms?
Mysterious Hum Driving
People Crazy Around the World
By
Marc Lallanilla, Assistant Editor | July 25, 2013
09:13am ET
It
creeps in slowly in the dark of night, and once inside, it almost never goes
away.
It's
known as the Hum, a steady, droning sound that's heard in places as disparate
as Taos, N.M.; Bristol, England; and Largs, Scotland.
But
what causes the Hum, and why it only affects a small percentage of the
population in certain areas, remain a mystery, despite a number of scientific
investigations. [The Top 10 Unexplained Phenomena]
Reports
started trickling in during the 1950s from people who had never heard anything
unusual before; suddenly, they were bedeviled by an annoying, low-frequency
humming, throbbing or rumbling sound.
The
cases seem to have several factors in common: Generally, the Hum is only heard
indoors, and it's louder at night than during the day. It's also more common in
rural or suburban environments; reports of a hum are rare in urban areas,
probably because of the steady background noise in crowded cities.
0
Who
hears the Hum?
Only
about 2 percent of the people living in any given Hum-prone area can hear the
sound, and most of them are ages 55 to 70, according to a 2003 study by
acoustical consultant Geoff Leventhall of Surrey, England.
Most
of the people who hear the Hum (sometimes referred to as "hearers" or
"hummers") describe the sound as similar to a diesel engine idling
nearby. And the Hum has driven virtually every one of them to the point of
despair. [Video: Listen to 6 Spooky Sounds]
"It's
a kind of torture; sometimes, you just want to scream," retiree Katie
Jacques of Leeds, England, told the BBC. Leeds is one of several places in
Great Britain where the Hum has recently appeared.
"It's
worst at night," Jacques said. "It's hard to get off to sleep because
I hear this throbbing sound in the background … You're tossing and turning, and
you get more and more agitated about it."
Being
dismissed as crackpots or whiners only exacerbates the distress for these
complainants, most of whom have perfectly normal hearing. Sufferers complain
of headaches, nausea, dizziness, nosebleeds and
sleep disturbances. At least one suicide in the
United Kingdom has been blamed on the Hum, the BBC reports. [The Top 10 Spooky Sleep Disorders]
The
Hum zones
Bristol,
England, was one of the first places on Earth where the Hum was reported. In
the 1970s, about 800 people in the coastal city reported hearing a steady
thrumming sound, which was eventually blamed on vehicular traffic and local
factories working 24-hour shifts.
Another
famous hum occurs near Taos, N.M. Starting in spring 1991, residents of the
area complained of a low-level rumbling noise. A team of researchers from Los
Alamos National Laboratory, the University of New Mexico, Sandia National
Laboratories and other regional experts were unable to identify the source of
the sound.
Windsor,
Ontario, is another Hum hotspot. Researchers from the University of Windsor and
Western University in London, Ontario, were recently given a grant to analyze
the Windsor Hum and determine its cause.
Researchers
also have been investigating the Hum in Bondi, a seaside area of Sydney,
Australia, for several years, to no avail. "It sends people around here
crazy — all you can do is put music on to block it out. Some people leave fans
on," one resident told the Daily Telegraph.
Back
in the United States, the Kokomo Hum was isolated in a 2003 study financed by
the Indiana city's municipal government. The investigation revealed that two
industrial sites — one a Daimler Chrysler plant — were producing noise at
specific frequencies. Despite noise-abatement measures, some residents continue
to complain of the Hum.
What
causes the Hum?
Most
researchers investigating the Hum express some confidence that the phenomenon
is real, and not the result of mass hysteria or hearers' hypochondria (or
extraterrestrials beaming signals to Earth from their spaceships).
As
in the case of the Kokomo Hum, industrial equipment is usually the first
suspected source of the Hum. In one instance, Leventhall was able to trace the
noise to a neighboring building's central heating unit.
Other
suspected sources include high-pressure gas lines, electrical power lines,
wireless communication devices or other sources. But only in a few cases has a
Hum been linked to a mechanical or electrical source.
There's
some speculation that the Hum could be the result of low-frequency
electromagnetic radiation, audible only to some people. And there are verified
cases in which individuals have particular sensitivities to signals outside the
normal range of human hearing.
Medical
experts are quick to point out that tinnitus (the perception of sound when no
external noise is present) is a likely cause, but repeated testing has found
that many hearers have normal hearing and no occurrences of tinnitus.
Environmental
factors have also been blamed, including seismic activity such as microseisms —
very faint, low-frequency earth tremors that can be generated by the action of
ocean waves.
Other
hypotheses, including military experiments and submarine communications, have
yet to bear any fruit. For now, hearers of the Hum have to resort to white-noise
machines and other devices to reduce or eliminate the annoying noise.
Leventhall,
who recommends that some hearers turn to cognitive-behavioral therapy to
relieve the symptoms caused by the Hum, isn't confident that the puzzle will be
solved anytime soon.
"It's
been a mystery for 40 years, so it may well remain one for a lot longer,"
Leventhall told the BBC.
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