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Posted: 03-08-2001 16:01 Post subject: That annoying HUM!

As this is my first post to this newsgroup, I apologize for not knowing how to link to a recent story posted on FT.
The story concerned a hum heard around the Kokomo, Indiana USA. My in-laws live in Greentown, IN, a town mentioned in the article. I have heard this noise at this location. I first heard the sound I can only describe as an airplane that never goes away when I was living at home outside of Nashville, Tennessee. We lived not far from Ft. Campbell Kentucky. Greentown, IN is not too far from Grissom AFB. I've never seen anything to correspond with the sound I heard, I can remember getting out of bed, looking outside wondering where is that damn plane and why won't it leave already. Its just a constant, droning airplane engine-like "hum". Wondering if this noise is heard mainly around nearby military installations? Not sure if the Taos Hum is related in any way to a military base.
I would be interested in hearing from others who have heard this annoying drone.
jenntenn

Posted: 03-08-2001 17:48 Post subject:

My brother-in-law, who voted for Jimmy carter, says that with all the technology, everywhere is being watched and dissected from high above. I tend to agree with him. I guess England has cameras everywhere, and we have all our surveillance material coming from above. I know what you are thinking. What does Jimmy Carter have to do with this. He doesn't, i just thought I'd give him a free plug.

Posted: 04-08-2001 01:09 Post subject: hum search

Here is the results from a search I did on "hum" on www.science-frontiers.com:

Sausalito hum, 287
Taos hum, 286

THE TAOS HUM, Feb 6 2000

THE TAOS HUM
THE TAOS HUM
Over the years, we have reported on the British hum (SF#36) and the Sausalito hum (SF#42). The latter has been attributed to mating toadfish in the harbor; the former to an underground network of gas pipelines. We have resisted reporting other hums. However, a recently reported hum possesses some interesting features. It is called the Taos hum, and it has been bothering some sensitive individuals in the U.S. Southwest:
"More than a dozen people living in an area from Albuquerque to the Colorado border said in July 1992 interviews with the Albuquerque Journal that they had heard the lowlevel hum.
(Anonymous; "Defense Dept. Denies Link to Taos Hum," Albuquerque Journal, April 7, 1993. Cr. L. Farish.)
Some residents of Taos are plagued by this machine-like sound that grinds away 24 hours a day, with only occasional respites. Some cannot sleep; others complain of headaches. Most people, however, cannot hear the hum at all.
The cause of the hum is a mystery. One hint comes from the observation that the hum seems concentrated along the Rio Grande Rift, a fault that also runs into Texas and Colorado. One theory blames the hum on the fault's rock surfaces grinding against each other!

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THE ENGLISH HUMS: RADAR OR BURIED PIPELINES?, Feb 6 2000

In our catalog volume Earthquakes, Tides, Unidentified Sounds, we recorded many curious natural sounds, including the "desert hum," the "Yellowstone Whispers," and, pertinent to the present discussion, a throbbing, humming sound afflicting some, but not all, residents of the British Isles. Percipients describe the hum as like a "diesel truck with its engine idling." The electronic environment of Britain has been blamed for the hum: transformers, high-voltage transmission lines, and pulsed radars are all candidate hum-makers. For, it has been discovered, some people somehow convert pulses of electromagnetic energy into a perception of sound. This facet of the British "hum problem" was covered on p.000, where the infamous Soviet "Woodpecker Radar" is mentioned specifically. But are electromagnetic pulses really to blame?
The British hum has become a nuisance - to those who can hear it - during the past 20 years. This is just the period during which British Gas has been installing a nationwide gas-distribution system, which employs powerful turbines to pump natural gas through underground pipelines. H. Witherington, an unhappy hum-hearer, has for years driven around Britain at night when things are quieter, plotting places where the hum can be heard. He has found that the sound follows the gas pipelines and extends for several kilometers on each side. Houses, he finds, tend to amplify the sound, because closed rooms sometimes create resonant conditions.
(Fox, Barry; "Low-Frequency 'Hum' May Permeate the Environment," New Scientist, p. 27, December 9, 1989.)

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THE SAUSALITO HUM, Feb 6 2000

THE SAUSALITO HUM
THE SAUSALITO HUM
"The mysterious underwater hum that has annoyed Sausalito's houseboat community for the past 11 summers is back, and investigators still do not know the cause. 'It's a loud and audible mechanical raspy hum,' said Waldo Point Harbormaster Ted Rose, who said the vexing noise sounded like an electric razor. 'It sounds like this mzmzmzmzmzmzmzm,' Rose said. 'Sometimes it gets so loud you have to talk above it. It can drown out conversations and wake people from a dead sleep.' For reasons no one understands, the noise can be heard only from about 8 p.m. until sunrise, and it goes silent from late September until mid-April, when it begins humming again through the summer."
Acoustical engineers from Berkeley could not pinpoint the source of the sound with the help of instruments and a diver. Biologists believe the noise is made by the singing toad-fish, also called the plainfin midshipman. (Leery, Kevin, "Sausalito's Weird Hum Is Back, " San Francisco Chronicle, July 29, 1985. Cr. P. Bartindale. Also: Anderson, fan; "Humming Fish Disturb the Peace, " New Scientist, p. 64, September 12, 1985.)

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HOMING IN ON THE HUM, Feb 6 2000

HOMING IN ON THE HUM
HOMING IN ON THE HUM
In 1977 the English Sunday Mirror ran a story about someone who claimed to hear a steady and very annoying humming noise. To everyone's surprise, the article elicited some 800 letters from others who heard hums. Amazed by the magnitude of the problem, doctors began examining some of the afflicted. In a few cases, the hum seemed to be internally generated -- something akin to tinnitus, which causes one to hear a highpitched whine. Many others, however, heard a 40 Hz hum modulated at 1.6 kHz, and apparently of external origin. The hum sufferers were inclined to blame industrial noise, but no obvious sources could be uncovered. The hum investigators have considered sea noise, jetstream noise, and other natural sources. Whatever the source, most people do not hear it at all. It is possible that a small percentage of the population is abnormally sensitive to sound at 40 Hz.
(Wilson, Steve; "Mystery of People Who Hear the Hum," New Scientist, 84:868, 1979.)
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Summary for query "hum":

Posted: 05-08-2001 15:45 Post subject: Unexplained early morning hums

I remember, when living in my previous house about a year ago, I was awoken on two or three occasions, by a distant noise, not unlike an engine idling. Each time, it was about two in the morning that I was woken up, and although the noise wasn't loud, it was annoying as I couldn't block it out of my mind and it therefore kept me awake. I didn't at the time attribute it to anything Fortean, indeed, even now, I don't think it was anything unusual. I put it down to my central heating, my neighbour's central heating, a car somewhere in the distance, a train on the local line, or even an aeroplane circling over head.

I can say now, that as it's summer, if I sit down in the garden, I can hear the steady hum\buzz of insects in the trees at the foot of the garden. When I was little, I used to think that these were swarms of bees, and it used to terrify me. Older and wiser now, I realise it's just the multitude of insects in the bushes and trees.

Moggadon

Posted: 05-08-2001 18:23 Post subject:

I grew up out in the "boonies" and what I heard was not insects. It was very distinctly an airplane. Not a jet airplane, a small plane. Very definately an engine type noise.

Posted: 05-08-2001 22:28 Post subject:

I'm curious why you never saw the plane. It's not a copter, because copters and planes sound quite different. And it wasn't insects. I believe that you are in your right mind. Was this a long time ago? And did the plane-like sound move about? If the sound never seemed to end, did the sound atleast move around? when you hear grasshoppers or whatever, it doesn't sound like it's from the sky. You heard sounds from the sky like an airplane but never could see them? I think maybe they were govt. planes too high above to see, or else it sounds like time for a ufologist to answer your question.

Posted: 05-08-2001 23:36 Post subject:

Nope, never saw a plane, even tho I would get up and search the skys. Not a helicopter, not a "whup-whup" sound of rotors on a copter, it sounded like what a small, two or four seater plane would sound like if it just stayed above my head. Heard this all through the mid-70's when I lived near Ft. Campbell and in the early 80's, when I spent more time at the in-laws in Greentown, IN not far from Grissom AFB. I haven't heard it in quite some time. I do live near a small airport (about 10 miles away) but not near a military installation. That's why the only thing I can think that it might have been is some sort of military aircraft. Even tho I never saw anything, only heard it.

Posted: 06-08-2001 04:26 Post subject:

A similar story made headlines in Hueytown, Alabama in the early 90s:

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Published on June 21, 1993, Birmingham News (AL)

UPDATE

Hush-the-"Hum' project scrapped in Hueytown Mayor Lillian Howard said residents may have to learn to live with the ""Hueytown Hum,'' now that a project many believed would quiet the annoying noise has been scrapped.Hueytown officials and residents suspect that a Jim Walter Resources mine-ventilation fan is to blame for a humming noise that has periodically made sleeping difficult for hundreds of residents in the city's Virginia Mines area since December 1991.Company officials have consistently denied this.

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sureshot

Posted: 06-08-2001 19:11 Post subject:

But sureshot, the writer of this thread heard the hum over her head, not from the ground, of course maybe a physicist could argue some type of echo illusion effect where it sounds like the sound is coming from above.

Posted: 06-08-2001 20:13 Post subject:

And nothing explains why I seem to be the only family member that heard the darn thing, and why I've heard the exact same sound in 2 different states.

Posted: 06-08-2001 23:34 Post subject:

I've heard two different 'hums'.
One (that only happened once) sounded like an aeroplane in the distance. Something woke me up about 3 a.m., and this noise seemed to go on for hours, never varying. Can't think of any reason that someone would want to circle my place for that long, not at that time in the morning Smile

The other one I heard a few times, sometimes consecutive nights, sometimes days or weeks apart (all about 5 to 7 years ago). The first couple of times I thought it must be my upstairs neighbour's fridge, sounding louder in the stillness of the (very) early morning - but then one night I went from the kitchen (under where the fridge was) to the bedroom (other side of the block) and only beacame aware of the noise when I got to the bedroom. I wandered round the flat a couple of times, trying to work out where it was coming from, then went outside, and the noise was louder. It sounded like a pump, or an ailing fridge, and I couldn't tell where it was coming from - it was just as loud in all directions. One of my neighbours came out to see who was prowling about, and he couldn't hear anything. Then the local boys in blue appeared, and while one heard nothing, the other said 'Oh, it's nothing' confused

Anyway, I took the hint and went back indoors, and I've only heard it, faintly, on a couple of occasions since.
And what is it? Buggadifahno!

Posted: 07-08-2001 12:26 Post subject:

do you live neer to some power cables and pilons? because when they get hot or malfunction they can hum also if there isnt enough charge going through them they can again hum just depends if you have some near you

Posted: 07-08-2001 19:34 Post subject:

In my case, anyway, the nearest cables/pylons are several hundred yards away, and if they were making a loud enough noise to wake me up, half of South Edinburgh would have been awake!! Very Happy

Posted: 07-08-2001 21:23 Post subject:

"And nothing explains why I seem to be the only family member that heard the darn thing, and why I've heard the exact same sound in 2 different states." -jenntenn

Sorry folks, but if only one person hears the same noise at two different locations, its almost certain that its internal rather than external. Some form of tinnitus was my first guess, but the fact that it appears to be associated with two locations only makes me suspect something psychological. I note that the sound is heard at night, is it possible that its something along the lines of when you can't get to sleep because your heartbeat seems so loud?

I think that the 'Hummadruz' is a fascinating mystery, but I don't think jenntenn's experiencing it.

Posted: 08-08-2001 12:06 Post subject:

Winter, I could go with this, if my heart made a noise like a Piper Cub. Maybe I'm a looney. Smile

Or maybe I'm "tuned" to something otherworldly. Either way, its not worrisome, just strange.