The Hum: often described as sounding like a distant diesel engine.

[Snarkoleptic]

Have you heard the HUM?

The Hum is a mysterious and untraceable sound that is heard in
certain locations around the world by two to ten percent of the population.
Historically, the area that has been most affected by the Hum is the United
Kingdom, where reports have been frequent since the early 1970s. In the United
States, Hum reports date from the early 1990s, with the two most publicized
locations being Taos, New Mexico, and Kokomo, Indiana. The source of the
Hum has never been located. The Hum does not appear to be a form of tinnitus
and may not be an acoustic sound.

Papers on the subject-
http://www.scientificexploration.org/journal/jse_18_4_deming.pdf
http://www.igzab.de/download/IGZAB_FAQ_Print_EN.pdf

Yahoo forum for "Hummers"-
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/humforum/

[Dreamer Tatum]

1. I hear it ALL THE TIME in SoCal.

I thought I was going nuts.

[Snarkoleptic]

5. I'm in Northern Illinois and first noticed it in early 2007.

I was working in my home-office and kept thinking I was hearing an idling diesel truck.
Googling showed links to The Taos (NM) Hum and various other Hums around the world.

There was even an episode on Unsolved Mysteries...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGFhr6wWXdI

[bertman]

34. Question is: do others hear it when you are hearing it?

[EOTE]

36. I've been the only one to hear it at times.

I live in Northern Maryland (Essex, NE of Baltimore). I would typically be sitting in my living room when I'd beginning to hear and feel a low, throbbing, diesel-like sound. Initially I thought it was the AC unit outside, but usually that would hum for a few moments and then fade to something far less audible. At times, I'd hear this low humming sound for more than an hour. And while it doesn't make me feel sick, I can definitely feel the vibrations in my bones and in my gut. One time I finally said something about it while my SO was sitting right next to me. She told me that it was probably the ice maker. I told her that it definitely wasn't the ice machine as it appeared to be coming from outside and appeared to me to be caused by something really large. I said, you mean you don't hear that low humming sound? She hadn't a clue as to what I was talking about. I am really glad to hear that I'm not going crazy.

[Snarkoleptic]

39. Kickski to look for more hummers and others who won't unrec

[GreenPartyVoter]

16. Is it recordable? I'd love to see what it sounds like. Edit am hearing it in the video

[Dreamer Tatum]

17. I doubt it. It's a low hum that sounds like something electrical in the distance

Drives me apeshit.

[GreenPartyVoter]

19. It's interesting that they mentioned the man in the video has some hearing loss. I am hearing

impaired too, but I can hear/feel the thrumming of a car engine coming up the road long before the rest of my family does. Very strange.

Edit: still listening to the videos. Yeah, the second one doesn't sounds like what I hear once in a while.

[nykym]

2. Morlocks

[librechik]

3. underground UFO bases

just sayin...

[MineralMan]

4. Bah! he said, HUMbug!

Apologies to Dickens...

[Richard D]

6. I hear it too

But only in my right ear, which makes me think it's tinnitus.

[Snarkoleptic]

10. I'm hoping to hear from other sufferers.

When the Taos hum was written about in a LTTE, lot's of people came forward to say that they too hear it.
For me, it causes sleeplessness and difficulty concentrating.

In 1992, media in the United States reported that the tranquil community of
Taos, New Mexico, had been perturbed by a mysterious and annoying sound that
only a minority of the population heard. The reports began when Catanya
Saltzman wrote a letter to the local newspaper complaining about the sound.
Saltzman’s letter was met by a ‘‘deafening’’ response from other people in the
community who had been suffering but had been reluctant to be the first to come
forward (Lambert & Haederle, 1992).

[HopeHoops]

7. Frank Zappa - "Dynamo Hum"

:hide:

[Systematic Chaos]

8. I wonder if you'd hear the Dynamo Hum while you were...

...in Montana, raising up a crop of dental floss?

:think:

[HopeHoops]

9. The dental floss thing is one of the WEIRDEST fucking lines he ever came up with!

WTF?

[zappaman]

22. ahhh yes

Man, I want to be a dental floss tycoon...

[Kingofalldems]

11. Art Bell & company have had segments of shows on this

The first one I heard was about the Kokomo noise.

[Jokerman]

12. The "Kokomo Hum" came from a Chrysler factory.

Can't find any links at the moment but I'm pretty sure that one was solved.

[GreenPartyVoter]

13. I've been hearing something here for years, but I am still assuming that _something_ is

making the noise as there are plenty of places for it to drift down here from.

[Algorem]

14. the secret government has put tunnels all over

http://mw2.google.com.nyud.net:8080/mw-panoramio/photos/medium/8329485.jpg



i used to 'hear'(you mostly feel it i think) that huge grinding vibration years ago early in the morning in bed.i would try to figure out what it was("is it the a-hole neighbors' air compressor?,no,train?no.semi idling in front of house?no,wife left running vibrator on ceramic tile bathroom floor?no...")the only thing it really seemed could feel like that was a huge tunnel-boring machine grinding through the bedrock below me.

[dysfunctional press]

18. DU tunnel?

so that thing is what puts the underground in democratic underground?

[Algorem]

21. they skinner people alive down there and eat them up yum.

[benld74]

15. HUMS because IT DOESN"T KNOW THE WORDS!!!!

[Overseas]

20. My bet is that it is another form of tinnitus. Mine sounds nothing like

the shrill sounds on the radio commercials promoting some new product to cure tinnitus. It is much milder. So I think there must be many variations on what tinnitus sufferers hear.

I hear a high hiss a lot of the time. But it gets higher and lower in pitch, softer and louder in volume, probably due to the swelling of the ear canals and level of wax at any given time.

It seems to get louder when allergies are acting up.

[RebelOne]

26. I have tinnitus and I hear buzzing, ringing and clicking

sounds. There are very few days when I do not hear those sounds. In fact, I am surprised when I do not hear anything at all. But I just live with it.

[Freddie Stubbs]

23. It's Karl Rove's tsunami machine

[Brother Buzz]

24. Our mystery hum, which sounds like B-29's flying in formation, was caused by horny fish

"The mysterious underwater hum that has annoyed Sausalito's houseboat community is back. '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."

Sausalito Journal; Voice of the Turtle? No, Toadfish Love Song

By KATHERINE BISHOP, Special to The New York Times
Published: Monday, June 26, 1989

For years, residents of this bayside village across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco have spent their summer nights in sleepless tossing, kept awake by the humming of thousands of male toadfish looking for a one-night stand.

As nature planned it, what is unbearable to the human ear is to a female toadfish Elvis Presley crooning ''Love Me Tender.'' So in the best if-you-can't-beat-them-join-them tradition, people here have organized to celebrate rather than curse the nocturnal liaison of Porichthys notatus.

It is not a community gone mad, but the high jinks of the second annual Humming Toadfish Festival, which celebrates a fish so ugly it has been likened to a tadpole with a hormone problem. Part of the celebration is humans, dressed as fish and other fauna, imitating the call of the toadfish on kazoos.

The toadfish arrived on schedule last Tuesday and began keeping many of the 7,500 residents of Sausalito awake by doing what comes naturally. The fish come equipped with a gas bladder that serves as a buoyancy device and, in the males, a resonating sound chamber.

When the males vibrate the sac to attract females, the resulting sound can charitably be described as a group of oboe players hitting the same note.
<more>

http://www.nytimes.com/1989/06/26/us/sausalito-journal-voice-of-the-turtle-no-toadfish-love-song.html

[Sinti]

25. I always thought it was electricity

though I've never lived near power lines. It has mild variations in tone, depending on where I am.

[Snarkoleptic]

27. We also live far from overhead power lines and nowhere near industry.

I've heard all kinds of theories ranging from-
WiFi, cell phones, wind turbines, etc

I also wondeer about Navy's ELF program as the source
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/c3i/fs_clam_lake_elf2003.pdf''

Others have speculated about the HAARP program.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Frequency_Active_Auroral_Research_Program

[Sinti]

29. Maybe some of us have hearing outside the normal frequency range

and we're hearing HAARP sonar stuff (the Navy says it's for sonar), or maybe telephone transmission wiring. Our homes have wiring - when it's silent I'm pretty sure I hear the wires hum. But, I've heard it up in the mountains where there is no electric - figured someone has a generator.

Maybe it's aliens trying to contact us from another dimension... :hide:

The frequency is slightly different in Idaho than it was in Virginia. Lately there's a higher tone mixed in with the normal lower tone. It's not quite 60 hz though, I'd recognize it, because I have to remove it from audio files very often.

This kills my electricity theory even further - I guess the tone would be affected by moving through the walls - think of hearing music outside of a room with the door closed versus inside.. I'd be really curious as to what exactly the sound is. I doubt it's just psychosomatic.

[Snarkoleptic]

31. I remember hearing about the former Soviet Union sending a low-frequency tone toward out W. Coast.

This was around 1982 and there were some studies that said that low frequency tones were capable of causing fear and confusion among people.
I just wish I could switch off the incessant noise!

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

28. Singing sand?

Kokomo, Indiana is located near the Indiana Dunes National Preserve and Taos, New Mexico is a few dozen miles from the Great Sand Dunes National Park. Mounds of sand have been known to emit humming sounds if the wind and the size of the grains are right.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singing_sand

[Duer 157099]

30. What I find perplexing is that whenever any mention of underground facilities comes up

people seem to always assume it's some sort of nutjob conspiracy theory.

But have you ever watched any documentaries about such facilities? They exist, and they are massive. Most are military related, but not always.

These things have to be actually built somehow, and does anyone doubt that it would create some sort of vibration that would be audible to many as a hum?

I think many of these hum locations probably have some sort of underground construction going on nearby.

[Odin2005]

32. Sounds like people in denial about their Tinnitus.

[DU GrovelBot]

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[Blue_In_AK]

35. I think it's just the combined sounds

of everything that's going on over the face of the planet, both natural and manmade. Even out in the wilds of Alaska if one sits still and listens, a hum can be heard -- the wind in the trees, birds singing, the occasional plane flying overhead. I think it's perfectly natural.

Ommmmmm........

[bertman]

40. You have a great point, Blue_In_AK. I think it's called the vibration of the universe, or

celestial music.

Maybe it's just the atoms rushing past our ear drums and we don't normally hear them because of all of the other ambient noise around us.

[Blue_In_AK]

43. If you ever make it to Fairbanks,

be sure to visit the Place Where You Go to Listen in the Museum of the North on the University Campus. http://www.ktuu.com/Global/story.asp?S=6634764 The article explains pretty well the artist's vision, but until you sit in that room amid the colors and the ever-changing sounds you can't fully appreciate the overall effect. It's like that hum, only magnified, and the longer you listen, the more sounds you hear. It's really an amazing thing.

[NNN0LHI]

37. I hear it all the time on Air America

I thought it was some kind of audio signal sent with the show to let them know when they were cutting to commercial?

Don

[Snarkoleptic]

38. I hear that as well. It's like a low rumble that makes my car speakers rattle.

[ThoughtCriminal]

41. Not sure I would notice it

100+ trains a day. Less than one mile away. It would be pretty weird if it was just a hum.

[cliffordu]

42. I believe it's grovelbot.