Thomas Jefferson Posted June 21, 2014 Share Posted June 21, 2014 Dr. Glen MacPherson doesn't remember the first time he heard the sound. It may have started at the beginning of 2012, a dull, steady droning like that of a diesel engine idling down the street from his house in the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia. A lecturer at the University of British Columbia and high school teacher of physics, mathematics and biology, months passed before MacPherson realized that the noise, which he'd previously dismissed as some background nuisance like car traffic or an airplane passing overhead, was something abnormal. "Once I realized that this wasn't simply the ambient noise of living in my little corner of the world, I went through the typical stages and steps to try to isolate the sources," MacPherson told Mic. "I assumed it may be an electrical problem, so I shut off the mains to the entire house. It got louder. I went driving around my neighborhood looking for the source, and I noticed it was louder at night." Exasperated, MacPherson turned his focus to scientific literature and pored over reports of the mysterious noise before coming across an article by University of Oklahoma geophysicist David Deming in the Journal of Scientific Exploration, a peer-reviewed academic journal devoted to exploring topics outside of mainstream science. "I almost dropped my laptop," says MacPherson. "I was sure that I was hearing the Hum." "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. Tom Moir, a professor at the Auckland University of Technology and Hum investigator, first started looking into the Hum after an Auckland resident called Moir's office at Massey University in 2002. Moir, a professor of control engineering, placed an ad in the local paper after receiving a visit from a Hum sufferer who desperately wanted to find the source of the racket. He received dozens of responses within days, all describing a mysterious droning noise matching the one described in Deming's landmark paper. Residents of Auckland's northern shore claimed that the Hum was so intense that it was preventing them from sleeping or concentrating. "When it's loud, it's like there's vibrations between your ears, that your brain is vibrating," one resident local TV in 2011. Another Auckland resident said that the noise had been so disruptive to his life that he'd deafened himself in one ear with a chainsaw so he could sleep through the night. Many had lived a life of vibroacoustic agony, unsure if what they were hearing was real or not. Source: http://mic.com/articles/91091/a-mysterious-sound-is-driving-people-insane-and-nobody-knows-what-s-causing-it?utm_source=policymicFB&utm_medium=main&utm_campaign=social (the article is much longer than what I've excerpted here) Does anybody hear this hum on the Isle of Man? I do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobbie Bobster Posted June 21, 2014 Share Posted June 21, 2014 Oh please, TJ, did you chose this one to be so ripe with anti-TJ possibilities? Shame on you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jefferson Posted June 21, 2014 Author Share Posted June 21, 2014 I shouldn't have anything to worry about, as they all claim to have me on ignore anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stu Peters Posted June 21, 2014 Share Posted June 21, 2014 I live near the old hospital. Exactly this droning hum every night. Have always presumed it's equipment (industrial dryers perhaps) running. Upside is that along with the high pitched tinnitus I have no room in my head for those voices. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jefferson Posted June 21, 2014 Author Share Posted June 21, 2014 I live near the old hospital. Exactly this droning hum every night. Have always presumed it's equipment (industrial dryers perhaps) running. Upside is that along with the high pitched tinnitus I have no room in my head for those voices. I don't think they use industrial dryers at the old hospital. I thought they did that up at the new one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woolley Posted June 21, 2014 Share Posted June 21, 2014 I live near the old hospital. Exactly this droning hum every night. Have always presumed it's equipment (industrial dryers perhaps) running. Upside is that along with the high pitched tinnitus I have no room in my head for those voices. I don't think they use industrial dryers at the old hospital. I thought they did that up at the new one. Correct. Still use mangles at the old one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ballaughbiker Posted June 21, 2014 Share Posted June 21, 2014 Mangles? You're showing your age. I bet them young 'uns will be googling mangle as we speak . My grandma had a mangle out in the yard. And before you ask I don't recall her catching anything personal in it although we did laugh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wrighty Posted June 21, 2014 Share Posted June 21, 2014 Mangles? You're showing your age. I bet them young 'uns will be googling mangle as we speak . My grandma had a mangle out in the yard. And before you ask I don't recall her catching anything personal in it although we did laugh. They used to be a constant source of serious hand injuries, although a little bit before my professional time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woolley Posted June 21, 2014 Share Posted June 21, 2014 So here we have a thread to compare our mysterious noises. Not heard a hum, but ever since I've been on the Island I've hear dull thuds that are very low frequency and almost seem to come at you through the ground. Heard them in various locations on the Island and wondered whether it's quarry blasting, range practice at sea, earth movements etc. I'm not certain. It can happen at all times of the day although never at the dead of night so far as I've heard, and sometimes several instances in quick succession. Any ideas? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Tatlock Posted June 21, 2014 Share Posted June 21, 2014 Not heard a hum, but ever since I've been on the Island I've hear dull thuds that are very low frequency and almost seem to come at you through the ground. Heard them in various locations on the Island and wondered whether it's quarry blasting, range practice at sea, earth movements etc. I'm not certain. It can happen at all times of the day although never at the dead of night so far as I've heard, and sometimes several instances in quick succession. Any ideas? That's Peter Karran's brain trying to process a thought. Heard infrequently thoughout the daytime, and he's usually asleep at night. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nosferatu Posted June 22, 2014 Share Posted June 22, 2014 Having read the initial report things at first seemed reasonably credible until it got to the point where the good old "tin foil hat" came into play . Saying that a few things struck me as coincidental about the GB locations i.e. ports and coastal locations , my guess as to origin of this noise and the accompanying vibrations , large marine diesel engines ? A typical slow speed diesel chugs away anywhere between 95-110 rpm . The exhaust gas is then dispersed through a fairly wide funnel (think boy racers and their fuck off big exhaust pipes) , couple this with the vibrations coming from the engine itself and dirty great props thrashing through the water and the well known sound carrying properties of water and you could end up with the right conditions for the aforementioned hum . Certainly when the weather conditions were right where I used to live in the UK I used to be able to hear large ships chugging along the river up to a couple of miles away , the sound possibly amplified even more by the buildings either side of the river banks . Stu mentions his loaction as being up near the old hospital so in effect above the power station , possibly the noise from the turbine exhausts ? Or of course it could be just another great big pile of typical TJ shite . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
x-in-man Posted June 22, 2014 Share Posted June 22, 2014 Why don't the gov. sell those houses on the Csstletown Rd opposite the pump house? I thought the problem got fixed just after they bought everyone out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guzzi Posted June 22, 2014 Share Posted June 22, 2014 No, but quite an interesting article. The first thing that jumps out is that people who hear the hum identify it as similar to audio tones in the range 40 - 80 Hz. In Europe, the nominal frequency of electricity grids is 50 Hz and in the USA, 60 Hz. Electromagnetic induction will cause a hum. Are any surgical implants or dental fillings made of materials that respond to a magnetic field? My favoured hypothesis, though, is that actually there are a variety of causes for these reports. Once you have an idea like this in common currency, then people will inevitably interpret their own experience as 'the hum' and assume that it is the same hum that others are reporting, whereas actually it might be different, and originate from a different source. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Tatlock Posted June 22, 2014 Share Posted June 22, 2014 There's definitely a constant hum in Peel. I think it's fish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Sick Moon Posted June 22, 2014 Share Posted June 22, 2014 My grandma had a mangle out in the yard. And before you ask I don't recall her catching anything personal in it although we did laugh. Presumably when she died? She wasn't Auntie Mabel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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