Monday, August 18, 2008

The Mysterious, Maddening Hum





What if your house was plagued by a mysterious noise that never seemed to stop? One that sounded like an 18-wheeler left idling in the driveway? That's what a Green Bay, Wisconsin couple say is driving them slowly insane. Yet whenever the authorities show up to check, the noise mysteriously goes away.

When I received this story from two long-time readers (thanks Hazel & Nellie!), I immediately thought of another, more famous, hum. The Hum, as it's known, (catchy, huh?) has been reported in locations around the world, but most famously in Taos, New Mexico.

Not everyone can hear it, but those who do describe a maddening noise that sounds much like the one the Green Bay couple experienced. It doesn't stop and earplugs won't diminish it.

Is it man-made, mass-hysteria, or a form of alien communication? No one knows. Since it was first reported in the 1990s, the Taos hum has not been explained. It has, however, provided fodder for both the X-Files and Unsolved Mysteries.

Read more here and check out some sound files here. Maybe it's my computer, but I couldn't hear a thing!

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hmmm... I don't think it's man made or some alien thing. I think it's either some kinda of spirit. Or an undiscovered animal/life form that for some reason hums. Ooooooo!!! Maybe the life form hums to drive humans so insane they die from it. Then the creature has it's feast...

alice said...

i listened to it, and yeah i could hear it and even my friend could! mabye it just has to do something with soundwaves or air or mabye even some type of sound that certain people can only hear because their ears are freakish. i don't know.

mccincol said...

I could hear it!!! It's really annoying to me

sakura said...

I think that if you turn your speakers on loud enough, you can here it.

Aninnymouse said...

So that's what that noise is...

Kitty said...

Lol, I think I have it. But I know what mine is. It's my dvd player. If you leave a disc in there too long, it makes this humming sound! [drives me nuts sometimes XD]

liltomboyblue11;) said...

This reminds me of something I heard on NPR a long while back, It was about how most people under the age of 18 can hear a pitch that people over the age of 18 can't. Of course, there are exceptions. I heard all of the bites.

Patsee said...

Personally, I would move if I were being slowly driven insane by mysterious loud noises.

Maybe The Hum is the Earth groaning in pain. But my PC won't let me listen to the hum without downloading something... alas!

LTBB11: Is that the "mosquito"?

Anonymous said...

wait, are the couples young ?
it makes all the difference. Remember how you were talking about the mosquito phone only young kids can hear, maybe it's something like that, ananka try again, with headphones, the last one definately works

Ariana said...

When I was in Taos NM, in our hotel we thought we heard a trafic/truck hum, but there was no trafic or truck by our hotel...(cue twilight zone music)

liltomboyblue11;) said...

Patsee: Yeah, but there are also other companies and names. My Nana, who I will be seeing today (and she will be stealing my room in the beach house... ) has eardrums that haven't gone past that stage and she can still hear it.

eternal espionage said...

oh god... that's a little bit creepy.
I heard it but I don't understand how... At the top of the sound page it said that the hum had never successfully been recorded! *cues twilight zone music again!* :D

P.S. on second thought I think the second recording sounds remotely like my dad's "stress relieving" monk moaning CD (it really will send you off your rocker if you listen to it long enough ;D)

Irregular Kiki said...

OH MY GOODNESS THAT SOUND IS CREEPY! One of them sounds like an aircraft. The other sounds like a car engine. But they are freaking me out!!!!!!

Irregular Kiki said...

It kind of sounds like an alien is approaching. Just try and have that sound on in your earphones while doing something else on the computer, it doesn't sound natural. It sounds like... another creature or something. I would DIE if I had to listen to that for more than 3 minutes. It's so scary!!! But I'm interested in scary stuff. But I still get scared.

Random Irregular said...

I heard it. I'm going to see if my mother can.
It wasn't annoying, well, not that much.
I think s like that special pitch sound, that only young ears(with a few exceptions) can hear.

Anonymous said...

Maybe these people are just crazy.

Persephone said...

Well I can hear it, and I'm not crazy! Well, maybe I am...

Irregular Kiki said...

After I read more about the hum, I could swear, I started hearing it. I was doing my homework and I heard 'hmmmmmmmmmmmmm', I was like dead freaked out. I don't hear it anymore, but that's probably because I haven't thought about it for a while.
I seriously started getting scared at night. Now it's probably going to happen again. I think I'm crazy? I know I'm crazy.