The "Hum"

[Sailor Steve]

I can honestly say I've never heard anything like that outside a recorded tone. Of course if only 2% of people hear it then it's not surprising I'm one of the ones who hasn't. That it has been recorded outside in controlled conditions is fascinating. I'm interested in learning more about this.

Side-note: In the ear tests I could hear everything quite clearly from the bottom to the top, but I found the rumble that begins around 25-30 Hz to be an awesome sound. Thanks for posting this.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

That it has been recorded outside in controlled conditions is fascinating. I'm interested in learning more about this.

It is very difficult and thus doe snot get done often. In Germany, such exminatiosn are run by the Bundesanstalt für Emmissionsschutz (federal office for emmission protection), but the measuring and recording is very difficult and costs a lot of money - and most of the time the results are without much value. Often they also simply missed the time window when the hum appears.

Its threatening and somewhat intimdiating if you ride on bicycle through a city like mine at 4 a.m. on Sunday morning, no activty anywhere, everythign peaceful and silent - just this monstrous humming in the air like a threat from outer space, a cloud of sound laying over the city. Not pleasant.

If you are interested in this sound, you may want to google for the study they did in Taos, New Mexico, in I think 1988 or so. "Taos Hum" it is called. There are or have been many Hums: the Bristol Hum, the Zurich Hum and so forth, but that is misleading, since it is a truly global phenomenon.

Side-note: In the ear tests I could hear everything quite clearly from the bottom to the top, but I found the rumble that begins around 25-30 Hz to be an awesome sound. Thanks for posting this.

That low rumbling is very silent, and hard to notice, I often am not even certain that it is there. But on other times I indeed am quite certain that there actually are these TWO sounds for sure: the 100Hz sound thta is loud and clear, and the 25-30Hz sound that only can be heard when anything else is silent. Then it sounds very threatening.

In the ear test I can hear everythign at the bottom end of 20Hz, up to almost 15 KHz, which for my age of 50 years means I still hear far above average and have ears of a below 40 year old.

[Sailor Steve]

I took it again and noted the precise numbers. I first started to hear the rumble at 26 Hz and lost it at 4.8 KHz.

[Skybird]

If you cannot hear 4800 Hz, this probably indicates a serious damage then, for usually, as far as I read, 8000 Hz is the minimum of what healthy old people should hear, even at higher ages above 80. And as far as I kow you still have not hit that age mark, eh?

Having pulled those guitar strings too hard, maybe? My father has been professional musician, too (bassoon), having the brass players blowing right in his neck in all those years (thats the sitting order in a sinfonic orchestra), he has damaged ears now, too.

There are videos at youtube that mark biological age and associated frequencies. When we become older, we all loose the ablity to listen to the high frequencies, we start at around 20 Khz, and it then drops to around 8 KHz at high age. Somebody who can merely hear 12 KHz, is assumed to be below 50 years, 15 KHz represents below 40 years, 16 KHz is typical for ages below 30, 18 KHz equals below 20, 19 KHz is below 15 years. I am 50, but can hear 15 KHz still, so I am doing well in these regards. The times when I was even hearing the low frequency calls of bats however are over since long (bats can call and listen in the range of low 20s of KHz up to 200 KHz).

[Skybird]

I visited the Osnabrück area recently, which is 45-50 km north-east of where I live. After 30 km of that trip done, there is the small town of Lengerich at the foot of the 260m elevations of the Teutoburger Forest (south).

The hum in the past 3-4 days, has shifted its activity cycle, the past nights have been silent, but it starts in the mornign and now lasts all day long, until the evening.

When I passed Lengerich, 30km away from my home, the hum dissappeared, and Osnabrück was silent. When i travelled back again, and again passed Lengerich, it appeared again.

Assuming that I did not hit a pause in the hum that just coincided with that travelling mark, It seems that at least at north-eastern direction this sound emitts up to 30 km distance. Mind you, in the past couple of days the hum lasted all day long, from morning to evening.

I wonder whether it could be some satellites using some kind of EM emissions to cartograph earth.

Anyhow, during the day the hum can be dealt with easier than at night. If only it would stay at least as it is now. At least I had some nights of sleep now - without white noise CDs.

[Fubar2Niner]

I just seen this.

I have been having this same experience for around five or six years and thought it was just my ears. Normally it starts in the early hours and wakes me. It's kind of a low hum, hums almost like a vibrating alarm but not quite. Starts and runs for maybe a minute or two, then seconds of silence, then starts again. Rinse and repeat. It sometimes last for just a few minutes, but it has lasted an hour or more on rare occasion.

It is not every night, but ironically it is mostly when you'd least expect noise. Before people would normally rise for work, etc.

I have never recorded it, thinking it's "in my head", not sure I'd even have the know how or equipment.

Best regards.

Fubar2Niner

[Jeff-Groves]

I live in Nevada, Ohio. Have lived there for about 20 years.
I have heard a weird hum there at nite for as long as I can remember.
I have Tinnitus but the hum is NOT a part of this.
I only hear the hum when I'm home and no one else can hear it.
I travel all over the U.S.A. and don't recall hearing it anywhere else.
I take Excedrin PM's at home just to sleep through the nite because of this hum.
It's also the reason I prefer to travel for my living. Just to get away from it!

[Skybird]

It is not every night, but ironically it is mostly when you'd least expect noise. Before people would normally rise for work, etc.

That is not ironic. Environmental everday noises can drown it to some degree. If you googled and read for the matter you will see that many people hear it louder at night than during the day - at night, when the noise of the outside world is at a low.

I have never recorded it, thinking it's "in my head", not sure I'd even have

If it is "electromagnetic hearing", then indeed the brain is "making the noise", in erratic interpretation of the as erratic electrical stimulation of the nerves or affected brain lobes. But generally speaking, one of the biggest differences between tinnitus and the hum is that tinnitus patients locate the subjective origin of the noise they hear as being as something inside their head or ear (in German, the public calls Tinnitus often "the little man in the ear"), where as the hum is described by the vast majority of people to be originating from a source located outside their body, from the environment. Often it is said it sounds like putting your head under water and then hearing a humming sound from from above the water surface - the sound then is outside yourself, but seems to come from everywhere.

Another description often used is "like the propeller of a very high flying drone". People do not want to say by this they b eloieve ther eis a flying drone overhead, they just mean the sound reminds them of this association, like they also compare to distant Diesels or heavy construction machines vibrating through the ground or through some walls, from long distance away (just that there are no Diesels or machines).

Could you use the Hertz videos by Sony at youtube to limit the range of how the sound is for you? As I said, for me it is exactly 100Hz. And it lasts for hours and hours, the first weeks at night, but since a few days mainly at day.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Jeff-Groves

I live in Nevada, Ohio. Have lived there for about 20 years.
I have heard a weird hum there at nite for as long as I can remember.
I have Tinnitus but the hum is NOT a part of this.
I only hear the hum when I'm home and no one else can hear it.
I travel all over the U.S.A. and don't recall hearing it anywhere else.
I take Excedrin PM's at home just to sleep through the nite because of this hum.
It's also the reason I prefer to travel for my living. Just to get away from it!

If it is the phenomenen they call the hum, then it indeed most likely is no tinnitus, no disease, nothing like that, but maybe a dedicated sensitivity of the brain or nerves.

Quick research on Excedrin says that it is used against headaches and migraine. Do you suffer from these? Some hum victims say they sometimes hear that lower, rumbling sound at around 20-30Hz, and then it causes them a drilling, pinching pain - or nose bleeding.

Have you tried like I did, white noise? And especially that one sound file I introduced on page 1? For me it worked wonders, it completely neutralised the hum of 100 Hz. The other white noise variations (rain, waves, wind), just drowned it to a certain degree, I found a balance where the volume was okay to sleep with, but the brain was not just fixiated ion thge humming. Actually, I liked it. But that spaceship ambience sound for me worked wonders. Last night I did not even use that one, since the hum currently is not to be heard at night, but over the day.

There are reports of people who need to travel 100s of km to escape the sound, while others take it with them where-ever they go. It seems I am affected by a localised source of the sound, to, as I described with my travel to Lengerich and Osnabrück. 30-35km north-east from where I live, the hum is gone. When I reversed direction from there, it came back.

Most people cannot hear it. Sensibility for it may build up with growing age, and then drop again with even higher age.

In some of the texts I linked earlier, there are many links in the text themselves to even further essays, articles, sites.

[Jeff-Groves]

I rarely have head aches. I only us the PM version as it helps sleep.
And I only take them at home now and then.
I don't do any type drugs aside from the PMs and only drink a few beers now days.

I gave up trying to figure out the Hum a long time ago.
I know it's there and I can feel it as well as hear it. The Wife does not detect it in anyway.

I think it's those secret underground tunnels the Government has.

[Skybird]

If you can ignore it or live with it, then you are lucky. Many cannot. Good for ya!

[Jeff-Groves]

Originally Posted by Skybird

If you can ignore it or live with it, then you are lucky. Many cannot. Good for ya!

It still bothers me just knowing I can hear and feel it and no one else can.
I had a dog and she could hear it also. My other Dog didn't seem to notice and none of our cats seem to notice it.

I kind of set my mind at rest thinking it was the low frequency thing for Submarines. And being close to the Great Lakes maybe underground rivers carried this sound to me.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Jeff-Groves

It still bothers me just knowing I can hear and feel it and no one else can.
I had a dog and she could hear it also. My other Dog didn't seem to notice and none of our cats seem to notice it.

I kind of set my mind at rest thinking it was the low frequency thing for Submarines. And being close to the Great Lakes maybe underground rivers carried this sound to me.

HAARP and USN-ELF often get mentioned as possible explanations, but I have so far found nothing that could make me assume this is more than conspiration theory only. Even more so since many of those people listing these two explanations are not shy at all to also list quite esoteric, surreal theories as well. HAARP and ELF cannot ultimately be ruled out, but somehow both theories just do not flip that switch in my brain to make me a believer.

[Skybird]

We sometimes notice that animals become nervous or swarms of birds fly up suddenly, hours, even days before a volcanic erruption, an earthquake, or a flooding event takes place. Of birds we know now that they can navigate by the magnetic field of the Earth, and that this is inheritable.

I wonder what kinds of hums these anmials maybe can hear, or what sensory input they perceive that we cannot imagine. Maybe us few hummers amongst the humans have just touched the tip of an iceberg, and we do not even know it.

[Jeff-Groves]

I've taken comfort with my "hum" in my own way.
It's come to be my special thing when I get home from weeks or months away.
There are times when I get home and it's not there and I almost feel as if I'm not home.

Most times when I hear it? I repeat in my mind "It's time to visit the plains".
For some reason I have very vivid dreams after falling asleep VERY quickly then.

I've never talked about this before to anyone.