Sunday, July 28, 2013

"Reports started trickling in during the 1950s from people who had never heard anything unusual before...

...suddenly, they were bedeviled by an annoying, low-frequency humming, throbbing or rumbling sound.
From a story linked on Instapundit.  It sounds like something from The X Files.  Scully would be smolderingly skeptical.

An alien sound weapon, Mulder?  Maybe it's coming from Uranus.
The cases seem to have several factors in common: Generally, the Hum is only heard indoors, and it's louder at night than during the day. It's also more common in rural or suburban environments; reports of a hum are rare in urban areas, probably because of the steady background noise in crowded cities.
You know, on second thought, I think I've heard this sound.  It's called ambient noise.  Why would people expect Earth, teeming with 7 billion humans, to be perfectly quiet on a still July night?

16 comments:

rhhardin said...

Most cases of mysterious hum can be solved by putting an isolation transformer in the audio line.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Trinity: The answer is out there, Neo, and it's looking for you, and it will find you if .... You've felt it your entire life, that there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad.

The Matrix (1999)

Trooper :p

Cody Jarrett said...

Her actual married name is Klotz.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Low-frequency humming? Who cares? I've got tinnitus and sometimes my asshole itches.

But there's little mystery involved.

I got the tinnitus when I went to see The Clash.

The itching asshole is caused by inhalant allegies.

I should add that sometimes my ears itch, from allergies, and sometimes my ears and my asshole itch at the same time, and that's when I can hear a low-frequency humming, same as some of those people I read about on the internet.

rhhardin said...

The theory is that memories of spaceship abduction and probing are bits of floating memories of being dressed and undressed as a baby.

Babies don't have anyplace to hook memories to so usually they're gone.

As you get older, you develop a filing system to save grudges in.

Cody Jarrett said...

BTW--where I live there's very little ambient noise from people. A car going by is a big deal and heard from a distance.

Not really sure what Pasta was trying to say there. Of course there are places that are naturally quiet.

And those are the woo-woo places.

Pasta so silly.

But tasty. With the right sauce.

rhhardin said...

Putt a pandemonium by your bedside to block hums.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Sleep with my husband. The snoring will block out any humming sounds. Of course,he says the same thing about me. SO I guess we both are free of the humming sound annoyance. Evidently none of it bothers the cat.

The ambient noises we hear at night are frogs, birds and, like CEO-- the occasional car or truck passing on the road from great distance.

edutcher said...

It's all those people doing TM.

Cody Jarrett said...

It's all those people doing TM.


LOL. I've been so engrossed in the whole zimmerman thing on various sites that it took me a minute there.

I was all..."who the hell is doing Trayvon...what? ed's flipped...more than usual..."

Then I remembered...back in the 70's. Transcendental Meditation. Do people still do that?


deborah said...

In space no one can hear you scream. That's all I got.

rh, that's a good theory about alien abduction tales.

Anonymous said...

The problem with UFO stuff is that there is a continuum from sightings (which are incontrovertible) to abductions (which are very iffy) and it's hard to decide where to draw lines.

Rhhardin's baby theory might explain some cases, all cases, or no cases. It is entirely speculative, as far as I know, and it sounds difficult to test.

Its main virtue is that it provides a simpler explanation than aliens from outer space or other dimensions. Its downside is that it discourages any further thinking of the subject, although some might consider that an upside.

Anonymous said...

Transcendental Meditation. Do people still do that?

Sure. TM has become a worldwide subculture with its own college, Maharishi University of Management, in Iowa.

David Lynch, the film director, is a committed TM meditator and he spearheads efforts to promote TM and get it into school programs, which creeps me out.

Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney, plus many other celebrities, have joined him publicly in this effort.

Joe Schmoe said...

Maybe the hum is from the Althouse commentariat. You know, bugs and all that.

Joe Schmoe said...

Maybe the hum is from the Althouse commentariat. You know, bugs and all that.

deborah said...

creeley:
"Rhhardin's baby theory might explain some cases, all cases, or no cases. It is entirely speculative, as far as I know, and it sounds difficult to test."

Quite so.