Moir, T.J. "Auckland North Shore Hum." No single cause has ever been found. It was quiet inside; any kids who could get away with it were out soaking up one of the last good weekends of the season. It’s not just the physical sound waves that matter; it’s also what your brain does with that information. Sign up! Massey University, 1 Mar. I’d come to Gibsons to see the thing that was finally going to solve the problem of the Hum, made by the one man best positioned to make that happen. The vibrations triggered by cataclysmic events fade away to nothing, but the Hum continues, regardless. He claims many of his neighbors hear it too but are afraid to say anything for fear of driving down property values. We were sitting in the conference room of the Gibsons & District Public Library on a Saturday afternoon. “Thank you,” another commenter wrote, “for the inspiring initiative which may eventually bring back a life to many wandering spirits.”, But having finally completed the box, MacPherson suddenly stopped. So what exactly does this Hum sound like? Using the technique of extrapolation, they concluded that statistically 2% of the population of Taos were persistent sufferers or had heard the Taos Hum at some time. … The dog went on Prozac because he couldn’t handle it.”. This is a research project that transmits RF straight up into the ionosphere, at approximately 1/10,000 the power of the sun's normal electromagnetic radiation. But in the absence of serious scientific inquiry, this is precisely the kind of logic that’s allowed to prevail. RF-induced sounds are similar to other common sounds such as a click, buzz, hiss, knock or chirp. There are many people all over the world who perceive a low rumble under certain conditions. “What is it with this cliff-hanger shit?”. If this theory is correct, we’ll know right away: If someone can hear the Hum outside of the box but not inside it, there will be strong evidence that it’s a low-frequency issue (the box isn’t soundproof). “There’s plenty of air inside a box that size, enough for, I don’t know, four hours of breathing.” This was probably technically correct but not at all reassuring. All content is © Skeptoid Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. In 2009, the first episode of the reality show Conspiracy Theory With Jesse Ventura offered a theory of the Hum possibly stemming from a government mind-control device, and in a 1998 X-Files episode the Hum (or something very much like it) caused spontaneous head explosions. To get there you hook up with the Trans-Canada Highway and take it west until it runs out of road at a place called Horseshoe Bay, and from there a ferry carries you across the sound. Vasudevan and Colin G. Gordon, who investigated claims of the Hum in 1977, established that it was “very probably” a real phenomenon and not an auditory hallucination, Hum sufferers have been consistently written off as either delusional or simply suffering from tinnitus. “Regardless of the ultimate findings,” a poster commented on MacPherson’s site, “you have moved the investigation on the Hum forward in an unparalleled manner.” Having come this far, on the verge of finally testing the VLF theory, excitement among the Hum community is pretty high. ‘Hummers’ are a group of people who cannot accept that they have tinnitus.”, Using recordings uploaded to YouTube, Louivere+Vanessa broadcast audio files through a digital spectrometer to create images. “The tin foil hat,” I finished, both of us laughing. Hum research has had, thus far, to rely heavily on anecdotal reports and personal stories. If you go to your doctor to complain about the Hum, the most likely diagnosis you'll get is tinnitus. The first thing the site revealed was that the Hum wasn’t restricted to Taos and Bristol. “In combination of that and the Google form, and me knowing how to whip up web sites in a few hours, it began: the World Hum Map.”. In a loud environment like New York City, it’s far too difficult to hear the Hum, since it tends to just blend in with the din and chaos of everything else. No obvious source. In others, more women hear it. Steinborn thought it was her neighbors at first: some nearby stereo blasting, the bass coming through the walls. Filed under General Science, Urban Legends, Skeptoid Podcast I asked Kohlhase about Aaron Alexis, the Washington Navy Yard shooter. It's also gotten stuck a few times when I've had a cold or blown my nose too hard, and when it goes by itself, it tickles and is really annoying, and I end up with this rumble in my head for a while. While there were isolated instances of hearing within the low frequency range identified by hearers, these tests revealed no consistent background noise which could account for the hum. How to Extract Adrenochrome from Children. “It’s like chasing a ghost,” Novak said. No one had thought to attempt Deming’s simple proposal of three boxes that could easily and definitively prove whether the Hum was an acoustic noise or a frequency, and no one had thought to try it. The air in Gibsons is lucid and still; you can hear the call of birds echoing across that pure stillness. Sometimes, this would lead to a begrudging official investigation, but these nearly always ended inconclusively. Deming proposed a simple experiment to test this hypothesis: Three boxes, each large enough to hold a human, one that blocked sound, one that blocked low-frequency waves and other types of electromagnetic radiation, and a control box that blocked neither. VLF waves, which require extremely long broadcast antennae and massive amounts of energy, can cover the globe and penetrate nearly any surface (they reach submarines a hundred feet below the surface). She had her hearing checked and was told it was perfect, but the noise persisted. In these places, some 2-10% of the population can hear the rumble. Hums have been reported in the United States, United Kingdom, New Zealand and Canada, and are sometimes named according to the locality where the problem has been particularly publicized, such as the "Taos Hum" in New Mexico and the "Windsor Hum" in Ontario. Cowan's investigation was thorough and he did conclude that there was probably something else causing at least some of these complaints. Other Hum sufferers have connected the Hum to electromagnetic radiation from nearby power plants, cell phone towers, or “smart” utility meters that broadcast their readings. Even in cases where there’s a likely culprit, it’s difficult to prove for sure. March 4, 2008 Deming, who has taught at the University of Oklahoma since 1992, was one of the first scientists to take the problem of the Hum seriously. Though University of Southampton researchers R.N. It was everywhere. “And then I ran out of ideas, and so I did what many people ultimately do: I cut the power to the house—and it got louder.”. So far it has been able to produce a tiny artificial aurora, detectable by sensitive instruments but not by the naked eye; and also Very Low Frequency (VLF) waves at .1 Hz, which are otherwise difficult to create. The welds on the box were thick, running along the edges like long-healed scars; as I ran a finger along one of them, he said, “The welding is crucial, because VLF radio waves have a peculiar habit of being able to penetrate, and find cracks, just like water.”. “Hearers” of the “Hum” have been known to move halfway around the world to get away from it – something that travel can’t do to help tinnitus. “My degree major was in computer science programming, minors in mathematics and Russian language. On a Facebook page for Hum sufferers, one rambling post describes how “advanced satellite technology” is being used as “a brutal torture instrument by transmitting sounds, voices, and images directly into the brain, creating numerous pains and sensations throughout the body and significantly altering energy level and emotional states.” The post goes on to name several people who have been targeted by this technology, including Miriam Carey, the dental hygienist who drove through a White House checkpoint in 2013, setting off a high-speed chase that led to her death, and Aaron Alexis, the civilian contractor who, on September 16, 2013, entered the Washington, D.C., Navy Yard and killed twelve people before dying in a firefight with police. These suspicions made a civilian presence on the investigation team necessary.” (Source: Thomas Begich / Staff Writer Earthpulse.com). If you like this programming, please become a member. Without exaggeration, it’s safe to say that most everyone who lives here or their children has gone through his classroom. The experimental weight-of-evidence does not support direct stimulation of the central nervous system by RF pulses. Now before you spring for your tinfoil hat, allow me to read a snippet from the conclusion of the best paper on this phenomenon, Human Auditory Perception of Pulsed Radiofrequency Energy, by Drs. 2011. 4 Mar 2008. The story of the Hum begins in such places, far from the hustle and bustle of cities, where stillness blankets everything.