
A Mysterious Sound Is Driving People Insane – Nobody Knows What's Causing It - ctoth
http://mic.com/articles/91091/a-mysterious-sound-is-driving-people-insane-and-nobody-knows-what-s-causing-it
======
panarky
Maybe the mysterious noise is from one's own living body, like what you hear
when you put your fingers in your ears.

    
    
      In 1951, Cage visited the anechoic chamber at Harvard
      University... "I heard two sounds, one high and one low.
      When I described them to the engineer in charge, he
      informed me that the high one was my nervous system in
      operation, the low one my blood in circulation." Cage had
      gone to a place where he expected total silence, and yet
      heard sound.
    

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4%E2%80%B233%E2%80%B3#Backgrou...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4%E2%80%B233%E2%80%B3#Background_and_influences)

~~~
coldtea
That needa an anechoic chamber because it's so small, it would get drowned in
normal noisy environment.

Plus, allegedly they've been able to record the Hum in some cases.

------
anon4
That map looks just like a population map of the USA and UK, plus assorted
English speakers from western Europe. Combined with the fact that the sound
seems to grow stronger indoors, I think the source is inside their own heads.
Not in the sense that they're crazy, though. Maybe as people get older and
their inner ear changes slightly, the signals that are being sent when
everything is silent also change, but the brain doesn't. So they interpret the
"silent" signal as "the hum".

My first test would be stuffing their ears and putting them in a perfectly
isolated acoustic chamber to see if they still hear it. I'm pretty sure they
would.

~~~
VikingCoder
Relevant XKCD ("Heatmap"):

[http://xkcd.com/1138/](http://xkcd.com/1138/)

~~~
tempestn
Yes, exactly. Every time I see one of these I wish they would plot the _per-
capita_ occurrences as a heat-map instead, which would actually be useful. (A
bit more work sure, but certainly doable.)

~~~
VikingCoder
[https://www.google.com/search?q=cartogram&tbm=isch](https://www.google.com/search?q=cartogram&tbm=isch)

~~~
tempestn
Those are neat, but from what I can tell a cartogram is something different
from what I'm describing. From wikipedia: "A cartogram is a map in which some
thematic mapping variable – such as travel time, population, or Gross National
Product – is substituted for land area or distance." So they're basically
distorted maps, where the distortions are proportional to a variable.

(It might help to include some explanation in your comment.)

~~~
VikingCoder
Yeah, the most common cartogram in those pictures is population.

Therefore, each pixel of the cartogram contains an equal number of people in
it.

If you bin your heatmap into pixels with equal number of people in them, then
HOT regions in the final image will correspond not merely to the number of
people who live in an area (like in the xkcd), but to the percentage of a
constant number of people.

You can still recognize the underlying geography, because the population
density isn't CRAZY skewed.

Here are some well-documented cartograms that give you a feel for what they
can do:

[http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2012/11/01/163632378...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2012/11/01/163632378/a-campaign-
map-morphed-by-money)

------
devindotcom
_A Mysterious Sound_

that can't even be isolated or really called a "sound," since reports differ
so greatly

 _Is Driving People Insane_

the article itself does not make or substantiate this claim

 _Nobody Knows What 's Causing It_

because "it" may or may not be a new thing, a single thing, or even a thing

~~~
DanBC
I'm not sure why you're so hostile to this. Perhaps I'm just misreading your
words.

Various "mysterious" noises are heard across the workd and cause problems for
inhabitants. The noises are mysterious because it can be hard to work out what
is causing the noise.

Noise is used as a tool by torturers. Tinnitus can sometimes lead people to
attempt suicide. It seems fair to suggest that an unstopping unexplained noise
can cause extreme distress. I dislike the wording "driving people insane"
because I work in de-stigmatising MH problems, but the meaning is clear.

Here's an example of a mysterious noise from England.

[http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/HUM-
KNOW/story-20347005-detail/...](http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/HUM-
KNOW/story-20347005-detail/story.html)

[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hum](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hum)

EDIT --

I'd be interested to know what happens if they build a chamber that is
provably isolated from "The Hum" and put sufferers inside it. Do those people
still experience it? Even better if there's some kind of double blind way of
isolating / not isolating the chamber from the Hum.

~~~
revelation
I think we can all agree on what you said. But I will not agree that there is
one universal, _external_ common cause for all these things, an elusive
mystery. But this is what the article claims.

------
logicallee
The article was really hard for me to read, because the author just thinks so
much differently from me. i.e. if an area is driving you mad, do you get
instant relief if you leave the area?

It could still be chemical / something in the air that makes you hallucinate,
but not talking about such basic questions is just so different from how I
think.

the next most basic question is whether there are actually any physical sounds
at any frequency - if microphones aren't sensitive enough at certain
frequencies to tell us, then I would lead with that. If they're sensitive
enough, but show nothing, then I would lead with that and then show a
differential as to why it's not psychosomatic, or a chemical poison that gives
you this effect, etc.

I just found this article too different from how I think to read through.

~~~
coldtea
> _The article was really hard for me to read, because the author just thinks
> so much differently from me. i.e. if an area is driving you mad, do you get
> instant relief if you leave the area? It could still be chemical / something
> in the air that makes you hallucinate, but not talking about such basic
> questions is just so different from how I think._

I asked that too, but some people like/love their cities, houses, relatives
and friends and jobs. They don't just move on the first issue that happens.

------
tempestn
It's not clear to me why it's not straightforward to test these hypotheses.
There are apparently plenty of hum sufferers out there, and it sounds like
many would be happy to help with any testing that might isolate the source.
There are also plenty of anechoic chambers and Faraday cages available. Seems
like it would be relatively easy to test the two prevalent theories. You may
not be able to pinpoint the exact source, but you could at least tell whether
the hum in a given region was acoustic or electromagnetic in origin.

~~~
dthunt
I wonder if you could get subjects who travel a lot to record, before going to
sleep each night, in a secret journal they do not share with each other, about
whether or not they experience a hum in any given location. If those journals
substantially agreed, you might be able to get a clearer picture of what, if
anything, is going on.

If there is any sort of community built around a potentially hard to observe
phenomenon, it's likely going to be a mess sorting out true stuff from false
stuff.

~~~
boatzart
Why not just make a web site for this? If this really affects 2%-10% of the
population, then it should be pretty easy to determine if the source is
internal or external with enough data.

~~~
tempestn
Here's a start, just to see if that 2-10% figure looks reasonable:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7918694](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7918694)

------
asdkl234890
Couldn't it just be:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinnitus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinnitus)

As I get older, I hear some sounds I am certain are like tinnitus. It
terrifies me because I love and need quiet. But so far I've been able to move
around, create some other sounds, and the fake sound stops. But tinnitus is a
disease of old age.

~~~
andrey-p
That was my first thought too. I've got permanent tinnitus even though I'm in
my mid-twenties (brought on due to headphone abuse when I was a teenager). It
sounds more like a high-pitched _tweee_ sound than a hum, but I've heard
different people hear different sounds.

Sorta OT, but I've actually been able to get some use out of my tinnitus. If
there's background noise that's preventing me from falling asleep (but nothing
too loud), I can purposefully focus on the sound of my tinnitus. It becomes
more prominent and effectively drowns out the sound that keeps me awake.

~~~
ogig
I relate to the paradoxical utility of the tinnitus sound. For sleeping and
meditation! it's like a never ending chant you can focus back whenever.

I've also tried to use the hum as reference point to get perfect pitch earing,
that is been able to tell if a note is a C, a F or whatever. Unfortunatly my
tinnitus seems to be composed of several frequencies and out of tune. I can't
make any use of it for musical purposes (yet).

~~~
coldtea
Just carry a pitchfork with you. Or a mobile app that can make any pitch at
will!

------
coldtea
> _" It completely drains energy, causing stress and loss of sleep," a
> sufferer told a British newspaper in 1992. "I have been on tranquilizers and
> have lost count of the number of nights I have spent holding my head in my
> hands, crying and crying."_

Yeah, if it gets that bad, how about ...well, MOVING elsewhere?

------
disputin
I've experienced this. It's not tinnitus which is high pitched - this is low
pitched. I could hear it best in a certain room, but not when I stuck my head
out the window. It occurred over a period when the nearby overground tube line
was being worked on. So I concluded it's industrial machinery causing low
frequency vibrations which reverberate in certain acoustic configurations. And
it's very, very annoying.

~~~
personZ
_reverberate in certain acoustic configurations_

This is a very important point. Low frequency noises can have a wavelength
exactly the size of common rooms, yielding an unbearable amplification as the
waves gang up with common peaks and troughs.

[http://www.bobgolds.com/Mode/RoomModes.htm](http://www.bobgolds.com/Mode/RoomModes.htm)

------
vanderZwan
While living in the city of Groningen, the Netherlands I experienced _a_ Hum
during some nights (I doubt that there is such a thing as _the_ Hum - there's
too many possible sources for low-frequency sounds). I have not had that issue
before or after. However, in my case the most likely case is easy to pinpoint:
the control centre for the Groningen gas field[0] was just a few blocks away
from where I lived, and I expect that if they open or close a valve, that can
cause some low-frequency whistling sounds that propagate through the ground.

[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groningen_gas_field](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groningen_gas_field)

------
TazeTSchnitzel
Around 50Hz... They're not hearing the hum of AC electricity, are they?

------
jotux
This is pretty interesting because I've been hearing a low-frequency hum for
the last few years -- since moving into my current home. I only notice it at
night, lying in bed when it is quiet. To me, it sounds like an idling car
sitting within a few hundred feet of my house. At first, I suspected cops were
sitting near my house (on a corner, near a stop sign) waiting for people to
run the stop sign, but I never found any idling cars when I went to
investigate. Fortunately I'm not bothered by it.

~~~
jacquesm
Freezer, airco or refrigerator. Probably contact sound from a pump or
compressor in one of those. Don't be surprised if it ends up being very far
away from where you're located, sound waves travel very well through solids.

------
Xcelerate
I don't understand why this is such a big problem.

1) Locate someone suffering from the hum.

2) Take expensive pressure and sound equipment to their location.

3) Record all observable frequencies.

4) a) If nothing shows up, it's a personal biological problem. Direct problem
toward medical professionals b) If something shows up on the frequency graph,
identify the direction the sound is coming from (again using equipment that,
you know, has been designed for this kind of thing and has been around for
ages).

5) Follow sound, locate source.

6) Voilà, problem solved.

Someone tell me why it's not that simple.

~~~
logn
Items 4b and 5 might be hard. The sound is non-directional.

~~~
personZ
This caused issues in locating the Windsor hum, as mentioned in the article.
It seems like it should be extremely easy to put up a couple of mics and
narrow it down, but it ended up being a significant technical challenge
involving a number of seismic detectors. Low frequency noise is a bitch.

------
burkeen
Blood-pressure + or - sinus-congestion?

Maybe some people begin to sub/consciously listen for their phone to buzz,
vibrate or make a sound and notice the noise of air, static noise, computer
fan hums, blood traveling inner ear?

Their utilities run @ 50hz. Maybe there's a conflict with older and newer
products manufactured from other countries?

Maybe doppler radar.

Maybe dead air space.

Maybe they're not used to the sound of silence.

------
graeme
Is the Hum constant or sporadic?

I've had an occasional rumbling in my left ear. It increases when on a
cellphone or skype. Certain voices can also trigger it.

I had assumed it was musculo-skeletal; it developed after a bike accident
where I hurt the left part of my jaw.

But if their hum is constant, it's definitely not what I'm hearing.

------
BritishScifi
[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Changes_(TV_series)](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Changes_\(TV_series\))

Soon people will start destroying all the machines!

------
anonymfus
After reading this article I started to pay attention to all background noises
and currently can not to sleep because of some strange rhythmic series of tone
bursts.

------
joshu
I hear this. I just assumed it was some internal thing that I could only hear
when it's sufficiently quiet.

------
teilo
They lost me when they tried to blame the Connecticut shootings on the "hum".

------
burkeen
Air Conditioner? Wind? Water? Heart?

------
guard-of-terra
Hmmm, inner ear problems?

Aren't VLF radio waves supposed to be very very weak energy-wise? Why would
your body pick those.

~~~
lutorm
No, the transmitters are extremely powerful.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VLF_Transmitter_Cutler](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VLF_Transmitter_Cutler)
says it was at some point the world's most powerful radio transmitter at
1.8MW. Actual field strength will of course depend in a complicated way on
distance from the site and the propagation, but you'd think that if these
sites were the source, there should be a strong concentration of cases around
the transmitters.

~~~
Torgo
Presumably you could delocalize it with something like this:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Frequency_Active_Auroral_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Frequency_Active_Auroral_Research_Program)

I realize that this is entering conspiracy theory territory, but generating
VLF from a distance is one of the things this thing does.

~~~
lutorm
Ah, interesting. I hadn't heard about that before.

------
mbell
This article heavily confuses sound waves and EM waves in places. Just because
they are both described in Hertz doesn't make them equivalent.

~~~
lutorm
It's not very clearly stated, but they say the ELF radio waves may be able to
excite nerves and hence be "sensed" by the body.

~~~
mbell
The author follows the intro to that topic (which says nothing about EM waves
causing 'sound' I might add) by saying:

    
    
        Finally, there's a body of empirical evidence that makes this theory more appealing. A study funded by the Canadian government and led by University of Windsor mechanical engineering professor Dr. Colin Novak spent the last year listening to the "Windsor Hum" that's been torturing residents in the Windsor area of Ontario since 2011. 
    

If you read the intro to that paper, it's very clear that it was acoustical
noise that was measured and likely to be caused by a blast furnace. So that
study provides no evidence at all that EM waves are causing 'noise'.

The author continues with:

    
    
        The study concluded that not only does the Windsor Hum actually exist, but its likely source was a blast furnace at the U.S. Steel plant on Zug Island, which reportedly generates a high volume of VLF waves during its hours of operation. 
    

The study did not find that the blast furnace was radiating VLF waves (VLF
being a term limited to EM waves) but rather that it was emitting sound waves
in the 30-35Hz range. 30-35Hz is the SLF EM range, so even if the author
conflated the types of 'waves', I'm not sure where they got VLF from.

And then:

    
    
        Dr. Novak's study caps off decades of Hum theories
    

No, it really doesn't, it just found a loud blast furnace. Not to take
anything away from the work needed, locating a sound source at frequencies
that low in a complex environment isn't trivial.

~~~
lutorm
Ok, can't argue with that.

