Have you heard 'the Hum'?

BBC ^ | May 19th, 2009

[TaraP]

For decades, hundreds of people worldwide have been plagued by an elusive buzzing noise known as "the Hum". Some have blamed gas pipes or power lines, others think their ears are faulty. A few even think sinister forces could be at work. "It's a kind of torture, sometimes you just want to scream," exclaims retired head teacher Katie Jacques. Sitting in the living room of her home in the suburbs of Leeds, the 69-year-old grandmother describes the dull drone she says is making her life a misery. Most visitors hear nothing, but to Katie the noise is painful, vivid and constant. "It has a rhythm to it - it goes up and down. It sounds almost like a diesel car idling in the distance and you want to go and ask somebody to switch the engine off - and you can't." Katie says she no longer has any quiet moments and getting a good night's sleep has become impossible. "It's worst at night. It's hard to get off to sleep because I hear this throbbing sound in the background and you know what it's like when you can't get to sleep and you're tossing and turning and you get more and more agitated about it."

[devane617]

Taos????? I get a humming in my head each time I go to Taos....

[yldstrk]

I’ll tell you what it is.........she’s batty

[SatinDoll]

She probably has tinnitus. I’ve had it all my life. It can be very annoying but she needs to get over herself.

[TaraP]

Ping.. 'Cover-up' So what is the cause? Various features of modern life have been blamed - gas pipes, power lines, mobile phone masts, wind farms, nuclear waste, even low-frequency submarine communications. The internet is abuzz with rumour and speculation. There are dark mutterings about secret military activity, alien contact and government cover-ups. The hum even featured in an episode of the sci-fi drama "The X-Files". Such conspiracy theories are understandable, but unhelpful, according to Dr David Baguley, who's head of audiology at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge. He estimates that in about a third of cases there is some environmental source that can be tracked down and dealt with. "It may be a fridge or an industrial fan or a piece of heavy machinery at a nearby factory that is causing the disturbance and can be switched off," he says. Most of the time, however, there is no external noise that can be recorded or identified. "People do come up with some strongly constructed, sometimes strange theories," says Dr Baguley

[wastedyears]

60 cycle hum

[fortunate sun]

I know exactly the sound they are referring to.

[Anti-Bubba182]

She should turn off the vibrator.

[Pablo64]

Only things around our place that hum are the alpacas, but it's a nice, pleasant kind of hum, so they can't be causing it.

Maybe this is all in their heads??

[Jagdgewehr]

Sitting in the living room of her home in the suburbs of Leeds, the 69-year-old grandmother describes the dull drone she says is making her life a misery.

Turn off the TV, Grandma. That dull droning is B. Hussein 0bama giving a press conference.

[TaraP]

Bad vibrations

The hum is a phenomenon that has been reported in towns and cities across the world from Vancouver in Canada to Auckland in New Zealand.

In Britain, the most famous example was the so-called “Bristol hum” that made headlines in the late 1970s. One newspaper asked readers in the city: “Have you heard the Hum?” Almost 800 people said they had.

The problem persisted for years. Residents complained of sleep loss, headaches, sickness and nosebleeds. Experts eventually found traffic and factories were to blame.

There have been other cases in Cheshire, Cornwall, Gloucestershire, London, Shropshire, Suffolk and Wiltshire.

A low-pitched drone known as the “Largs hum” has troubled the coastal town of Largs in Strathclyde for more than two decades.

At least one suicide in the UK has been linked with the hum.

[Old Professer]

High blood pressure

[knarf]

Sistahhh !

I live with locusts every waking moment ... no one knows except others with tinitus.

[balch3]

Mr Bell, Mr Art Bell, please pick up the courtesy phone.

[whodathunkit]

Faulty power supply in the Matrix.

Take a blue pill and go back to bed.

[Star Traveler]

I’ve got ringing in my ears... does that count?

I’ve had it for about 30 years. Some days it’s worse and others better, but it never goes away. I’ve just gotten used to it.

Heck, you can get used to anything, I think. If you heard drums all the time, you would get used to that. I used to live in a place where the train would go by at around 5 AM every day and lay on its horn when crossing the main street. After a while, I never heard it any more... LOL..

I almost have to ask why anyone would write some article about this. I can’t see any reason, from what was in the article, to be any more concerned about this than someone having a mole, or a limp or whatever other ailment.

I mean, it’s almost like me getting a newspaper article written about me, because I got a cold last week. What’s the big deal? ... LOL...

[Star Traveler]

Oh, and another thing..., when I was a kid I used to be able to hear the high-pitched whine of the TV, when it was on. But, I can’t hear that anymore, over the ringing in my ears...

[liege]

Bad vibrations

Is this a cover version of a parallel universe "evil" Beach Boys hit tune?

[SatinDoll]

Locusts, eh?

My background noise sounds exactly like the static produced by a switched on television when nothing is being broadcast.

I’ve read that “static” is actually the residual sound left over by the BIG BANG when it occurred 13 billions of years ago.

[exDemMom]

I’ve had tinnitis ever since I can remember. While it would be nice to know why, it’s not something I’m going to obsess over.

I find that having some other sound going on helps to mask the tinnitis. Maybe what this lady needs is to make her house less quiet, so she has something more pleasant to focus on. A white noise generator might help.

Tinnitis has many forms. For me, it’s two or three high pitched constant tones. Sometimes I hear an extra tone of a different pitch, but it typically fades away after a while.

[Marie2]

She says it’s only when she’s in her house.

[Born to Conserve]

I get that when I fail to correctly operate whipped cream dispensors.

[swatbuznik]

I hear the hum, too, and sometimes “it” knows the words, too.

[puppypusher]

Electrical Transformers will hum pretty loudly when they are under a heavy load.Maybe they should check that out.

[668 - Neighbor of the Beast]

I’m used to urban environments so I wouldn’t notice that, but I do occasionally get a high-pitched note that lasts maybe ten seconds, with a distinct start and end, no difference of tone or note or volume in it. Sounds very much like a radio or electronic thing, as if someone’s tuning in, then going off. You’d almost want to say — hello? But I never do. :)

Speaking of weird sounds, though...ever try listening to water trickling in the next room? In the right amount and force it sounds just like people talking, only you can’t make out what they’re saying.

Well, time for my thorazine... ;)

[Bender2]

Gadzooks, there is a hum... in my left ear!

Whoa! Now it is in... my right ear!

Now back... to my left ear!

There is only... one thing to do!

Lubricate... Lubricate... Lubricate... Lubricate!

[goodnesswins]

I take Levothyroxine for low thyroid....it GIVES you tinnitis....but, you get used to it. Never goes away...just can hear it more when there is less ambient noise.

[668 - Neighbor of the Beast]

Crickets, now...they sound exactly like sleigh bells to me.

[surely_you_jest]

I used to have a girlfriend who could hum “The Flight of the Bumblebee”.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

[knarf]

"My background noise sounds exactly like the static produced by a switched on television when nothing is being broadcast."

Yeah .. it could be ... I've always associated it with the 7 yr. locust noise in the trees.

[Judith Anne]

I hear the hum from electric lines. Inside the house, I can hear the outside yard light when it comes on, for three years it’s made a noise. And I have good insulation, it’s just the pitch that makes the difference.

But under it all, I have tinnitus. At night, I leave the radio on softly in the background, just to where it covers the tinnitus and the yard light.

*sigh*

One day, before an earthquake (little one, around a 3-3.5 here in MO, I heard a deep hum. Piezoelectric effect, I guess.

[Viking2002]

Yeah, and whenever I pass through Marfa, Texas, I keep seeing spots in front of my eyes.......

[SatinDoll]

Only in the house...well, so is mine most of the time. My grandparents used to have a large, noisy grandfather clock in the main hallway. Never did I have any tinnitus problems at their place. Tinnitus is most agravating for me when in bed, at night.

Outside of the house one is preoccupied with the immediate environment, filled with other sounds.

[GladesGuru]

What she is hearing is a sound echoing down the halls of time - muted by time and distance, it is the collective OMMMMMmmmm of Woodstock Nation contemplating their navels.

[antceecee]

Hmmm... sound only heard by Eloi... perhaps it’s the siren call of the Morlocks???

[bigbob]

two words: Monica Lewinsky

[nothingnew]

Have you heard 'the Hum'?

I'm deaf in one ear, so I just hear a "mmm".

FMCDH(BITS)

[lilylangtree]

Tinnitus! There’s a constant drone of bees, humming and even a pop every now & then in my ears.

[phredo53]

Sometimes I hear an extra tone of a different pitch, but it typically fades away after a while.

Same for me. I took some lipo-flavinoids and ginko supplements. The high pitch tones have really decreased in recurrences, a blessed relief. If only something would work for the constant "locusts" buzz in the left ear.

[kalee]

The hum we often hear is an industrial fan at a factory a few miles from our house. Very annoying, especially at nights when you would like to have the window open in the bedroom.

[DHC-2]

I know exactly the sound they are referring to.

Yeah, folks can joke about it here, but it is real. I've had it for years. Sounds sort of like a generator running about a block away. No way to block it, you just have to get used to it. Sometimes I can actually feel vibrations at the same frequency.

[SteamShovel]

I used to live in a place where the train would go by at around 5 AM every day and lay on its horn when crossing the main street. After a while, I never heard it any more...

Ditto, except the trains came almost all night. It is amazing how you just don't hear it anymore.

Now I live out in the country and only hear birds and occasional motor cycles off in the distance going 100 MPH. I wait to hear the crash that never happens.

I also have had ringing in my ears forever. I just got used to it. I only hear it if I think about it.

[Ditter]

I have got it too, I have had it for years, tinnitus. Not a big deal, I think it is allergy related.

[Star Traveler]

You said — I also have had ringing in my ears forever. I just got used to it. I only hear it if I think about it.

—

Yeah, and sometimes I wonder, “Why isn’t this driving me crazy?” and then I forget about it when I get on to something else... LOL...

[P.O.E.]

Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells -
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

- Edgar Allen Poe

[FourPeas]

Wow. I'm amazed the number of FReepers who have tinnitus. I always thought people were nuts when they spoke of ringing in their ears. I've had ringing in my ears since I can remember (around 5yo) and just assumed everyone else did, too. Then a pastor who was retired from the Air Force talked about the ringing in his ears from working on B-52 engines. I knew he wasn't nuts.

Mine sounds like the old florescent light ballasts when it was nearly kaput. It seems to be getting louder as I get older.

[Erasmus]

I used to live in a place where the train would go by at around 5 AM every day and lay on its horn when crossing the main street. After a while, I never heard it any more... LOL..

...but when it rattles by my window, the Chicago "L" annoys.

[XenaLee]

The resultant silence could be painful. I’d rethink that.

[Quix]

Interesting.

Thanks.

[Quix]

About the alpacas . . .

humming when contented or when?

And, are some of them . . . ATYPICALLY as I consider the opposite to be generally true of the species . . .

are some of them affectionate?