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A Mysterious Sound Is Driving People Insane – Nobody Knows What's Causing It

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Re: A Mysterious Sound Is Driving People Insane – Nobody Knows What's Causing It

#51

Post by lutorm »

mbell wrote: post #16
lutorm wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 Win…

Ok, can't argue with that.

Re: A Mysterious Sound Is Driving People Insane – Nobody Knows What's Causing It

#52

Post by lutorm »

lotsofmangos wrote: post #43
lutorm wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'd love to know the process by which they think a 30khz radio wave could induce a current in your nervous system that you would perceive as a low frequency sound. The whole piece seems technically illiterate.

It doesn't seem entirely implausible. Your body can act as an antenna, and nerves are sensitive to electrical currents, and the frequency range is right. It's a question of what the induced current would be and how sensitive the nerves are.

Re: A Mysterious Sound Is Driving People Insane – Nobody Knows What's Causing It

#53

Post by logn »

Xcelerate wrote: post #50

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 equipm…

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

Re: A Mysterious Sound Is Driving People Insane – Nobody Knows What's Causing It

#55

Post by flomo »

andrey-p wrote: post #25
asdkl234890 wrote: post #23

Couldn't it just be: 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.

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 nothi…

I have the opposite problem. When I was young, I could hear all sorts of hums and whines (including one which came from a nearby Ford factory). But headphones and loud rock shows seemed have killed my low-end hearing.

Re: A Mysterious Sound Is Driving People Insane – Nobody Knows What's Causing It

#56

Post by personZ »

logn wrote: post #53
Xcelerate wrote: post #50

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 equipm…

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

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.

Re: A Mysterious Sound Is Driving People Insane – Nobody Knows What's Causing It

#57

Post by rlx0x »

logn wrote: post #53
Xcelerate wrote: post #50

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 equipm…

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

Shouldn't you always be able to triangulate, that hardly sounds like a difficult problem in 2014.

Re: A Mysterious Sound Is Driving People Insane – Nobody Knows What's Causing It

#58

Post by 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?

Re: A Mysterious Sound Is Driving People Insane – Nobody Knows What's Causing It

#59

Post by togedoge »

asdkl234890 wrote: post #23

Couldn't it just be: 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.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hum#Tinnitus "People who both suffer from tinnitus and hear the Hum describe them as qualitatively different, and many hum sufferers can find locations where they do not hear the hum at all. An investigation by a team of scientists in Taos dismissed the possibility that the Hum was tinnitus as highly unlikely."

Re: A Mysterious Sound Is Driving People Insane – Nobody Knows What's Causing It

#60

Post by lotsofmangos »

lutorm wrote: post #52
lotsofmangos wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to know the process by which they think a 30khz radio wave could induce a current in your nervous system that you would perceive as a low frequency sound. The whole piece seems technically illiterate.

It doesn't seem entirely implausible. Your body can act as an antenna, and nerves are sensitive to electrical currents, and the frequency range is right. It's a question of what the induced current would be and how sensitive the nerves are.

The top end of the range they are quoting for the radio waves (30khz) is above the top of human hearing (20hz - 20khz), and besides the wavelength is far too long (10000m), for any of your nerves to be acting as antennae. A centimeter, or millimeter scale wave might do something to a nerve, but a 10,000 meter one seems unlikely to.
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