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ha ha,yeah your prob's right? i do suffer from tinitus but its a ringing in my ears, this sound is a definate hum a bit like if next door has their drier going... but different ?? , and it is only occassionally? usually very late at night, i can (most of the time) hear people moving around next door - and this is NOT them.
 
Can men hear lower frequencies than women? Might be a point of investigation. Though I believe there are women who can hear it when men can't, so maybe gender isn't the answer.
 
Can men hear lower frequencies than women? Might be a point of investigation. Though I believe there are women who can hear it when men can't, so maybe gender isn't the answer.
"Hearing Range in Men and Women

There is a significant difference in the hearing ranges of men and women. It has been found that women are more sensitive towards higher range frequencies than their male counterparts. The perception of lower range frequencies is more or less the same in men and women."

Read more at Buzzle: http://www.buzzle.com/articles/human-hearing-range.html
 
There you go, probably not a gender thing then. Though that just sustains the mystery.
 
More Earth Hum cases reported between Camborne and Truro
By wbchris | Posted: November 28, 2015

A GLOBAL database of people suffering from the mysterious "earth hum" phenomenon has revealed numerous sufferers living between Camborne and Truro.

For years the Earth Hum has baffled researchers and last week The West Briton reported the case of Camborne receptionist Christine Downing, from College Street in Camborne, who is kept awake at night by the humming noise that reaches its peak around 4am each morning.
... (See post #171, above)

Research has revealed that the hum can be heard by approximately two per cent of the population and scientists have linked the aggravating and divisive humming pitch to the pressure of waves vibrating on the ocean floor.
Following on from last week's report the West Briton has been contacted by two other sufferers and uncovered a website documenting known cases.

www.thehum.info features an interactive map with more than 8,000 instances around the world and an inspection of the Cornwall area reveals cases in Camborne, Barripper, Leedstown, Four Lanes, Lanner, Carharrack, St Day and Truro.

Sean Scott, another who claims to be able to hear the hum, said: "I have also been experiencing the same noise for around 10 months. It's like a stationary diesel engine, a throbbing, pulsing drone/hum. It usually becomes noticeable around 11pm to midnight and increases around 4am - easing off around 7am.
"I'm currently off work due to having a heart attack at the beginning of October exacerbated by sleep deprivation from this hum.
"The noise detection team from the council couldn't record anything from my flat. It has been suggested it's some form of low frequency radio transmission which is picked up by a small percentage of the general population."

Another sufferer who wished not to be named said: "I also hear the hum and there are a few of us in Cornwall according to the World Hum map and database and thousands of people throughout the world hear it.
"I have been hearing it for several years but no one else in the household can. I don't know whether or not it's to do with a person's hearing but I have always had really good hearing able to hear things my husband or children can't.

"It is exactly as Christine (Downing) has described, a low rumbling like a lorry idling in the distance, and it can be quite annoying.
"It can stop for a few weeks at a time and start again. Night time is the worse though I can hear it in the day if the house is quiet. I have also heard it in other places, Spain for example but it is emphatically not tinnitus."

http://www.westbriton.co.uk/Earth-Hum-cases-reported-Camborne-Truro/story-28253432-detail/story.html

If it's caused by "the pressure of waves vibrating on the ocean floor", then it should be more noticeable this w/e, with heavy seas forecast. Cornwall being a peninsula, it can get rough seas on the north or south coasts, and nowhere is very far inland.
 
Love the idea of this explanation, not that it's much fun for anyone adversely affected.

But I wish local newspaper journalists would be a bit more rigorous in their fact-checking:

"Research has revealed that the hum can be heard by approximately two per cent of the population and scientists have linked the aggravating and divisive humming pitch to the pressure of waves vibrating on the ocean floor."


What research? Which 'scientists'? How 'divisive' exactly, bah! :mad:
 
What research? Which 'scientists'? How 'divisive' exactly, bah! :mad:
Precisely. Perhaps two of the ten family members straw-polled at the breakfast research table suffer from tinnitus.

A sensory misperception condition like that could be viewed as being marginalising, but not as being devisive. Even if non-hearers were avowedly sceptical (though why?) I cannot see this creating factions.

Also: @rynner2 ...might there not be a problem with seawater movement being identified as the source of the hum? Surely a 'dull hum' puts it into the tens of cycles per second? How might that physically emerge from the much (much) lower frequencies of gravitic tidal wash, or weather-driven wavefront breakers?

This article is like a leaking life-preserver tossed into the briny: initially it buoys you up, looks the business, and then you find-out it's not salvation after all.
 

That's brilliant!

It also brings to mind an ongoing niggling frustration: about five or six years ago I was working in North London at the top of a four-storey townhouse with a panoramic view across the city (if one climbed out of a skylight virtually onto the roof - which I did late one night to enjoy a cigarette) and heard and recorded a sound very much like that. At the time I wondered about locomotive movements or construction works etc and have no doubt the source was something quite usual. But it was a bloody eerie noise and for the life of me I can't find the file anywhere, Bah! :mad:
 
Can men hear lower frequencies than women? Might be a point of investigation. Though I believe there are women who can hear it when men can't, so maybe gender isn't the answer.

Despite the fact I went to see Anthrax, Maiden, Sepultura etc when I was younger I have excellent hearing. I can hear those fecking animal deterrents too, which are HIGH pitched rather than low.
But I agree, it's not a gender thing. Hearing those animal scarers MIGHT be connected to asthma though - I read that before. Maybe the hum has a similar connection...
 
Careful James, Sara Cox was reprimanded at work for saying The Queen Mother smelled of wee.
 
Careful James, Sara Cox was reprimanded at work for saying The Queen Mother smelled of wee.

I still remember her on some 90's TV show (the one with all the "ladettes") getting down on her knees for some reason and holding her cleavage in with a hand while grinning at the camera.
Adolescent memories are the best.
 
I still remember her on some 90's TV show (the one with all the "ladettes") getting down on her knees for some reason and holding her cleavage in with a hand while grinning at the camera.
Adolescent memories are the best.
The Girlie Show?
 
Canada blaming USA for hum. Looked at Zug Island on Google satellite looks like a crazy industrial wasteland, I love places people aren't allowed to go but that's another thread.
Windsor Hum solution 'could take years,' MP warns
'The problem we're faced with is there is no international agreement for trans-boundary noise'
Short of an international treaty, there may be no end in sight for the mysterious Windsor Hum, a rumbling, low-frequency vibration that has plagued the border town for about five years.

"The problem we're faced with is there is no international agreement for trans-boundary noise and vibration. That leaves us vulnerable to creating a treaty, which could take years, if not decades," Windsor West NDP MP Brian Masse said.

He was in Washington, D.C., to raise the issue with federal government officials there.

Residents in west and south Windsor and the neighbouring town of LaSalle started complaining about a rumbling and humming noise back in 2011.

It keeps people awake at night, rattles windows and wall hangings and stops people from enjoying their backyards.

The source of the Windsor Hum, which sounds like an idling train engine or diesel transport truck, has been traced to Zug Island in River Rouge, Mich., directly across from west Windsor, according to a federally funded report released in 2014.

Masse wants to shift the focus from the hum being a Windsor problem to painting Detroit as an antagonist that won't fix the problem.

"This is certainly giving a black eye to Detroit. Even though it's River Rouge, it will be Detroit that eventually wears this international issue," Masse said. "We've tried to work cooperatively with United States on this, and we will continue to do so. Some of the wonderful work in Detroit, in terms of rejuvenation, is now being undermined.

"I don't think they want their new notoriety to be noise and vibration eminence from their domain."

Masse spent much of the week in Washington, discussing several local issues, including the Windsor Hum, the border and the Great Lakes.

The U.S. political staff Masse spoke with regarding the hum remain as much a mystery as the noise itself. Masse would only say he spoke with a representative for a U.S. senator.

<cont> http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/windsor-hum-solution-could-take-years-mp-warns-1.3650671
 
A local Hum!!
Have you heard the Falmouth hum?
By WBgdavies | Posted: July 05, 2016

A mystery hum is plaguing the life of residents near Falmouth.
The hum, which first appeared in May, is described as low frequency vibration which can be felt through the floor and even transmits via the furniture.

Emma Williams said the noise is present 24 hours a day and seven days a week.
"I find it very irritating," she said.
"It makes you weary because it's always there in the background.
"You can't even sit outside and enjoy the bird song of the quiet of the countryside.
"I can feel the vibration through the soles of my feet when I take my shoes off.

"The first month it was there, I couldn't sleep at all through it and at times it was quite tortuous.
"Earplugs don't block it out and neither do noise canceling headphones."

Emma said that although she could hear it, her husband could not.
However her daughter and other visitors to the house near Ponsanooth were instantly aware of the disturbance.

She knows the hum is local and has investigated it's extent by driving for miles within a radius of her home and checking whether it can still be heard.
"There was one night I couldn't sleep because of the noise so at about 4.30am I got in the car and drove to see how far away I could hear it," said Emma.
"It was bad at Glendurgan, Feock and Bissoe," she said, adding that at a range of about 12 miles it disappears.

Environmental health officers suggested she may be suffering from tinnitus, a ringing in the ears, however Emma said this would not explain why the noise stops abruptly at a certain radius.

Determined to see whether any of the man made structures in the area were responsible she contacted the owners of a nearby wind farm, among others.
"They were very helpful and invited me over to see. I went around inside and they turned off the turbines, but it didn't make any difference."

South West Water were also contacted and checked their pipes to see if there was a problem deep underground.

Emma also contacted the operators of nearby hot rocks project but found it was not in operation at present. Also, the owners of several quarries said their pumps do work, but only for a few hours at a time.

"I don't know what else to do and I would really like to know of anyone else has been affected by this," she added.

http://www.westbriton.co.uk/have-you-heard-the-falmouth-hum/story-29477572-detail/story.html

The headline is a bit misleading. - Ponsanooth is about 4 miles NW of Falmouth, although if the hum reaches 12 miles from Ponsanooth it should be heard here too. I've not heard it, or heard of anyone else hearing it. A pity the West Briton could not dig up more witnesses. Maybe this article will prompt some to come forward.
Some years back people in Mawnan Smith reported something similar which was eventually put down to noise from ships anchored in the bay.
 
Nice summary video about The Hum and some interesting theories and rumination:


I wonder if it is accurate that The Hum was never reported pre 1970s? Which would suggest a technological rather than natural explanation?
 
That's right, you never read about Victorian or medieval texts mentioning the hum, but now everyone knows what a modern machinery noise would sound like it has become a "thing". Some people can hear it while others cannot - will there come a day when the hearers outnumber the non-hearers?
 
Some people can hear it while others cannot

I have noticed it slightly less as I get older but I used to experience quite often a discomfort or pressure in my head which presaged the audible sounds of an aircraft overhead. Being to the North of Manchester, I am well away from the noisiest flight-paths and low-flying jets; aircraft are, however, probably still climbing or descending over our region.

Pressure-waves are also sensed when large trucks and buses are passing on the nearest busy road. The whole house can seem to flex when one of those giant pistons is approaching.

Outdoors at night, I was once very aware of a low-level hum. I now believe it to have been the air-conditioning or generators on the site of the major hospital nearby. It has been less noticeable in recent years - their rebuilding or my own loss of hearing?

I doubt if this even begins to explain the phenomenon, though. :confused:
 
That's right, you never read about Victorian or medieval texts mentioning the hum, but now everyone knows what a modern machinery noise would sound like it has become a "thing". Some people can hear it while others cannot - will there come a day when the hearers outnumber the non-hearers?

Interestingly there ARE 19th Century (Victorian) accounts of the Hum or hummadruzz as they termed it. I copy this (below) from pages discussing the hum on the Northern Earth Website

notes culled from 19th-century newspapers in the Manchester area.

The term hummadruz seems to have been coined in the last century. In 1878 R.E.Bibby, a local musician and composer, recalled from his 1820s childhood a low drone or humming noise heard in suburbs to the south and east of Manchester, especially Gorton, Rusholme and Longsight. It was heard on calm, clear days, usually in the early morning or at dusk.

Even Gilbert White, the naturalist author of The Natural History of Selborne, reported on such a noise in 1769, and gives the impression that it was a common occurrence:

"Humming in the air. There is a natural occurrence to be met with upon the highest part of our downs in hot summer days... a loud humming as of bees in the air, though not one insect is to be seen. The sound is distinctly to be heard the whole common through. Any person would suppose that a large swarm of bees was in motion and playing about his head".


I know there are a few other accounts but frustratingly these are the only ones I can find right now. I think there is a report on a Hum in the midlands around the 1880s that even then people were linking with newly built factories!

Mr P
 
I know there are a few other accounts but frustratingly these are the only ones I can find right now.

This Magonia article has some more extracts from Victorian sources.

I was personally taken by this one, because it is just a couple of miles from me, which I do not recall seeing before:

"“The term “hummadruz” is one which in a long series of years I have never heard used, nor did I ever see it in print till I read R. E. Bibby’s query in the City News. But as to the remarkable sounds which the term is intended to represent, I have often heard them when passing along the footpath through the fields which lie between Blackley Church and Lichford Hall. Like Mr. Bibby I was much surprised when I first heard them; but after hearing them on several occasions, being desirous to ascertain the cause, I left the footpath and proceeded through the fields in the direction from which the sounds seemed to come.”Presently I stood on the borders of a large pit, the surface of the water in which was covered by a multitude of frogs, whose croaking produced the strange sounds that had previously puzzled me. – Samuel Hewitt

Lichford Hall has long gone but appears to have been located in the vicinity of what is now Our Lady's School, around Boothroyden Road. Litchford produces more hits than Lichford and the references to a Litchford Hall Cottage lead to an empty field on Google View. The question must be which Blackley Church? Presumably one on Victoria Avenue. That also may be gone, though a cross indicates a church on my old A to Z on Victoria Avenue just by St Clare's Infant School.
 
There is an annoying blip/beep/ping sound coming from bottom of the Arctic that is probably a Russian sub as they are always sneaking in

Mysterious 'ping' sound from sea floor baffles Igloolik
Sometimes called a beep, a ping, or a hum, the sound is blamed for scaring away animals

Hunters in a remote community in Nunavut are concerned about a mysterious sound that appears to be coming from the sea floor.

The "pinging" sound, sometimes also described as a "hum" or "beep," has been heard in Fury and Hecla Strait — roughly 120 kilometres northwest of the hamlet of Igloolik — throughout the summer.

Paul Quassa, a member of the legislative assembly, says whatever the cause, it's scaring the animals away.
Con't at
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/ping-beep-hum-sound-arctic-ocean-igloolik-1.3831861
 
Not a hum, but this seems to be the best thread for it:
Mysterious alarm has been keeping people in Newquay awake for over a week
By CGMikeS | Posted: December 08, 2016

A mysterious alarm which has been ringing continuously in the Trencreek area of Newquay for over a week is causing confusion among frustrated residents.
Locals began hearing a strange beeping sound early last week, and many thought it was coming from the nearby Trencreek Holiday Park.
But after some investigation, park owner Paul Hautot confirmed the high-pitched noise was not coming from his site and so the mystery remains unsolved, much to the frustration of those living close to it.

When the alarm stopped for a short while yesterday (Wednesday) relieved residents thought their noise ordeal was over - but it's now returned.

Taking to Facebook to share this video of the alarm, frustrated resident Jamie Douce said: "There's an alarm of some sort that's been going continuously for a week. Please somebody make it stop!"

He later provided an update: "My god it's stopped!!!! What a relief."

But the alarm is back, and the mystery continues.

http://www.cornwalllive.com/continu...ay-residents/story-29968552-detail/story.html
 
Falmouth hum returns as residents complain of late night noise
Peter Johnstone, Reporter

An infamous hum has returned to Falmouth as a combination of large ships in port and easterly winds have seen residents kept awake in their beds at night.

People have taken to social media to complain about a "bellowing noise" believed to have been coming from the docks, with complaints from people as far away as Penryn, Mylor, and Ponsanooth, as well as closer to home at Swanvale, Goldenbank and the Beacon in Falmouth.

And people have been writing to the Packet asking about the noise as well, with Tim Julian complaining of the "24 hour industrial noise that is currently blighting Budock Water and Mongleath/Longfield," while Marc Laundon of Penmere spoke of a "row" throughout the night.
He said: "It sounded like some sort of generator? Maybe the railway doing something or a water pump over the valley on the building site? I'd love to know, and how they can justify disturbing thousands of people trying to sleep when they feel like it?"

Another Falmouth resident Mike Brett said the noise had been "unbearable" at the start of last week.
He said: "We have been putting up with it for years."
He said he had spoken to friends who "said how it's unbearable, and it keeps them up at night."
And he added: "Wind direction can change who's affected by it. It's easterly at the moment, it's bearing down across the town, you can't ignore it."

etc...

http://www.falmouthpacket.co.uk/new...ns_as_residents_complain_of_late_night_noise/

I've not heard it, but I'm half deaf anyway! But I've not heard of the other residents here grumbling about it either, although we are near many of the places mentioned.
 
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