Awesome or Off-Putting is a weekly delve into cryptozoology, ufology, aliens, medical marvels, scientific wonders, secret societies, government conspiracies, cults, ghosts, EVPs, myths, ancient artifacts, religion, strange facts, odd sightings or just the plain unexplainable.
The Taos Hum is a low-pitched mechanical buzzing sound often heard in Taos, New Mexico. What makes this strange phenomena worth mentioning is that nobody knows where thew sound comes from. Hundreds if not thousands of people have gone out looking for the source, but it’s never been found.
There are lots of theories as to what causes the noise – some say it’s the electronic hum of secret underground bases, while others believe it to have a geological cause, like magma bubbling under a thinner-than-usual earth crust. Still others believe it’s all got something to do with spaceships trapped underground or something.
So far, nobody’s ever been able to prove a thing.
Let’s kick things off with a quote – this one’s off of Even Tide Productions (.com), who crowned the mysterious humming sound atop their ten most curious unexplained phenomena list:
“The hum, a low-pitched sound almost “artificial” in nature, has driven researchers mad for years. It’s driven the locals batty as well, to the point where they banded together in 1993 to petition Congress and ask for government assistance is locating the source of the disturbance…to no avail.
“Speculation prevails as to the nature of the noise, and theories range from secret military weapons testing, to mass hysteria, to the mere supernatural. Though the acoustic phenomenon is not isolated to the small New Mexico town, with reports of similar low frequency hums having been reported in other parts of the world, including Great Britain, the Taos version has certainly garnered more attention in recent years. And since the hum has gone undetected by microphones, VLF antennas, and other recording attempts, it tops our list as the most peculiar of unsolved mysteries.”
An interesting thing about Taos, New Mexico – it looks like it’s smack next to Dulce. You remember Dulce – we talked about it months ago. It’s got that alleged underground, alien friendly government base where some say human genomes are being melded with that of animals. The end results are intelligent mutants kept on the inside of a deadbolt.
Dulce is also the place where Phil Schneider claims he was one of like two human survivors who escaped a huge underground alien battle. Then he went on to commit suicide in his apartment after telling people, as his ex-wife put it:
“Philip always told his friends and relatives, that if he ever “committed suicide” you would know that he had been murdered.”
But we totally digress – back to the hum. It’s a sound that reminds people of distant thunder or an idling diesel engine. Not everyone can hear it, which is really enough to make you wonder if it’s an Emperor’s New Clothes types thing.
Down below we’ve posted a clip from YouTube wherein you can definitely hear something faint. It’s really not remarkable except for the fact that nobody knows where it’s coming from. On ThomastonExpress.com, a New Mexico resident, Dave Drinnan, complains about the sound. At the time of the writing he’d been hearing it in his home for only eight years straight, although he’s been in the house for over 21 years:
“It sounds like there is a lawn mower or a gas-powered generator running somewhere nearby. It runs 24/7. Sometimes it’s more noticeable than others, but I’m pretty sure it’s always there…It never falters or changes. It could be man-made, but it seems unlikely that equipment would be running all of the time.”
And the New Mexican hum is not alone – there’s one in New Zealand and the UK as well. Then you have Northern Europe where the exact same thing is noted by the locals. In all these situations – there is no apparent reason for the noise.
Could that many people be imagining it? Is there a place that would have machinery running that constantly? Could anybody reading this look into at least making the thing more melodic? Maybe program the Beatles‘ White Album into it or something.
At least then it’d be a more enjoyable phenomenon.
Tom J says
Hang on a sec, supposedly the sound cannot be recorded – the pictured news article explicitly states that a bunch of experts tried with various recording equipment (including very low frequency), all to no avail. So how can the You Tube clip possibly have this sound in it?
I vote for mass hysteria / psychosomatic response. Ask a bunch of people if they can hear a barely audible noise and you’re guaranteed that some of them will listen to the air for a moment before exclaiming “oh my God, I CAN hear it!”. By the way, listen very carefully… you hear that?
Gilbert Wham says
Apparently Bristol has one too. explains a lot.
Julian Mentat says
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Ha! Fooled you.
lethe says
Well, this is reassuring. And here I thought I was going mad, or at least infected by some sort of weird sinus condition. Now that I have an ‘explanation’ of sort(or at least know there are more people out there besides me who hear this sound), maybe I can start sleeping through it.
I’m serious.
Anybody else?
James says
Strange, I recorded the anomaly back in 1991. It was my recording that proved to the task force the ‘HUM’ was real.
As I stated in my web site and emails when asked.
Who said the task force wanted to record the ‘HUM ‘?
They knew what it took to record the ‘HUM’ back in 1991.
They, however selected a large microphone to record the anomaly, knowing full well that acoustic energy was not a factor.
The task force never intended to record the ‘HUM’. I will leave any intent or theory up to you. As to the reason to or not to record.
James
Jack says
Water pumping stations and other industrial operations have motors running 24/7. Surely someone has looked into long-range acoustic effects? It could be coming from many miles away, like how trains at night get “amplified.”
Sound does odd things in mountainous areas. The Rio Grande passes west of Taos in a long canyon that might be channeling the sound somehow.
The Los Alamos laboratory is in that general area, too. There are lots of possibilities.
People who are stuck near tall wind turbines (which produce weird LF sound effects) probably have it worse than most Taosians.