15. The Hum
The Hum has been heard in a number of locales, including Taos, Bristol, Auckland, and Windsor.
It consists of a constant low-frequency rumbling noise, similar to an idling diesel engine.
There is a recording and other audio reproductions of the Hum available on the Internet, but
there has yet to be an adequate answer as to what produced the sound.
A number of people in these locales have claimed to have heard the noise, and media in both
the US and UK have reported on the phenomenon. However, the sound is heard differently by
everyone. People report the noise differently, with some saying vibrations accompany the
humming sound and some claiming that wearing earplugs doesn’t reduce the noise.
Studies have been undertaken to discern whether those who heard the noise have any commonalities.
The two percent of people who could hear the Taos Hum heard it at frequencies ranging between
32 and 80 Hz, and male to female hearers were fairly equal, with middle-aged individuals
hearing it most often. So does the hum actually exist or not? If
it does, who or what is the source of the noise?
Whatever it is, the phenomenon is so disturbing that the incessant sound has been said to
contribute to three suicides in the UK. 14. The Shrieking in Forest Grove
On February 2016, a horrifying shrill sound screeched its way into the ears of Forest
Grove residents in Oregon. The nocturnal noise was captured in an audio
file by audio expert, Tobin Cooley, who then used a sound meter to measure the shrieking
pitch. As reported by local news, KATU, Cooley deemed
the case highly unusual, saying, “It sounds like some sort of pressurized gas or air through
a fitting or valve or something. It’s not steady state, and you can’t predict when
it’s going to happen. Those are all interesting sound features.”
These ‘interesting sound features’ last anywhere from a dozen seconds to minutes.
Not only did the mysterious sound – which some have described as a “mechanical scream”
– keep people up at night, but it also set dog and cat hair on end across the county.
The recurring noise was so nightmarish that it made national news, covered by ABC News
and The Washington Post. Everyone from the Oregon town’s fire department to the police
to public officials have been contacted about the unsettling sound, but after conducting
an investigation into the matter, the fire department concluded that resident safety
wasn’t in jeopardy…although the source of the noise was still unknown.
This didn’t keep residents from taking wild stabs at what was making the noise. Some believed
a gas line was in urgent need of mending; others thought it was a water main; and still
others claimed the high-pitched shriek was the eerie audio of a ghost train or even a
ghost, itself, from the town’s Pacific University, whose Knight and Vera Halls are said to be
haunted. Natural or supernatural, the noise is not
letting up. 13. Wichita Boom
A mysterious explosion was caught on tape near Wichita, Oklahoma. Security cameras set
up by Ken Swarm at his Wichita home recorded the sudden sound at 1:00 P.M. Swarm noted,
“It’s the only audible sound for thirty minutes that I could hear during that time
frame.” While Swarm and others in the area didn’t
hear the sound at that time, the great big boom shook homes and frightened the bejesus
out of livestock across South Wichita. Folks called 911 to report the startling noise,
which some claim sounded like a sonic boom, but the source remains unexplained.
No power outages, earthquakes, or other incidents occurred at the time, and there have been
no physical signs of damage. McConnell air force base is situated nearby, but they said
nothing they did on base that day could explain the sound, neither did they hear it.
So what could have created the explosive noise, and why were some folks deaf to it? It’s
a witchy Wichita mystery. 12. Disappearing Pilot
In 1978, a 20-year-old pilot named Frederick Valentich [val-en-tich] disappeared mysteriously
off the Victorian coast, never to be heard from again.
The strange thing is, right before he vanished into thin air, he was describing an unexplained
sighting to Melbourne air traffic control: an alleged UFO.
The transmission with air traffic control lasted seven minutes and ended in a strange
metallic clanging noise. Although the coastline was searched for Valentich’s
aircraft wreckage, very little on the matter had been publically released since the crash,
apart from a transcript of the recorded audio file. The government claimed that the remainder
of Valentich’s file was destroyed or lost…but years later, it’s been uncovered, and surprisingly
it suggests that aircraft wreckage was, in fact, found in 1983 with partial serial numbers
intact. In a record of the transmission, Valentich
says, “It seems to me that he’s playing some sort of game. He’s flying over me two,
three times at a time at speeds I could not identify.”
“What I am doing right now is orbiting, and the thing is just orbiting on top of me.
Also it has a green light and sort of metallic, it’s all shiny (on) the outside.”
His last words recorded: “It is hovering, and it’s not an aircraft.”
Some had previously suggested that the disappearance was staged, but the aircraft wreckage was
discovered in range of Valentich’s disappearance. The 315-page file also reveals that the Defense
Minister was asked by the Transport Department head to launch an investigation into the matter.
The file also notes that a great many meteorite and UFO sightings occurred on the same night
of Valentich’s disappearance. So what does this mysterious audio file tell
us? Was the pilot taken up by a UFO or knocked out of the air by a meteorite? Unfortunately,
we’ll never know for sure. 11. The “Old Tape”
Classical music over radio airwaves sure doesn’t sound too mysterious on paper…but when you
give this random audio file a listen, you might find the cryptic recording a bit more
chilling than you’d anticipated. The recording is said to have come about from
a radio station in the mid-90s. According to a post on the /x/ paranormal boards, the
original anonymous source of the recording explains that when he was around 15 years
old, he would stay up late into the night, listening to radio stations on his boombox,
in order to record interesting songs. Using an integrated tape recorder, he’d randomly
dial to various stations and then record whenever he felt like it.
The unsettling, mysterious audio file starts off with classical music but crackles and
fades into shrill shrieks, chants, whispers, and odd clanging noises that sound like bells.
Names and dates can be heard being recited. Some speculate that these are the names of
the 1988 Pan Am bombing victims of Flight 103. This theory has never been confirmed,
however. The poster who recorded the audio explains
where and how it originated: “One night, I came across this. I don’t think this was
the beginning of the broadcast, but I caught a lot of it. Right at the end, an announcer
says that the station I was tuned to was WKCR 89.9 New York. There are a bunch of names
and dates in there, but…I’ve never run into anything else like this.”
According to WKCR-FM’s website, the station was given its license in 1941, is a student-run
station for Columbia University, and “is dedicated to presenting a spectrum of alternative
programming—traditional and art music, spoken arts, and original journalism.”
Could this ‘alternative programming’ and ‘spoken arts’ include an attempt at creeping
the crap out of anyone who just happened to tune in at this moment in time? We can only
guess. 10. Canadian Audio, eh?
The Arctic is a mysterious place, so it’s no wonder that mysterious sounds are heard
there. In Igloolik [i-gloo-lik], Nunavut [new-na-vut],
a “hum” or “ping” has been heard by hunters, and it seems to be sounding from
the ocean floor. The strange noise is sending wildlife running for the hills. Prior to the
mysterious sound, the land was full of animals; now, it’s empty.
The CBC states that several theories floating around about the mysterious audio’s source,
that the cause is a nearby mining company, while others claim that a saboteur for Greenpeace
is the source. Both deny any involvement. The Department of National Defense was called
upon to investigate the matter. The Department put out a statement saying they’d “been
informed of the strange noises emanating in the Fury and Hecla Straights area, and the
Canadian Armed Forces are taking the appropriate steps to actively investigate the situation.”
Unfortunately, the investigation turned up nothing. According to a department spokesperson,
Ashley Lemire, “The air crew performed various multi-sensor searches in the area, including
an acoustic search for 1.5 hours, without detecting any acoustic anomalies. The crew
did not detect any surface or subsurface contacts.” This means hunters in Igloolik have no choice
but to twiddle their thumbs until the sound can be sourced and shut down. Only then can
they can get back to the job of hunting wild game…if it returns. 9. ‘Space Jam’ of Apollo 10
In 1969, the Apollo 10 mission swung around the far side of the moon. That’s when things
started to get a bit spacey. Declassified transcripts of the Apollo mission
note that the astronauts on board heard mysterious “outer space-type” melodies floating through
the stars. The Science Channel episode entitled “NASA’s
Unexplained Files” discusses the spine-tingling music. Eugene Cernan [sir-nen], John Young,
and Thomas Stafford were members of the Apollo mission, which was completed two months prior
to man first landing on the moon in Apollo 11. As the crew explain, when radio contact
ceased, they started to hear spooky noises through the radio module, which went on for
nearly an hour. “The music even sounds outer-spacey, doesn’t
it?” one of the men declared in the mission’s transcript. “You hear that? That whistling
sound?" Another astronaut responded, “Sounds like
… you know, outer-space type music.” The astronauts debated about reporting the
sounds to mission control, but once the mission had landed safely in the Pacific, the transcripts
and recordings were classified. For dozens of years, the mysterious audio and the crew’s
discussion about it was shoved out of sight in NASA’s archives, with the idea that withholding
this information from the public was, “in the public’s best interests,” according
to Al Worden, Apollo 15 Command Module Pilot. The audio is believed to have been the result
of atmospheric interference or the spaceship’s radio interference, but the source hasn’t
been nailed down. Although Worden told Science Channel: “Logic
tells me that if there was something recorded on there, then there was something there.”
We’ll likely never know what caused the cryptic audio, because the Apollo 10 crew
remains mum on the matter. 8. “The Bloop”
This mysterious underwater sound – termed, “The Bloop” – was detected in 1977 by
the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (the NOAA). The strong, low-frequency
noise remains unexplained…but that doesn’t mean scientists and the layman haven’t tried
to explain it. Scientists believe the sound could be one
of many natural things: large marine life, an iceberg making contact with the ocean floor,
or a large iceberg’s icequake. The sound was detected multiple times in a
remote area west of South America’s southern tip in the Pacific Ocean. The Equatorial Pacific
Ocean autonomous hydrophone array is used to monitor underwater ice noise, mammal population
and migration, and seismic activity. The NOAA described the mysterious audio as
rising “rapidly in frequency over about one minute and was of sufficient amplitude
to be heard on multiple sensors, at a range of over 5,000 kilometers (3,000 mi).”
The NOAA doesn’t believe the sound was caused by a bomb or submarine or was manmade to any
degree…but it’s also not in line with an earthquake, volcano, or other geological
event. Moreover, although they considered the sound
to most likely belong to marine life, the audio was unfamiliar and much louder than
any previously recorded audio from underwater creatures – including that of the blue whale,
which is the loudest animal ever recorded. Journalist David Wolman [woe-l-men] said of
the matter: “Bloop was detected by sensors up to 4,800 kilometres (3,000 mi) apart. That
means it must be far louder than any whale noise, or any other animal noise for that
matter. Is it even remotely possible that some creature bigger than any whale is lurking
in the ocean depths? Or, perhaps more likely, something that is much more efficient at making
sound?” Who knows? What we do know is that the audio
file is so mysterious that it’s inspired pop culture, appearing in everything from
short stories by H. P. Lovecraft to mermaid documentaries. 7. Australian Radio Burst
In May 2014, Australian astronomers caught a radio “burst” that’s just recently
been reported by the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Melbourne Swinburne [swin-burn] University of Technology doctoral student, Emily Petroff,
said, “The burst was identified within 10 seconds of its occurrence. The importance
of the discovery was recognized very quickly and we were all working very excitedly to
contact other astronomers and telescopes around the world to look at the location of the burst.”
While the signal from outer space is likely natural, the source still remains unexplained,
with only eight other radio bursts discovered in astronomical archives. The bursts are said
to flash incredibly bright radio waves in just a couple milliseconds with the same amount
of energy as the sun releases in an entire day. Some theorize it’s a collapsing neutron
star, which forms a black hole, while the more supernatural-minded believe it’s aliens.
The CSIRO Parkes radio telescope was the first telescope in the world to catch a radio burst
while it was happening. This should help Petroff’s crew to eliminate some theories. Although
they weren’t able to uncover the blast’s source this time around, they did cross “gamma-ray
bursts” off their list. 6. The Satanic DVD
This entry includes not only mysterious audio, but mysterious video.
A tech blog in Sweden received a DVD whose delivery makes the skin crawl. The cryptic
warnings and satanic imagery in the video and audio have sent the people of the Internet
into a tailspin. First, the video: a human in doctor’s garb
and a black bird mask and shroud appears in the grainy video which runs for two minutes.
The figure gestures, raising its hands, unveiling a blinking light in its right hand. Flashing
into the video clip are strings of Morse code that seem to be the coordinates, “38.897709,
-77.036543.” Plug them into Google, and you’ll find those are the coordinates of
the White House. Now, to the audio: the audio sounds like nothing
but obnoxious screeches, but using a spectrogram, the “white noise” creates images, including
what appears to be a tortured or restrained woman, and the phrase, “You are already
dead.” The mysterious video and audio file has an
even creepier history. Prior to this most current upload, people have tried to upload
it to YouTube twice, with the first account being linked to a user called AETBX. When
asked about the video, AETBX said that an acquaintance discovered the original disc
“in a park outside Spain” and sent it to him. Although he may have been the first
to upload it to the internet, he claims he was not the originator of the mysterious file,
nor did he send it to the Swedish tech blog. So where did the cryptic file come from? Some
suspect it was created for viral purposes, others claim that it could be a promotional
stunt for a marketing campaign. Or could it be something far more nefarious? 5. “The Boom”
The “Bloop” is not the only strange unexplainable audio to be recorded emanating from the depths
of the ocean. An extraordinary boom exploded through the Mariana Trench, producing only
a couple seconds of low frequency “moaning” at a pitch of 38 hertz…one that swings high
to 8,000 hertz in the end. The 1,580-mile long Mariana Trench is situated
between Australia and Japan and is the deepest known section of the ocean, with depths greater
than 36,000 feet. The sound was recorded using passive acoustic ocean gliders. These devices
travel on their own for several months, sinking to around 1,000 meters.
The OSU Hatfield Marine Science Center deemed the mysterious sound the ‘Western Pacific
Biotwang.’ [bio-twang] Although experts can’t be sure what caused the noise, they
believe it’s a new kind of whale call delivered by baleen whales. Baleen whales, specifically
the minke whale species, have mouth plates that help filter krill from the ocean water
and may produce the low-frequency pitches of their regional whale calls.
Sharon Nieukirk [new-kirk], Oregon State’s senior faculty research assistant in marine
bioacoustics, says, “It’s very distinct, with all these crazy parts. The low-frequency
moaning part is typical of baleen whales, and it’s that kind of twangy sound that
makes it really unique.” She further noted that they don’t often discover new baleen
whale calls. Others, however, think the sound is more alien
than whale. And it’s also true that baleen whales mate during winter, while the Western
Pacific Biotwang has been heard and recorded year-round. Nieukirk acknowledges that this
fact is what makes the call such “a mystery.” 4. Upsweep
This audio file is another of NOAA’s underwater mysteries. The unidentified and unexplainable
sound was detected on the equatorial autonomous hydrophone arrays.
The “upsweep” was recorded in 1991, when the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory
first began its sound recording. The “upsweep,” as it’s been termed, is a lengthy course
of narrow-band sounds that last a few seconds. It’s a seasonal sound, with highs in spring
and autumn. Scientists don’t know whether this is because the environment changes or
because the source of the sound changes according to the season.
Although a rough estimate puts the source at 54°S 140°W, which is close to some volcanic
seismic activity, the sound’s origin remains unclear. The sounds are still being detected,
although the level of the source has been in decline since it was first picked up on
audio in 1991. 3. UVB-76
Ever since 1973, reports have been made about a station that broadcasts on the frequency
4625 kHz. The shortwave radio station became known as “the Buzzer,” because it sends
out a short, monotone buzzing sound that repeats over and over again around 25 times each minute,
all day long. The tonal patterns have changed on occasion – for instance, in 2003, it
briefly alternated to a higher tone, before reverting to its previous pattern.
The monotonous sound is not the only mystery, however; the buzzer is occasionally interrupted
by a Russian voice transmission. The purpose of this mysterious audio file remains up in
the air…although lack of evidence never squashes conspiracy theories.
Being that some transmissions have unveiled names, such as “Boris, Roman, Olga, Mikhail,
Anna, Larisa,” some believe these are the call-sign of the station. Others believe they’re
some other identification code for listeners. Conversations and background noise can often
be heard behind the buzzer. This suggests that the buzzing noise is generated by a piece
of equipment put in front of a mic, the purpose of which perhaps only the Russian government
can confirm. But they won’t. 2. Whistle
One more mysterious underwater sound uncovered by the NOAA. A whistle.
The high pitch screech recorded in 1997 has been compared to a kettle of boiling water.
A single hydrophone picked up the sound, so even the general location of the source is
unknown. Unlike some of the other mysterious underwater
sounds, the NOAA doesn’t theorize that it was caused by an iceberg; rather, it believes
this mysterious audio is from an erupting submarine volcano.
Or perhaps it’s a great underwater creature we’ve yet to discover.
Just another mysterious sound below the sea that we’ll never be able to explain. Before we get to number 1, my name is Chills
and I hope you’re enjoying the video so far. If you've ever been curious as to what
I look like in real life, then follow me on Instagram @dylan_is_chillin_yt, with underscores
instead of spaces. I also have Twitter @YT_Chills where I post video updates. I'd really appreciate
it if you followed me and feel free to send me a DM if you have a questions or suggestions.
If you’d like to see more of these videos in the future, then hit that subscribe button
because we upload new countdowns every Tuesday and Saturday. 1. Backmasking
Backmasking is when audio files are played backwards, revealing a hidden message. The
tactic started in the 1960s, with some bands backmasking deliberately.
For instance, a section of Pink Floyd’s “Empty Spaces” is jargon when played forwards
but produces a secret message when played backwards, stating: “Congratulations. You
have just discovered the secret message. Please send your answer to Old Pink, care of the
Funny Farm, Chelmsford.” However, some purported backmasking could
be incidental. Some have said that Led Zepellin’s “Stairway
to Heaven” is actually a stairway to hell when played backward. Christian lobbyists
claim the reverse version is a love letter to the Dark Lord and that Zepellin is attempting
to enforce some sort of satanic subliminal message. The band has been famously unresponsive
to these allegations, but their recording company, Swan Song Records, did issue the
following statement: “Our turntables only play in one direction—forwards.”
However, the whole thing could be chalked up to pareidolia.
Pareidolia is when people follow familiar patterns and connections in sounds, causing
them to interpret audio stimuli incorrectly. The question is, did playing “Stairway to
Heaven” backwards produce these familiar patterns…or was the audio truly a love letter
to Satan from the band? Perhaps Zepellin will take that one to the
grave. Thanks for checking out this video. Be sure
to subscribe because we upload new countdowns every Tuesday and Saturday. Or if you're still
not convinced, here are some of our other videos that I think you'd like. Enjoy!
