British Columbia's "mystery hum" caught on video
Terrace BC resident awakened by noise
Earlier this week, a resident of Terrace, British Columbia was awakened from a sound sleep by a loud, rumbling hum that echoed throughout the entire town. Kimberly Wookey grabbed her video camera and recorded footage of the noise, which was verified by many other Terrace residents.
The loud, droning noise seemed to come from the sky, although it can be difficult to pinpoint the source of an overwhelming noise like this. Particularly in an area with the geography of Terrace, BC which is surrounded by mountains that can echo the noise strangely.
The video is startling: you can really tell the volume of the hum, which is incredibly loud compared to other "hum" phenomena. (The famous Taos Hum, for example, is more of a low-frequency buzz, like the sound of a refrigerator.)
The Terrace hum has been heard before, most recently back in January. Speculation about these "hum" phenomena has run the gamut. Theories include a consequence of the HAARP antenna array in Alaska, earthquake or other tectonic activity, government experiments in crowd control, and UFOs.
The Taos Hum is probably the most famous of all the hums. It first came to media attention in 1992, when residents claimed to have been hearing it for over a year. However, not all Taos residents heard the hum. In fact, a survey showed that only 2 percent of the town's population of 7,000 people claimed to have heard the noise.
It can be difficult to pinpoint the source of a low-frequency noise, and difficult to strain it out from all the other low-frequency noises that urban residents hear on a daily basis. From the drone of traffic to the rumble of an idling diesel truck engine, our cities are noisier than we give them credit for.
Seattle recently experienced its own brush with a phenomena like this, dubbed the "West Seattle Hum." Early speculation was that it could be due to the mating call of a croaker fish, which can be quite loud, especially if it finds resonance (e.g. in the hull of a nearby empty ship). However, it turned out to be just another example of industrial noise pollution: the source amounted to a giant vacuum cleaner that was being used to clean out empty cargo containers down at the docks.
Where Terrace, BC is concerned, city spokesperson Alisa Thompson has identified the hum as being the sound of a city worker sharpening the blade of a grinder. "The grader blade needed to be straightened. Kind of gets ground down, and it makes a very strange noise. It's a simple as that," she said.
(Or is that just what they WANT us to think???)