Low Frequency Hum in the Earth

Search
Go

Discussion Topic

Return to Forum List
This thread has been locked
Messages 21 - 40 of total 214 in this topic << First  |  < Previous  |  Show All  |  Next >  |  Last >>
Srbphoto

climber
Kennewick wa
Sep 12, 2012 - 12:58pm PT
No I don't. But he knows a lot more than most, including you and me.

no argument there!

When I lived down there, I would do a lot of photography in the winter. I spent most of my time off trail in the farther reaches of the Peninsula. I would head out at 4 or 5 am. I heard exactly what you are talking about. I always wondered if it could be a result of the sesmic activity of the area. There is so much earth movement going on that we cannot feel.
Vegasclimber

Trad climber
Las Vegas, NV.
Sep 12, 2012 - 12:59pm PT
Back to the topic at hand...interesting, Tom.

I know that the military had the ELF Project, which transmits at extremely low frequencies...could something similar to that cause an audible hum?

Edit to add, I remember hearing odd humming in the Sierra in the area of Walker, CA. when I was a kid. I haven't heard anything similar to that lately, but I'm totally deaf in one ear now.
TomCochrane

Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 12, 2012 - 12:59pm PT
Hey folks! My real question is: are other people hearing this in the wilderness???


And thanks as usual for Ed's contribution to the discussion. I appreciate that a good spectral signature could be used to trace sources.
Tony Bird

climber
Northridge, CA
Sep 12, 2012 - 01:10pm PT
i wish i could help, but my tinnitus dates back to shooting a shotgun as a teenager. i can ignore it for days at a time, but all i have to do is think about it, and the ringing is there. seems to resonate around D major.

as ed said, you ought to be able to measure this with instruments. a google of earth-sounds-resonate yields a happy hunting ground of speculation.
cintune

climber
Midvale School for the Gifted
Sep 12, 2012 - 01:12pm PT
Dingus nails it. Don't know how far you are from a big highway, but I've seen stories about the sound of traffic propagating over long distances and balancing out to a low hum. Admittedly not very spiritualized, but one possible explanation anyway.
TomCochrane

Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 12, 2012 - 01:12pm PT
Many years ago I had access to an anechoic chamber. This can be sort of frightening as in the otherwise dead silence you can hear air molecules clashing and your heart pumping and breath rushing and joints creaking constantly...


don't recall any deep humming at the time...

TomCochrane

Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 12, 2012 - 01:14pm PT
Dingus nails it. Don't know how far you are from a big highway, but I've seem stories about the sound of traffic propagating over long distances and balancing out to a low hum. Admittedly not very spiritualized, but one possible explanation anyway.

Yes, for some number of years, I thought that was probably what was causing me to hear it at my home. Then it started pulsing like Morse Code...hmmm...
perswig

climber
Sep 12, 2012 - 01:29pm PT
^^
Would a steady source of low frequency noise (highway, pump station, whatever) develop oscillations if carried across changing pressure micro-gradients (altitude, weather front variations)?

Dale, wondering
Sagebrusher

Sport climber
Iowa
Sep 12, 2012 - 01:32pm PT

I know that the military had the ELF Project, which transmits at extremely low frequencies...could something similar to that cause an audible hum?

I thought that was electromagnetic waves (radio) not sound?
SalNichols

Big Wall climber
Richmond, CA
Sep 12, 2012 - 01:44pm PT
Did the pulse modulation happen to correlate with your heart rate?

The earth itself does happen to emit in the LF range, and USGS scientists have been seeking to correlate changes in these emissions with seismic activity. One of the test sites is or was near Loma Prieta...which might not be that far from you, though I seriously doubt the human bodies ability to detect these signals without an HP/Agilent Spectrum Analyzer.
cliffhanger

Trad climber
California
Sep 12, 2012 - 01:44pm PT
Electromagnetic energy can be heard when strong enough. Check out Strange Energy:

http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=133615&tn=0

The aurora generates sounds:

“Our research proved that, during the occurrence of the northern lights, people can hear natural auroral sounds related to what they see. In the past, researchers thought that the aurora borealis was too far away for people to hear the sounds it made. This is true. However, our research proves that the source of the sounds that are associated with the aurora borealis we see is likely caused by the same energetic particles from the sun that create the northern lights far away in the sky. These particles or the geomagnetic disturbance produced by them seem to create sound much closer to the ground,” said Professor Unto K. Laine from Aalto University.

http://planetsave.com/2012/07/10/sounds-of-the-aurora-borealis-confirmed/
TomCochrane

Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 12, 2012 - 01:53pm PT
Schumann resonances - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schumann_resonances

Just as a tuning fork has natural frequencies for sound,
the planet Earth has natural frequencies,
called Schumann resonances,
for electromagnetic radiation.

The Human Brain also has natural frequencies
for electromagnetic radiation.

It turns out that the Earth's Schumann resonances are
"in tune" with the Human Brains's Alpha States and Theta States.

Animation of Schumann resonance in Earth's atmosphere. ... It has been speculated that extraterrestrial lightning (on other planets) may also be ... Tesla discovered that the resonant frequency of the Earth was approximately 8 hertz (Hz). In the ... to be the primary natural source of Schumann resonance excitation; lightning ...

TomCochrane

Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 12, 2012 - 01:59pm PT
Interesting, but doesn't seem directly related:

Jerry Dodrill

climber
Bodega, CA

Topic Author's Original Post - Dec 22, 2005 - 01:22pm PT
Have you experienced this?

A few years ago I was on a corniced ridge nearing the summit of a virgin peak in NW China with friends, when a big ominous cloud enshrouded us. Soon it was white out conditions, fog, driving corn snow, and super high winds. Suddenly there is a strange sound, louder than the wind, like an old radio tuner between stations. It fluctuated in pitch as you turned your head, higher to the right, lower to the left. I thought I was hallucinating (It’s day two of what was supposed to be a one day climb, turned out to be three days) and zoned out on my ice axe for a minute which also changed the pitch as I raised it and plunged it into the snow. I looked up the rope. Doug, 50’ away, pointed to his ear and shrugged his shoulders. He heard it, and below, Jed heard it too. Something slapped me in the back of the head. I raised a hand to head and received a strong static shock. Realizing we are in an electrically charged cloud I note the amount of metal on me and fear electrocution. I yell to Doug, but my words are taken by the wind. He gets shocked also, and we all start running back down the ridge. Half an hour later we are a good way down, the storm cleared as quickly as it came in and we could see that we had been spitting distance from the summit. We never heard thunder or saw lightning. Instinct said “get the F- down now” but I’ve always regretted not tagging the top.


Here the peak is hiding in cloud again, shortly after a long descent.

So far I haven’t found documentation of this strange radio sound and no clear condition reports surrounding lightning during snowstorms. We were near 18,000’ on the border of Kyrgyzstan near the Taklimakin desert, so the air was pretty dry, all things considered. We figured the snow was blowing over the cornice in a circular manner, building static between corn snow particles, it felt like we were about to be zapped. I’ve had close calls in the Sierra, but this was different. Would love to hear if anyone else has experienced it and/or can explain the physics.

I was in the Upper Saddle of the Grand Teton with my brother in 1986 when we were hit by a horrendous thunder and lightning storm with many hits occurring on the nearby Enclosure point. Just about every imaginable noise going on...

but that's a different sort of story...
TomCochrane

Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 12, 2012 - 02:03pm PT
Interesting posts that do seem relevant, shamelessly plagiarizing the old 'Strange Energy' thread:

cliffhanger

Trad climber
California

Dec 31, 2005 - 11:53am PT
An article I read in Science in the early 70’s told of a researcher trying to find the cause of the crackling sounds heard under very high voltage transmission lines in the interests of improving efficiency. He tried recording the sounds to no avail. There was no sound. Intense electromagnetic radiation (radio waves or microwaves) was inducing currents in the brain that were perceived as sound. The effect was reproduced in their lab


cliffhanger

Trad climber
California

Jan 1, 2006 - 02:16pm PT
From a Google search of: electromagnetic sound brain - I found a lot of info on the electromagnetic stimulation of the brain. It can cause sound, mood, and vision effects. Some research claimed almost any sound could be conveyed on radio or micro waves, even speech:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frey_effect

http://homepages.tesco.net/~John.Dawes2/ingalls.htm

http://www.mindcontrolforums.com/mindnet/mn159.htm

http://www.rhfweb.com/hweb/shared2/Newrad.html


1. Sounds (Pings, Clicks, Other), Acoustic Messages, & Buzzing Noises my be felt near and on the human body as created by microwave pulsed adiograms or microwave synthetic telepathy being broadcasted at a human target.

2. Images, holographic images, virtual reality images,synthetic telepathic images may be felt near and on the human body as created by microwave pulsed holography or microwave synthetic telepathy being broadcasted at a human target.

http://www.datafilter.com/mc/c_controlOfChoiceAbstract.html

http://www.angelfire.com/or/mctrl/electrowarfare.html

http://www.mk-resistance.com/ecm_apps.html

http://www.sumeria.net/tech/emfwar.html


Brandon-

climber
The Granite State.
Sep 12, 2012 - 02:06pm PT
In the past I've heard a low, deep thrum with no discernible source.

I was hiking with a USGS hydrologist and we both heard it. I asked her if it was subsurface water. She thought not, but was interested and asked around.

Turns out that's exactly what it was.
TomCochrane

Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 12, 2012 - 02:15pm PT
Microwave auditory effect
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Frey effect)
Jump to: navigation, search

The microwave auditory effect, also known as the microwave hearing effect or the Frey effect, consists of audible clicks (or, with modulation, whole words) induced by pulsed/modulated microwave frequencies. The clicks are generated directly inside the human head without the need of any receiving electronic device. The effect was first reported by persons working in the vicinity of radar transponders during World War II. These induced sounds are not audible to other people nearby. The microwave auditory effect was later discovered to be inducible with shorter-wavelength portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. During the Cold War era, the American neuroscience Allan H. Frey studied this phenomenon and was the first to publish[1] information on the nature of the microwave auditory effect.

Dr. Don R. Justesen published "Microwaves and Behavior" in The American Psychologist (Volume 30, March 1975, Number 3).

Research by NASA in the 1970s[citation needed] showed that this effect occurs as a result of thermal expansion of parts of the human ear around the cochlea, even at low power density. Later, signal modulation was found to produce sounds or words that appeared to originate intracranially. It was studied for its possible use in communications. Both the United States and USSR studied its use in non-lethal weaponry.[citation needed]

Pulsed microwave radiation can be heard by some workers; the irradiated personnel perceive auditory sensations of clicking or buzzing. The cause is thought to be thermoelastic expansion of portions of auditory apparatus.[2] The auditory system response occurs at least from 200 MHz to at least 3 GHz. In the tests, repetition rate of 50 Hz was used, with pulse width between 10–70 microseconds. The perceived loudness was found to be linked to the peak power density instead of average power density. At 1.245 GHz, the peak power density for perception was below 80 mW/cm2. The generally accepted mechanism is rapid (but minuscule, in the range of 10−5 °C) heating of brain by each pulse, and the resulting pressure wave traveling through skull to cochlea.[3]

The existence of non-lethal weaponry that exploits the microwave auditory effect appears to have been classified "Secret NOFORN" in the USA from (at the latest) 1998, until the declassification on 6 December 2006 of "Bioeffects of Selected Non-Lethal Weaponry" in response to a FOIA request. Application of the microwave hearing technology could facilitate a private message transmission. Quoting from the above source, "Microwave hearing may be useful to provide a disruptive condition to a person not aware of the technology. Not only might it be disruptive to the sense of hearing, it could be psychologically devastating if one suddenly heard "voices within one's head".

The technology gained further public attention when a company announced in early 2008 that they were close to fielding a device called MEDUSA (Mob Excess Deterrent Using Silent Audio) based on the principle.[4]

Electroreception has also been studied in the animal world. Ritz et al., in Biophysical Journal,[5] hypothesize that transduction of the Earth's geomagnetic field is responsible for the magnetoreception systems of birds. Specifically, they propose that this transduction may take place in a class of photoreceptors known as cryptochromes.
TomCochrane

Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
Topic Author's Reply - Sep 12, 2012 - 02:19pm PT
Did the pulse modulation happen to correlate with your heart rate?

No, the pulse modulation does not seem to correlate with anything going on relative to my body, other than being able to hear it.

The pulses range in length from 1/4 second to several seconds with quiet periods ranging from 1/2 second to several seconds in a pattern that seems to be random and/or coded.

Incidentally I have been hearing it all morning and am listening to it now.


I normally am never subjected to head aches. My feeling currently is that if I were sensitive to headaches, this sound could induce a headache and other related feelings...sort of like spending too much time in front of a CRT (i am using flat screens)

Primary Cold War-era research in the US

The first American to publish on the microwave hearing effect was Allan H. Frey, in 1961. In his experiments, the subjects were discovered to be able to hear appropriately pulsed microwave radiation, from a distance of 100 meters from the transmitter. This was accompanied by side effects such as dizziness, headaches, and a pins and needles sensation.

Sharp and Grove developed receiverless wireless voice transmission technologies for the Advanced Research Projects Agency at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, in 1973. In the above mentioned journal entry to The American Psychologist, Dr. Don Justesen reports that Sharp and Grove were readily able to hear, identify, and distinguish among the single-syllable words for digits between 1 and 10 . Justesen writes, "The sounds heard were not unlike those emitted by persons with artificial larynxes. Communication of more complex words and of sentences was not attempted because the averaged densities of energy required to transmit longer messages would approach the [still] current 10mW/cm² limit of safe exposure." (D.R. Justesen. "Microwaves and Behavior", Am Psychologist, 392(Mar): 391–401, 1975.)

Hmm..obviously completely unrelated to this thread, but it is intriguing to me that three unusually interesting and influential people that I knew personally have died of brain tumors

cliffhanger

Trad climber
California
Sep 12, 2012 - 04:36pm PT
Advanced microwave weaponry & Senator Johnson

http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=294905&msg=294940#msg294940
ELM !

climber
Near Boston
Sep 12, 2012 - 05:31pm PT
You are describing the symptoms of a Vibrating eardrum. It is not tinnitus and some people cannot feel the vibration they just hear it as a low frequency hum. It is worth getting an ENT to check you out just to make sure.
I ,years ago, had one patient who actually could pick up radio in her fillings. It was not a station but interferance and humming. The oral surgeon she ended up seeing explained that a metallic filling, reacting with saliva, can act as a semiconductor to detect audio signals. Once he did some work she was fine.
aguacaliente

climber
Sep 13, 2012 - 05:01am PT
Once while hiking in the San Gabriels above Pasadena/Altadena, I was on a trail that moved through a draw/gully. In the vee of the gully, I could hear a definite low hum. It was not obvious on the section of trail that was entering or exiting the gully, only when I got toward the center. I am certain that it was simply the noise of the city being collected by the shape of the terrain, as if I was in the focus of a natural dish microphone. Probably mostly cars' engine and road noise, but could include the low hum of machinery, air conditioning, and so on.

That was a pretty obvious case since I was only perhaps 1000-2000 vertical feet above the end of the pavement and houses, but in general I have been impressed by how far a low hum, car noises, or even voices can travel upward and still be audible in still air.
Messages 21 - 40 of total 214 in this topic << First  |  < Previous  |  Show All  |  Next >  |  Last >>
Return to Forum List
 
Our Guidebooks
spacerCheck 'em out!
SuperTopo Guidebooks

guidebook icon
Try a free sample topo!

 
SuperTopo on the Web

Recent Route Beta