19 ms·

There's a Persistent Hum in Windsor, Ontario, and No One Knows Why

• vonzep 9y ago
  And trust me it's damn annoying, it's nothing ear plugs can't take care of but damn if it isn't enough to slowly drive you insane
  • rubicon33 9y ago
    You live there? What are the leading theories of what it could be? The article didn't seem to lock in on anything.
    • vonzep 9y ago
      I live there ... I was away for many years and saw a few stories in the news and kinda laughed it off ... now not laughing so much The leading theories are it has something to do with this mordor like place https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zug_Island https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zug_Island
      • pwagland 9y ago
        According to Wikipedia, that is definitely the source of the him: Noise and vibration[edit] In 2011, the Zug Island area was identified by Canadian scientists and Ontario's Ministry of Natural Resources as the source of mysterious rumblings and vibrations that have plagued hundreds of area residents with cyclical vibrations reportedly being felt in the ground up to fifty miles (eighty kilometres) away.[3][4][5] The city of River Rouge reported in the Star that it cannot afford to spend any more money on investigating the hum. They claim the City Council had already spent over $1 million to help Windsor and Ontario find the source of the noise. However, they say it likely comes from the steel mill facilities on the island.[6] As of April 2013, a Canadian scientist is using sound-level meters and a portable "pentangular array" of cameras and microphones to try to precisely identify the source of the sound, in order to know whom exactly to ask to fix it.[7] Another report released on May 23, 2014, confirmed that Zug Island was the source of the hum.[8][9] [3] Schmidt, Doug (September 21, 2011). "Zug Island likely culprit of Windsor hum". The Windsor Star. Postmedia Network Inc. [4] "Mysterious noise escalates in Windsor, Ontario". CBC News. January 30, 2012 [5] Ashifa Kassam (June 7, 2016). "The 'Windsor Hum': where is the noise plaguing a city of 210,000 coming from? | World news | The Guardian" [6] "River Rouge calls off search for Windsor Hum". CBC News. November 7, 2011 [7] Tingley, Kim (June 24, 2013). "The Sound and the Fury". OnEarth.org. NRDC [8] "Mysterious Windsor Hum traced to Zug Island, Mich". CBC News. May 23, 2014 [9] Colin Novak (May 23, 2014). "Summary of the ‘Windsor Hum Study’ Results"
      • ameister14 9y ago
        uuhhh..."Originally a marsh-filled peninsula at the mouth of the River Rouge, it served as an uninhabited Native American burial ground for thousands of years."
        • ateesdalejr 9y ago
          heh... "proof" that ghosts are real.
      • mirimir 9y ago
        In a place like that, there would likely be multiple sources. Such as the three blast furnaces there. Which are among the largest in the world. They blow lots of hot air through lots of extremely hot iron ore, coke and limestone. Also, does the hum change pitch a lot? With multiple sources at different frequencies, there would likely be beat frequencies. Which could be in constant flux.
  • hellbanner 9y ago
    Can you located it -- it's coming from the ground? air? direction?
    • vonzep 9y ago
      Too low frequency to localise ... think heavy bass
      • yathern 9y ago
        Has there been an attempt to trilaterate/triangulate the sound? Should be fairly simple to rig up several recording devices in sync around, and use timing/loudness to get an idea of origin, despite the large wavelength.
        • vonzep 9y ago
          Yes http://www.international.gc.ca/department-ministere/windsor_hum_results-bourdonnement_windsor_resultats.aspx?lang=eng http://www.international.gc.ca/department-ministere/windsor_...
          • platz 9y ago
            > We note that the bearing from Array 1 to the most probable source of the Hum points well to the South of Zug Island. > The bulk of our observations from both stations do not support the hypothesis that the source of the Hum emanates from Zug Island
    • sbarre 9y ago
      Wikipedia says that it is in fact Zug Island: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zug_Island#Noise_and_vibration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zug_Island#Noise_and_vibration
      • fenwick67 9y ago
        The Wikipedia page mentions this but doesn't make the obvious connection to the cause of the vibrations... > it served as an uninhabited Native American burial ground for thousands of years
  • racl101 9y ago
    Wonder if you can train yourself to ignore it. The same way some fucked up people train themselves to ignore smoke detector chirps. I've known a couple of these people in my life. They managed to live with a chirping detector for weeks on end and when you bring it up they think you're making mountains out of molehills.
    • schwap 9y ago
      ... fascinating. There's no way that's easier than replacing the battery or even the detector itself. Why suffer through something so trivially fixable?
      • taneq 9y ago
        Exponential discounting. Immediately after a beep, it's several seconds until the next beep, making it far less important to fix.
      • manigandham 9y ago
        It's only suffering if you're aware of it. We've gone months with several chirping at the same time (due to a different wiring issue) and they are incredibly easy to forget about. We'd only remember when talking on the phone and the other person would ask about the noises.
      • KMag 9y ago
        > Why suffer through something so trivially fixable? Because, in all likelyhood, they're not suffering at all. People vary greatly in what causes them discomfort. I imagine the population that doesn't attend to chirping smoke detectors has a strong selection bias for not suffering due to it. I don't mind carrying reasonably heavy things for miles on foot. I remember one weekend where I had some time to spare and needed to buy a chair, so I jogged about 3 miles to a strip mall, and carried the (boxed) chair back home. Enough people negatively comment about the weight of laptops that I believe that it matters to some people, but I honestly won't care if my mbp weighed 2 or 3 times as much as it does. I can't understand how laptop weight bothers people without some medical condition, but I also believe them when they say that heavy laptops cause them discomfort. In retrospect, growing up canoeing for a week every Summer on the Canadian border probably has something to do with it. By the time I was 16, for the longer portages, I'd be the one to take a lighter pack on my back and throw the canoe up on my shoulders. My dad and my brother would carry the heavier packs. Learning to tune out the discomfort of walking up to a bit over a mile over uneven ground through mosquito-infested woods with a 90 lb aluminum 3-man canoe on your shoulders plus a 20 to 30 lb pack probably causes both mental and physical changes that reduce your perception of discomfort from carrying things. There's also survivorship bias, where people inclined to feel discomfort carrying heaving things for distances are likely to not return year after year to canoe areas that require portaging. Just because you're suffering doesn't mean all people in the same situation feel any discomfort.
  • blunte 9y ago
    In real VLF cases, earplugs make it worse because they block out all the other ambient noise, causing the hum to sound relatively louder.
• jdmichal 9y ago
  Shouldn't this be "relatively easy" to track down? Just place a few microphones and triangulate? EDIT: Thanks to ocdtrekkie for digging in further on this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16424617 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16424617
  • GirlsCanCode 9y ago
    Yes -- if it's real.
• zodPod 9y ago
  Sorry for this I am not experiencing it so maybe I'm completely wrong but these people seem to be overblowing this a lot. Health effects? I mean, it's a hum. Sure you can't find the source but heaters hum, ACs hum, cars going past hum, bass hums. Like how is it possible that it's this huge of a problem? When a humming stops I tend to actually miss it because it becomes too quiet. I tend to hear the air conditioners or heaters at work all day every day for at least 8 hours. Is this hum much much louder than that or what?
  • joncp 9y ago
    The article addressed that. Infrasound can affect quality of life and different people respond to it differently.
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  • blunte 9y ago
    Good for you, but for some of us it will drive you nuts. The quieter it gets as you try to sleep, the louder the hum seems to get. And if you hear it more in one ear than the other, it feels like your head is warping from more pressure on one side than the other. Sure it's "all in your head", and just like with being a little too cold you could theoretically train yourself to ignore it. But that's easier said than done.
  • stordoff 9y ago
    Speaking personally, noises that I can locate the source/direction of are easily ignored. Noises that sound the same in multiple locations/appear to be coming from everywhere are _much_ more annoying (I once had a fridge that produced a whine that was right of the cusp of my hearing -- both in volume and frequency -- and I must have spent a good 20 minutes tracking it down because it was impossible to ignore - it sounded the same from anywhere in the room until I got within a few inches of the source). If it's a noise similar to that, I can see it potentially effecting people's sleep and having knock-on health effect. If it was louder, some may actually find it easier to ignore. I can sleep easily with either a quiet room or with a loud room fan on, but if there's just the fan noise from my NAS I find it much more difficult.
• Waterluvian 9y ago
  Sigh. I've coded too much this week. My brain just immediately went to: comment out half the city at a time and binary search the source. Guess you can't really do that. I wonder if the hum persists during a power outage.
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  • thinkingemote 9y ago
    I've heard the hum in a city in the UK quite frequently. I hear it more on monday bank holiday mornings, oddly. So a weekday but less people at work. I actually think it's the sound of traffic.
  • vlasev 9y ago
    Replace "comment out" by "turn off the electricity for" and maybe we can binary search it.
    • deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    • asaph 9y ago
      Your implicit assumption is that the hum is caused by something electrical; i.e. not a diesel engine or some natural cause.
      • Untit1ed 9y ago
        Then we can turn off the electricity for the whole town and see if it stops! :D
        • incompatible 9y ago
          "The University of Windsor report said the hum’s likely source was blast furnace operations on Zug Island" ... which is over the border in the United States. Cutting off the power to that island would be a good thing to try, but apparently the US is uncooperative.
• jedberg 9y ago
  It seems like a sensor array across the city of just a few sensors could help detect the source. Using microsecond differences in the arrival of the sound, you could at least tell what direction it is coming from.
  • lokopodium 9y ago
    Sometimes it's not that easy. Imagine a swimming pool right after a lot of people got out. Where are the waves coming from?
    • SketchySeaBeast 9y ago
      The pool. And yeah, we're vastly over simplifying. Imagine all the reflections and refractions that an urban center would introduce.
  • jcims 9y ago
    You'd have to be able to synchronize the phase of your sensors. If it's a low 30hz hum with very little differentiation between individual cycles you might not have an easy way to do that. You could possibly build a big array with microphones at < 1 wavelength apart so you can observe the waves passing through, dunno. Also the sound could be reflecting downward from cloud/temp layers, greatly complicating it. Not to say it's not possible, just super tricky.
• ocdtrekkie 9y ago
  Three people so far have suggested in the comments here it should be "easy" to triangulate it. Note that according to Zug Island's Wikipedia page, "As of April 2013, a Canadian scientist is using sound-level meters and a portable "pentangular array" of cameras and microphones to try to precisely identify the source of the sound, in order to know whom exactly to ask to fix it" and that "the City Council had already spent over $1 million to help Windsor and Ontario find the source of the noise". I think there's a bit of armchairing going on here, in that people are definitely trying the obvious already.
  • narrator 9y ago
    They can triangulate it unless... (puts on tinfoil hat) ... the hum is coming from under the city.
    • fenwick67 9y ago
      It's probably something planted by the Wayne County government to try and get people to move to the US side.
    • deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    • pixl97 9y ago
      No tinfoil hat needed. It is very possible for some machine at the steel factory to have foundations in a slab of deeper bedrock that becomes more shallow where the noise is more prevalent. The noise would just come from 'everywhere'
  • yathern 9y ago
    > I think there's a bit of armchairing going on here, in that people are definitely trying the obvious already. As one of these suggesters - I think it's the problem lies in that the article doesn't mention this obvious first step in determining the source.
    • ocdtrekkie 9y ago
• gesman 9y ago
  Install time-synchronized sound detectors/recorders in decent distance from each other and measure intensity and propagation of sound spike across time. Correlate data. This should provide information about the direction of source. Further tests in the direction of source would eventually solve the mistery. Of course "secretive" industrial facilities would likely be the culprit.
• trophycase 9y ago
  Related? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hum https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hum
  • jwilk 9y ago
    Non-mobile link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hum
• dmckeon 9y ago
  “It’s as if you had a fire hose moving back and forth and the people who have the water falling on them hear the noise, and if you’re outside that stream, you don’t hear the noise,” This suggests overlapping interference patterns from multiple sources or multiple sound pathways. Is that a reasonable idea for infra-sound?
• mlvljr 9y ago
  The Cuban sound beam got reflected from the clouds, easy!
• acomjean 9y ago
  We had a "hum" sound in cambridge MA. Its one of those sounds when you walk through you don't think anything of it, but if you live near it.... (I was one of the lucky as I couldn't hear it from my bedroom). Incredibly hard to track down, it was determined to be Fans on top of a building. And it was fixed. The sound bounces around so much, just walking around I couldn't pinpoint it on a couple nights of trying. Its wierd to hear it, but not be able to determine direction. The city figured it out.
  • cshenton 9y ago
    We had a similar issue at an apartment block in Australia. The most amusing sight was a bunch of residents, all wandering the corridors trying to find which room was the source, but as in your case it was fans on the roof.
  • throwaway613834 9y ago
    How did they figure it out?
    • acomjean 9y ago
      I think the city inspector had a sound meter and an idea of what changed..
  • madez 9y ago
    To avoid the difficulties with reflections, maybe triangulation with drones up in the air could give at least an area where the sound originates from.
  • joejev 9y ago
    I'm also in Cambridge, for a long time they were replacing some pipes under my street. This would cause weird, seemingly ambient sounds.
• blattimwind 9y ago
  A few years ago they drilled for gas a few kilometers outside the city (about 3 km from my house) — this caused a faint humming noise that seemed to come from everywhere but nowhere in particular. Stand still in a room, hear the noise. Lie down, cover your ears, hear the noise. Put earplugs in, hear the noise. Hugely annoying if you're the kind of person that doesn't sleep well with such nuisances. Boy was I happy when they were done drilling. Most interestingly, just a month ago they finished drilling for gas much more closely, right at the edge of the city, not even a kilometer from my house. I didn't hear anything. My working theory here is that in the former case it was a drilling at a new location, so they must have induced vibrations into the bedrock layers that all the houses here are built on. While in the latter case there was an abandoned operation at the same spot - perhaps they re-used the hole and just drilled it deeper.
  • m3kw9 9y ago
    I double this idea
  • throwaway613834 9y ago
    On the YouTube video it definitely does sound like something strong going on underground... but that's probably a very poor method of assessment.
    • bowmessage 9y ago
      The audio on the video was probably added in post...
      • throwaway613834 9y ago
        Could you elaborate on why that is necessarily a problem? Couldn't they have done it losslessly?
        • tempestn 9y ago
          Meaning it's just a rendition of a hum, not an actual recording of "the hum".
• z303 9y ago
  Bristol also has this http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35344544 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35344544
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• unclewaltr 9y ago
  singing? https://youtu.be/5WkLoOvm2Yo?t=316 https://youtu.be/5WkLoOvm2Yo?t=316
• baxtr 9y ago
  I’m sure a combination of advanced AI and Blockchain technology with a voice interface will solve this puzzle
• vortico 9y ago
  Garbage, sensationalist title with mentions of "unknown origin". Even the article says the likely source is Zug island, but of course this wouldn't get as many clicks. According to the mentioned University of Windsor report (http://www.international.gc.ca/department-ministere/windsor_hum_results-bourdonnement_windsor_resultats.aspx?lang=eng http://www.international.gc.ca/department-ministere/windsor_...) "A previous study confirmed the existence of the low frequency excitation and estimated the source to be in the vicinity of Zug Island". If this article was written with the assumption that the source is likely known, it would have been a reasonable read. Instead, it should have focused on getting the city to do something about it, by approaching the property with a noise complaint warrant, discovering the source, fining those responsible, and changing policy if needed to solve it. If all of the above is impossible for whatever reason, why doesn't the article mention the reasons instead of making it the issue seem like sensasionalist "mystery" news.
  • joenathanone 9y ago
    Findings from your link, seems you didn't read it. Number 1 "We do not find common signals at both arrays which could plausibly be associated with the Hum. We are unable to geolocate a definite source for the Hum using common cross-bearings." Number 5 "The bulk of our observations from both stations do not support the hypothesis that the source of the Hum emanates from Zug Island"
  • tzs 9y ago
    From the bottom of the document that you cite: > We note that the bearing from Array 1 to the most probable source of the Hum points well to the South of Zug Island. The bulk of our observations from both stations do not support the hypothesis that the source of the Hum emanates from Zug Island. Even if it is from Zug Island, "unknown origin" is still appropriate until they know WHAT is causing it.
    • vortico 9y ago
      They have it narrowed down to a few thousand feet. To call it "unknown" is just unfair. They might not know which steel plant is producing it, but they can narrow it down to a small handful, far from "unknown". They have enough evidence of which company is producing the sound (United States Steel), so the only thing stopping them from getting police or lawmakers involved is the fact that no one on the US side cares enough. The article could have mentioned this caveat, but after the couple sentences about the likely cause, it's followed by more "It’s like chasing a ghost" rhetoric.
• hammock 9y ago
  @dang why did you delete the "And no one knows why" from the title? Did it sound clickbaity to you? Seems pretty critical to the article to me. The whole thing is about the search for what the hum is, not what the hum is.
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  • ateesdalejr 9y ago
    That sounds clickbaity to me too. If it sounds even clickbaity in the slightest I'm sure they'd remove it.
    • stordoff 9y ago
      It's a debatable one in this case IMO. "There's a Persistent Hum in Windsor, Ontario, and No One Knows Why" tells me what I need to know -- it's a mysterious hum akin to what I've read about many times, so there's little need to click. "There's a Persistent Hum in Windsor, Ontario" suggests it may be an article about a known cause/why there is a persistent hum, inducing me to click to find out the reason. A better solution might be to rephrase (e.g. "There's a Persistent Hum of Undetermined Origin in Windsor, Ontario") to avoid the clickbaity style phrasing, rather than just deleting the clause outright, but then you start editorialising which brings its own set of problems.
  • dang 9y ago
    Yes, but it's a borderline call, so we'll put it back. (It's better to send questions like this to hn@ycombinator.com, as the site guidelines ask. When you post in the thread, we only see it by chance.)
• Digit-Al 9y ago
  Cthulu is slowly emerging. The hum is only the first step on the road to madness!
  • ateesdalejr 9y ago
    Sad to see this has been down-voted. Why do all these not understand the way to madness first starts with a hum?
• platz 9y ago
  How does one in fact triangulate a constant sound source?
• throwaway613834 9y ago
  I'm listening to this right now [1] and (for those of you who don't have a chance to hear it right now) it definitely isn't what I would call a "hum"... that's way too gentle and not bass enough to describe this sound. I'd call it more like low-frequency rumbling (though that's probably not a perfect word for it either). [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPDILKQjJW8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPDILKQjJW8
  • blfr 9y ago
    It's actually a not unpleasant brown noise-like sound. At least that's how it comes out of my hifi. Over bluetooth and after YouTube compression so perhaps high fidelity isn't the right term.
    • throwaway613834 9y ago
      I'm not sure... for me the unfiltered version was annoying but bearable for a bit... but I could see getting driven mad by it after a while. The filtered version was so bad that it almost made me wonder if I'm going to damage my ears, so I stopped listening to it halfway. I was using decent BT headphones so I'm not sure if that makes any difference... it may depend on how decent your speakers are at playing 30-40 Hz. (Side note: Does BT audio do some kind of lossy compression? Why is it relevant that you mentioned it here?)
      • blfr 9y ago
        Exactly, BT audio uses lossy compression. There are several codecs available but I'm on Linux and the receiver is pretty old so it's probably the weakest of them: SBC. The filtered sound is pretty bad, yes, dread inducing.
        • throwaway613834 9y ago
          Thanks! I had no idea.
          • 9y ago
• hawktheslayer 9y ago
  One of my favorite podcasts, Twenty Thousand Hertz, did a whole episode on this: https://www.20k.org/episodes/mystery https://www.20k.org/episodes/mystery
  • Odenwaelder 9y ago
    I just listened to the podcast, really great, thanks for the recommendation!
• loorinm 9y ago
  I don't buy it at all. The article takes a very strangely sympathetic tone toward the whole situation. The noise has been narrowed down to one island that has "a few blasting operations". So stop the operations and see if the hum goes away. Then have each one restart one at a time. Or bo binary search, whatever. It doesn't matter. The obvious takeaway here is that the city/state/province does not care. They are too deep in the pockets of those industries to make any waves at all. Government has so little power to do anything. They are just the paid legitimizers of the corporations.
  • kazinator 9y ago
    > The obvious takeaway here is that the city/state/province does not care. Another problem: Zug Island is in Michigan (US). Windsor is in Ontario (Canada).
  • mcbutterbunz 9y ago
    It's complicated by the fact that United States Steel is in the US, whereas Windsor is in Canada. It's not just a local government issue, it's an international issue.
    • loorinm 9y ago
      I am sure there are tons of examples of cross-border nuisances. Probably since the beginning of borders. This is not a new issue.
• peter303 9y ago
  Seismologists now have some tricks for locating hum sources. Standard earthquakes have an impulsive start. So with four or more seismograms you can triangulate for the unknowns x, y, z and t0. Hum noises dont have an definitive starting time. But a version of seismology called inferometry can find the origin. You basically cross correlate all pairs of seismograms with signals. The peak lags define a hyperbolic wavefront you can invert for the origin. This method has been used to find submarines. To look volcanic tremors which have now clear start. And Earth hum which often seems associated with large oceanic storms. A seismologist would probably deploy seismomters in a wide distribution near the hum area. Then record continuously for about a week. And finally use inferometry to locate the source(s).
  • Johnythree 9y ago
    Interferometry can't handle reflected sounds from more than a wavelength away.
• m3kw9 9y ago
  Wild guess:Maybe a constant seismic vibration that is coming from deep under that is of a certain frequency
  • blunte 9y ago
    If that were the case, you would think that seismologists would already have answered this.
• thomasdd 9y ago
  Fish? Could be this real? The Hum sounds-exactly like couple of diesel trucks. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/07/seattle-hum-fish-midshipman_n_1865742.html https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/07/seattle-hum-fish-m...
• jacquesm 9y ago
  Common causes of such hums: sewage pumps, large transformer stations, roof mounted AC heat rejectors, hydropower plants, refrigeration installations. It's surprising how far contact sound will carry.
  • ateesdalejr 9y ago
    As well as very large lasers. Maybe those of the xkcd-what-if size.
    • jacquesm 9y ago
      Are those common?
      • ateesdalejr 9y ago
        I don't have very accurate data on how many xkcd fans in Canada are trying to recreate what-if articles.
        • jacquesm 9y ago
          I built a laser once. Based on the crappy efficiency my conclusion would be that the chances of this happening are very low, especially in quantity, even without accurate data.
• blunte 9y ago
  As one who can hear these sounds, I can attest to how maddening it is. It's even worse when (most of) the people around you can't hear it, and they don't believe you. Earplugs only make it worse, because they filter out ambient noise that otherwise helps distract you from the incessant hum. Daytime is not as bad as night because of the natural activity sounds of a city. I have read that waves and underwater currents hitting the shore (or below the shore) can cause vibrations that will translate through the earth. That could be a cause of such sounds in some parts of the world. When I lived in the mountains of Colorado, with few people around and no industrial equipment anywhere, this hum would come and go and drive me nuts at night. I finally came to the theory that it was certain wind conditions going over the mountain ridge (across the valley), creating a pressure differential on the other side of the ridge. After the differential would reach a certain threshold, the air pattern would break up and create a pooof. This is sort of like if you are sitting in front of a campfire and the flame is going mostly on just one side of a log, but every second or so it breaks around both sides. The sound is identical, but singular. Although if it happens at a fast enough rhythm, it becomes a frequency that sounds very similar to a "hum". Of course the fire burns the wood and the conditions that make that happen change soon. I have wondered what kind of measurement equipment it would take to try to identify the source... triangulate it somehow. I really wish I knew the definitive answers to some of these hums.
  • phkahler 9y ago
    For low frequency stuff, I would suggest using an accelerometer instead of conventional audio equipment. A small one could also be placed on a large diaphragm to allow more movement at really low frequencies. I like the physiological suggestions in the replies, but I don't see how an entire community could suffer from the same thing without a common cause.
    • SlowBro 9y ago
      Maybe some environmental chemical inducing tinnitus?
  • rocqua 9y ago
    Some googling yields this: http://earthworksaudio.com/microphones/m-series/m50/ http://earthworksaudio.com/microphones/m-series/m50/ which should be sensitive enough to pick it up. Next step would probably to get a few of these, see if you can record the hum on a few of them, and then start experimenting. The theory behind triangulation is simple. But in practice, it's probably really hard to make sure all microphones have the same sensitivity. The standard approach depends on sounds being quieter when they are far away, but if one mic is naturally quieter (deeper inside the house, or more absorbant material, or just more obstacles in the way) that no longer works. The best approach would be using a phase difference to measure. Exploiting the delay due to the speed of sound. That means you need some way to synchronize the recordings. Presuming a 20hz signal, you'd need your synchronization to be better than 0.05 seconds. This also requires the hum waveform to be easy to match. That is, you'd need to be able to tell the phase offset by matching parts of the sound. You could also try a 'big data' approach, just cataloging all reported cases and looking for patterns. That requires dealing with very noisy data though, as reported cases will be inconsistent. This is due to people not always being home, not everyone hearing it, and no verification of reports. edit: Interesing idea: use the 'bit data' approach together with wind speed and direction. The sound should be easier to hear when the wind blows it towards you. With enough data and corresponding wind data, you might have something. Does require compensating for correlation between time of day and the wind. If wind is west in the night, and less people hear things when the wind is west, that might just be because they are sleeping.
• stealthefocus 9y ago
  I lived through this when i went to the University of Windsor, it's hard to describe to people it doesn't bother. The hum would keep me up and my girlfriend at the time almost never noticed. It was like being at a loud concert where you can feel the vibrations in your chest.
• viraptor 9y ago
  Another known case of this is the Bristol Hum: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35344544 http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35344544
• ficklepickle 9y ago
  Is it possible that what people are hearing is a resonant frequency from the low-frequency vibrations? It could even be causing the bones in their heads to resonate, like how those kids toothbrushes that make you hear music[1] work. That would explain the difficulty in locating the source. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tooth_Tunes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tooth_Tunes
• hamitron 9y ago
  Could it be an aeolian sound? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolian_sound https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolian_sound Essential a giant flute played by the wind. I'm looking to make one of these out of bamboo.
• tachyoff 9y ago
  Now I am deeply curious! I’m a Detroiter and Zug Island is a quick drive south. Is it audible from the US side? I have a passport, but “I want to hear the Windsor hum” might not, unfortunately, fly at the border anymore.
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  • perlgeek 9y ago
    Now I am curious: do you really need to state a reason to pass a border? In Europe, when you don't need a visa, you simply cross the border, no questions asked. And if somebody asked me anyway, I'd just say "I want to visit the town. I'm curious."
    • tachyoff 9y ago
      Welcome to the lovely United States. ;) Since 9-11, border security, especially returning to the US, has gotten extremely paranoid. At all three spots between Michigan and Canada (the Ambassador Bridge, the tunnel, and the crossing in Sarnia), everyone is stopped and questioned by border agents if they don’t have some kind of automatic pass that requires clearance ahead of time. You’re asked a lot of questions, like where you’re going, whom you expect to see, how much money you have, how long you expect to be there (in Canada; probably similar for visiting the US), etc. Going into Canada seems to be easier, although it really depends on how that border agent is feeling that day. All of my times so far have been relatively painless: “Why are you visiting?” <I state reason> “Oh, okay. Enjoy Canada!” It’s a crapshoot. Sometimes they search your car. I have to say, I do miss the Schengen area. Going from the Netherlands to Germany was a breeze.
      • KSS42 9y ago
        Time to get a Nexus pass. It really is worth it.
• hyperpallium 9y ago
  > The Hum is a phenomenon, or collection of phenomena, involving widespread reports of a persistent and invasive low-frequency humming, rumbling, or droning noise not audible to all people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hum
• sideshowb 9y ago
  Out of interest, how do we know it's not a common but undocumented form of tinnitus? Perhaps one that is more likely to present in certain weather conditions, so people's complaints will correlate? I live near Bristol, which also has a hum, and I may have heard it but my own presumption would be hearing damage, as I don't think I've looked after my ears as well as I should have. And that would go for a lot of Bristol residents too... good music scene there!
  • perlgeek 9y ago
    > Out of interest, how do we know it's not a common but undocumented form of tinnitus? I get the impression you can measure the sounds waves just fine, the folks investigating it just have a problem locating it. Which can happen if the noise doesn't come from a point source, and/or its wave form features aren't well suitable for tracking.
• gooseus 9y ago
  Is it wrong to suggest this as an opportunity for a business? Some acoustic expert and hospitality expert should team up to create a hotel and/or spa that can dampen or eliminate the hum in some significant way in order to provide an oasis of relief for those severely affected... either through inverse cancellation waves (as suggested in a comment) or by air/water buffers around the property.
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• wizardforhire 9y ago
  Here's another Hum http://m.newsok.com/article/2875333 http://m.newsok.com/article/2875333
• schlowmo 9y ago
  We can put Hamburg (Germany) on the list of "humming cities" too. When I moved close to the harbour I started hearing a humming sound, espececially at night, almost exclusively indoors. None of my flatmates heard that sound, so I started questioning my perception until I found another person living in the same building hearing that sound. Our bedrooms are located one below the other and the sound is most perceivable in that rooms, but we can hear that sound at other places inside the building too while others can not. Some time later, articles in various local newspapers about that hum appeared (search for "Brummen Hamburg" if you're interested, unfortunately only articles in german), telling stories about various people along the river "Elbe" hearing that hum. I started reading about the Windsor and Bristol hum that time too. A local politician started investigating that issue together with scientist from a technical university but - besides some theories (e.g. a big power plant) which couldn't be proven - with no success. The acousticians where cited that some of them could hear the hum at various places too, but in terms of sound level they couldn't measure it distincly from the "general" background noises of the city (with harbour, industry and much highway traffic). In the last few years there wasn't much news about it but the hum is still there in varying intensity and duration.
  • neuronic 9y ago
    If we are in Germany, let's also add Steinhöring near Munich to the list. Countless articles in the last decade. Example: http://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/ebersberg/steinhoering-landratsamt-kassiert-brummton-beschwerde-1.3731717 http://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/ebersberg/steinhoering-l...
  • asclepi 9y ago
    Is a hum not more or less expected in the vicinity of busy harbors, even more so than in general industrial areas? Harbors attract a lot of possible sources that could cause a hum: maritime equipment, ship engines, generators, industrial equipment, large refrigerators (in containers or in warehouses), ... You may want to read about the Kokomo, IN "hum" investigation which was traced back to an industrial source [1]. [1] http://www.le-bruit.com/easy-media/kokomo_hum_report.pdf http://www.le-bruit.com/easy-media/kokomo_hum_report.pdf
• davesque 9y ago
  Sometimes I've wondered if this couldn't be caused by turbulence in magma or some other fluid under the Earth's surface.
• gravypod 9y ago
  Could an algorithm, like the one used in shazam, be fed a sample set of noises from many different machines/industrial equipment so that we could hopefully be able to take the noises/sound profiles of the things being posted in the comments here and check to see what the most likely source is.
• limaoscarjuliet 9y ago
  These persistent sounds may make you go crazy for sure. For a a few weeks a few years back I could hear sound of my blood flowing through my head. That was not funny to say the least. Fortunately, it went away by itself.
• subroutine 9y ago
  The World Hum Map and Database Project http://www.thehum.info http://www.thehum.info
• a2tech 9y ago
  And Detroit! Supposedly the sound originates on the Detroit side
  • myself248 9y ago
    They've been talking about it since 2011: https://www.detroityes.com/mb/showthread.php?10923-Low-level-HUM-Bothering-Anyone-Else-The-Windsor-Hum/page10 https://www.detroityes.com/mb/showthread.php?10923-Low-level... http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/mysterious-windsor-hum-traced-to-zug-island-mich-1.2651783 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/mysterious-windsor-hum...
• ggm 9y ago
  I used to live close to a factory district here in Brisbane which had a persisting hum. One night, I apparently half woke up, swore, put on underpants and rode out on my bike to find it. I remember coming back to bed, I don't remember what drove me to try and track this stuff down. I kind of wish I had found it because having a guy in his jocks knock on the factory door at 3am shouting about the noise would have been good free entertainment. I now live in an Apt complex built over where I was riding. The hum has gone. Its been replaced by another one, but I know what it is: the freezer truck supplying the 7-11 downstairs has a noisy motor and they keep it running doing the milk delivery. No underpants rides at night for me.
• danans 9y ago
  As a kid I remember going past the area around Zug Island on a boat. I have a distinct memory of the huge stacks billowing yellow smoke, and the twists of ductwork forming structures that look like hellish versions of the buildings from a Dr Seuss story [1][2]. It was simultaneously amazing and terrifying, and I couldn't take my eyes off it until it passed out of view. Years later I'd learn about how poorer neighborhoods were in the shadows of and downwind of such places. I don't know if this place is uniquely terrible or this is the invariable cost of steel production. But I imagine this sort of thing is common in the industrializing world today, where a lot of steel is produced. Is there an example of a "better" way to make steel? [1] https://www.flickr.com/photos/gsgeorge/3705474769 https://www.flickr.com/photos/gsgeorge/3705474769 [2] http://rebelmetropolis.org/a-hellscape-among-the-ruins-zug-island/ http://rebelmetropolis.org/a-hellscape-among-the-ruins-zug-i...
  • aeorgnoieang 9y ago
    A friend of mine showed me this book: - https://smile.amazon.com/Blast-Furnaces-Bernd-Becher/dp/0262023113/ref=smi_www_rco2_go_smi_g3499214182?_encoding=UTF8&%2AVersion%2A=1&%2Aentries%2A=0&ie=UTF8 https://smile.amazon.com/Blast-Furnaces-Bernd-Becher/dp/0262... The photos are 'impeccable' art, but the subjects are definitely 'awful'. Along with looking at a series of photos of mills, I gained a much better appreciation for the visceral disgust people have (historically) had about 'industry'. They truly look like outposts of Evil.
• vvdcect 9y ago
  Protomartyr wrote a song called Windsor Hum, it finally makes sense. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a74pRtvFKeU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a74pRtvFKeU
• manaskarekar 9y ago
  Stuff you should know covered this in one of their episodes: https://www.stuffyoushouldknow.com/podcasts/how-the-hum-works.htm https://www.stuffyoushouldknow.com/podcasts/how-the-hum-work... Transcript: https://www.stuffyoushouldknow.com/podcasts/how-the-hum-works-transcript.htm https://www.stuffyoushouldknow.com/podcasts/how-the-hum-work...
• newnewpdro 9y ago
  Vice covered this as well [1], with a youtube video also. [2] [1] https://news.vice.com/article/a-mysterious-hum-is-plaguing-windsor https://news.vice.com/article/a-mysterious-hum-is-plaguing-w... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhXaM_r80_c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhXaM_r80_c
• DoofusOfDeath 9y ago
  From my time working for the U.S. Navy, I find this very reminiscent of the problem of finding a submerged submarine at a distance, based on its low-frequency sound emissions. Their solution is to use a very long array (i.e., a towed array) of microphones (i.e., transducers), and perform algorithmic beam-forming to narrow down the possible points of origin for the sound. This seems like a pretty obvious approach, but I haven't noticed anyone proposing it.
  • tsomctl 9y ago
    The ocean has a lot fewer objects for sound to reflect off of than a town full of buildings.
    • DoofusOfDeath 9y ago
      I didn't mean to imply that it's a good technique for pinning down a particular building or even block of the city, but the technique would work (I imagine) for large-scale localization of the sound source.
    • acct1771 9y ago
      So put it on something above the buildings.
• ajwin 9y ago
  Has constructive interference of multiple low frequency sound sources been considered? It could be that they are all undetectable on their own but cause localized areas to have a much higher amplitude sound? I guess reflections of the sounds in the right areas could have a similar effect?
• fudged71 9y ago
  We had a hum in Calgary Alberta. It became the subject of an ongoing project in our embedded systems engineering course to identify and triangulate the sound.
• darrenf 9y ago
  A few years ago there was reportedly a persistent hum where I live in Surbiton, Surrey, UK. There was a thread on a residents message board[0] that escalated only as far as the local rag, and the council issuing noise diaries[1]. What disappointed me the most is that despite living in almost the epicentre of where the complaints were made, I never heard a damn thing. [0] https://surbiton.com/forum/surbiton-background-hummmmmmmm https://surbiton.com/forum/surbiton-background-hummmmmmmm [1] http://www.yourlocalguardian.co.uk/news/10999038.Mysterious_humming_sound_leaves_residents_baffled___council_issues_noise_diaries/ http://www.yourlocalguardian.co.uk/news/10999038.Mysterious_...
• onikolas 9y ago
  The source of the sound is at 47°9′S 126°43′W.
• ishankhare07 9y ago
  Well I found this video by vice https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhXaM_r80_c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhXaM_r80_c which claims that they found the source in zug island across the river, but were not allowed to investigate further due to cross-border politics.
• mar77i 9y ago
  Brainfart ahead: The way the united states are out of hand lately would kind of get me to no longer rule out the possibility that they might be drilling across the border for whatever they might find?
  • bstamour 9y ago
    This has been going on for a lot longer than the current US government. Chances are high it's just Zug Island, which contains blasting furnaces for steel and whatnot. The problem is that Zug Island is a part of Michigan, while Windsor is a Canadian city, so investigation is pretty difficult.
• Steve44 9y ago
  I'm not sure it's related to these humming reports but there is a lot more ambient noise than most people appreciate. I live about five miles from Heathrow airport. Occasionally I will have planes taking off over our house which is fairly loud and sometimes I can hear them powering up and taking off - that's quiet and distant and I can't always hear it. When the Icelandic volcano closed the airspace a few years ago I was stuck by how quiet it was outside. Not just the lack of identifiable take-off noises but I became aware there had been an imperceptible continuous rumble. This came back when the airspace opened. There are always aircraft in the skies, I presume this low level noise is the culmination of many distant jet engines.
  • asclepi 9y ago
    Would "the hum" not be noticed in a lot more areas if it were caused by jet engines? Note that there is some variance in the volume of air traffic: weekend nights tend to be a lot slower than weeknights. Same for Christmas Day (and the night before and after). If "the hum" was caused by jet engines, this variance should be noticed too. The risk of misattribution is considerable, however, as industrial and other activities also tend to wind down during weekends and holidays.
    • Steve44 9y ago
      > Would "the hum" not be noticed in a lot more areas if it were caused by jet engines? Yes, I agree hence the way I worded the starting of the comment. It was more an observation that there is a lot more noise going on than is immediately obvious and noticeable. Regarding these hums some people are reporting, given that they say ear plugs if anything increase the effect I think it is likely internally generated like the various causes of tinnitus. Possibly some infra-sound/vibration is directly detectable by some people in a similar way to magmatism is by some animals and supposedly some people. A second thought is it could be triggering / resonating something in the ear so you are physically hearing the sounds, like when you rub your eyes you see flashes. Thirdly perhaps it is purely psychological. I've not read much about the hum phenomena and not knowingly personally experienced it my thoughts are just that, thoughts.
• chicob 9y ago
  I witnessed something similar some years ago, in Lisbon. Our living room had a window facing the street, and sometimes one could hear a low pitch humming noise that made that window shake. The first time it happened I remember wondering who would leave a delivery truck in neutral for so long. It was really annoying, especially because when I opened the window, there wasn't a car parked outside - everything was silent. Until you listened carefully, only to confirm the hum was still there, seemingly at a distance. So the window was reverberating to the hum. But where did it come from? Across the street there is a military academy, so I guessed the obvious guess: military experiments, of course! The problem with that guess was that under closer inspection, the noise didn't really seem to come from that direction. Usually, one could only hear it in the afternoon, but the hum was present all week round - and around there only the military worked weekends. But it just looked it came from in between some trees far away. So I guessed differently: a big air conditioning system, some large boat, a generator in some construction yard, a concrete mixer... The hum's amplitude would slightly vary, and the window would just hum along or even rattle annoyingly sometimes. So I guessed that if wind was a factor in modulating the hum's intensity, it would be relatively far away. Either that or it was coming from a moving source. One day the hum simply stopped. I never found out was was behind it.
• trowway21 9y ago
  I take prescription stimulants for APD, audio processing disorder; whatever that actually is.. For me, I have difficulty hearing people talk and focusing when exposed to multiple or dynamic background noises.. Basically it's a failure of autonomous filtering or prioritizing of sounds. I was on Belle Isle last year, two times, which is a few hundred meters from Windsor, and the sound was extremely soothing for whatever reason.. I spent days on end thinking and reaearching. I finally attributed the sound to some sort of tunnel boring machinery. There are a handful of salt mines in windsor, which i discovered after seeing more than the two tunnels I was aware of, between Detroit and Windsor, in the river, on Google Earth. I am in the habit of identifying every sound that I am exposed to consistently, which I noticed when I bought a new house. After moving I diligently inspected my HVAC system, computer fans, appliances, which neighbors parked where, and how hard they slammed their doors, etc. Not only do I identify every sound, but I also actively recognize and consider every combination of sounds.(neighbor1.carDoorSlam sounds different when my furnace is on, or furnace+fridge compressor, for example.) Once I know for certain what a sound is, I can identify it immediately, and continue with my current activity knowing that it was just some irrelevant, petty routine happening. I can't imagine enduring a sound like that for long, while knowing I am unable to identify it; I was able to convince myself that it was due to tunnel boring; but I seldom am reminded of the sound and never disturbed by it, since I don't live in the area..
  • kbart 9y ago
    Were there any ships around? Last year I had vacation in Malta and I could barely sleep due to constant, low, barely noticeable noise. I have attributed it to the ship engines, as there were many of them around and couldn't find better explanation (tried to turn off every appliance and sleep in different room with no avail).
• chmike 9y ago
  I don't understand why such an article does not report any instrumental recording and analysis to determine its properties. Aren't there any ? Undrground activity would have very specific signatures.
• Uplink 9y ago
  Did everybody get a takeaway shop's fan duct stuck to their wall like at my last rented flat? It took me ages to understand why I was so stressed out until one evening I noticed things going peaceful all of a sudden. After that I became aware that the fan was running continuously from early morning to late evening, so I set to move out as soon as my term was over. Now I'm noticing that the building AC at the office is making the exact same low frequency, low amplitude hum when it's on and I get the exact same sensation of relief when it goes off. Now, when I look at property, I also look for fan ducts on the walls. I also just realised that I should be looking for fan ducts inside walls if there's AC too...
• hmd_imputer 9y ago
  To those who are affected by the incessant hum, have you ever tried to actually measure it by some technical equipment? I am pretty sure there are devices that can detect and register sounds of almost all frequency levels. What about the noise canceling headphones? Sony, Bose and Sennheiser have some top-notch headphones that cancel out static noise. Being very sensitive to noise, I use one of those and am totally satisfied.
• fab1an 9y ago
  Sound is such a context-dependent experience. I vividly remember taking a walk with my parents in the Alps through the most pristine landscape. It was beautiful, except for the annoying sounds of a nearby highway. A few minutes later, we expected to see that highway across one hill, but were astonished to find a glorious waterfall. The instant we saw the water, the experience of the sound was transformed to something entirely beautiful.
  • aeorgnoieang 9y ago
    The similar experience but with taste, or the tactile sensations of food, is even worse for me. I've never noticed this with sound that I can remember.
• HankB99 9y ago
  Brown note? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9mB0OGWkYE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9mB0OGWkYE)
• bitchassshit 9y ago
  jet cooling of upper atmosphere forcing chemtrailed metallic clouds, metallic train smoke, and metallic boat fog to the ground to mix in with power pole add-ons. wake up and smell the metal.