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Comment by tzs | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

It's constrained, but it's still unknown. It's not saying there is no clue about the origin, and narrowing it to a few thousand feet/a few possibilities still means the source is unknown.

The location of my son is unknown, since I don't know which side of the room he's on right now.

Different case IMO. There you know both the object and the location to some margin of error. If there was a strange noise in the room, you might know the location to the same degree of precision (i.e. it's somewhere in the room), but until you determine the object making it, the source of the noise is still unknown.

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