List of Unexplained Sounds
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Hv--BR0ddE
also briefly addressed here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuRcaxpbYCw
edit: not on topic, should have refrained from posting as it's a VLF radio phenomenon and not a sound.
When I first saw it, my first thought was "what a strange technique to run a radar, I wonder what the benefit is."
In ELF, would it be possible to set up three omnidirectional antennas and triangulate the source to get an idea in what layer of the atmosphere it's generated? I'd also love to read peer-reviewed publications, please post some references if you can.
Something that we've just found in the past few months shows that the occurrence of events can be limited by the elevation of the sun - we've never seen events happen when the sun was below ten degrees elevation at the south pole, and never below thirty degrees in Taiwan. Additionally, events in Taiwan seem to cut out in the two hour period surrounding local noon, suggesting that these might be highly local. They're also somewhat infrequent - we might only find two hundred such events over an entire year. We could go weeks without seeing one, and then get five events within a few hours. This might also suggest that it has something to do with solar heating of the ionosphere, given the timing of events. Note that all of this stuff is new and isn't discussed in any published literature.
As far as what's been published goes, I think there have been maybe half a dozen papers written since this phenomenon was discovered in the seventies. Here are the ones I've been able to quickly grab:
Heacock 1974 - The first report of ELF whistler-like events http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/1974/GL001i002p00077.shtml
Sentman 1994 - The second study of ELF whistlers, and the only study of mid-latitude events http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/1994/93JA02103.shtml
Wang 2005 - First report of ELF whistlers in Taiwan http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2005/2005GL022412.shtml
Kim 2006 - First reports of the events at the south pole http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2006/2005GL023638.shtml
Wang 2011 - Reports on new events detected in Taiwan http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2011/2011JA016832.shtml
Wait... what?? If this has been enforced on Earth, then clearly other civilizations might make the same choice and not broadcast anything on that frequency.
Does anyone know if we are broadcasting anything into space on this frequency?
However, we don't broadcast anything. Any broadcasts from earth would hugely overshadow any small signal we're trying to read.
On more than one occasion standing outside the house on the mesa outside of town, the utter silence of the place got to me enough that I had to go back inside and talk to somebody. Perhaps my mind would have eventually filled the gap with a hum.
At age 13 I moved from San Diego CA to Brooklyn Park MN. Shortly after the move I spent a summer helping my stepfather's grandfather build an addition on his house. He lived in Park Rapids MN which in a very isolated, rural area 4 hours north of Minneapolis. After the first few weeks there I started to feel like I was going crazy. I had no history of mental illness but I was suddenly feeling increasingly anxious and agitated with each new day...then I put a hat on.
After I put on the hat, I felt normal again. I had always lived in cities and never had an unobstructed view for more than a mile or so. Out in the country I could see for many miles and it had an effect on me. The bill of the hat blocked my view.
Or it is there (and maybe everywhere) but we can't hear it
One thing that's noticeable when it's really quiet (and having lived in a place where it is silent at night) is that the threshold of hearing changes a lot. Something that's barely audible in normal conditions can "scream" at night
Example: the sound of soda fizzing in your mouth.
(give it some time...)
and http://www.lostcosmonauts.com/firstman.ra managed to scare the hell out of me...
shiver
I wonder how fear and sounds like these are wired in our brains...
It's certainly not hard to guess why unknown sounds would trigger fear in humans from an evolutionary standpoint. Biologically I wouldn't care to speculate.
But, anyway, this sounded to me as something we could find in a station from Lost.
Powered by volcanic emissions instead of wind. Depending on the shape of the orifice and the size/shape of the chamber, it could make any kind of sound.
I can't find much about it after ten seconds' worth of googling, but maybe that's when it was constructed?
"In May, 1996 the array was successfully deployed in the eastern equatorial Pacific to begin long-term monitoring of the East Pacific Rise between 20N and 20S."
If you had enough random sounds going off in the water, given enough time some would group up together I imagine to create freak sound waves.
My wife frequently tells me that I have sensitive ears. And I've had to leave rooms because of feedback in a sound system that no one seems to be able to hear.
Then I drove with an ATV to some lake in the middle of nowhere and heard it again. I asked the other person I was with and she just said "well, it's someone starting a diesel engine". And I thought again: Who does start a diesel engine in the middle of nowhere. I thought it might be an animal or so, but could never tell for sure.
Edit: The interesting aspect is that I heard the Hum probably 3-4 times. 2x I was alone and in both other occasions, two different people heard the same sound. So I guess it was not just in my ears.
I mean, generators, trucks, etc?
Now see, in distances, it appears that lower frequency sound waves travel better. For example, take someone that's hearing music far away from you, the higher frequencies sound distinctively dampened.
So I wouldn't be surprised if a diesel engine could be heard a very long distance away in a quiet region
Could it be a grouse?
Your descriptions of a 'diesel engine starting' are different than the description in the wiki article of a diesel engine running. A running diesel engine would make a droning hum, while a starting one would click or tick and thump faster and faster into a hum.
That start-up noise is very similar to the sound of a grouse, a common bird in rural areas. A friend and I were hiking for a few days a few years ago, and we felt completely isolated and hadn't heard human noise for days... except that someone kept starting an engine a few hundred yards away! We knew it must not be people, but were baffled.
When we finally got back we asked his family members if they knew the source of those noises, and they showed us a youtube clip about grouse. Surprisingly noisy little things. I would seek a video for you, but I am on a restrictive telephone.
(An excellent sleep soundtrack)
That being said NOAA fanboys are far more preferable to Apple fanboys. :)
What, is there an archive out there that has every recorded sound by every single human being and along with has complete information about the recording, and only these 7 clips are not understood?
1. X sound is found and nobody understands what causes it
2. X gets a wikipedia page
3. someone creates a list of various pages such as X
4. optional, some other people add more pages such as X having noticed the list
sorry folks, fun, creepy but in the end self selecting and probably in the strange things happen on the planet category.
I'm really hoping you are a troll, because otherwise you're in "youtube commenter" category of intelligence
"eventually one ofthem will sound like they are whistling a braoadway tune""
Yes, please explain how a school of fish can create a sound with that power and spectrum, because you obviously know so much about mathematical wave properties and the laws of conservation of energy.
"NOAA originated, which iirr is the American oceanographer group""
Yes, and NASA works with planes and stuff
Firstly, yes I am sure I should have phrased my position better. So lets try that
- If you listen to hundreds of hydrophones over hundreds of hours, and hear only a handful of unexplained sounds, and promote only half a dozen, it is unlikely what you promote is of scientific interest. It may be interesting but not of interest.
And thats it. NOAA has done no more then say some of its findings it cannot explain ... and then self-selected a few that sound a bit weird.
This does not make them important, relevant, repeatable, or admitting of no explanation whatsoever. Just not explained now. And later they could explain some (Upsweep being a volcano that was thought extinct)
And 'we' then anthropomorphize. Can we hear the word Julia? No we cannot. (go listen to the TED talk below - last 3 minutes)
I recognise there are many things in a deep ocean we have not seen or discovered (I liked Bill Brysons analogy that we had explored the Oceans depths as if we explored Central Park using 5 guys on tractors, at night with torches). But weird sounds that you have to squint at to find meaning in. Squarely in the Skeptical category of for me publication bias and anchoring.
I am unclear what is a mathematical wave property, but I am clear that it is reasonable to use fish singing broadway melodies as a stand-in for unusual events underneath the ocean waves. I was not suggesting that to be a literal explanation. (Even though it would be a good one to hear)
Oceanographer comment:
(NOAA- Yes, Oceanographers - measuring and mapping the ocean - with 3bn of their 5bn budget aimed at satellites, weather monitoring and plain old research, I am happy to categorise them as Oceanographers. Yes they do other important stuff too. But mostly they monitor the water/air co-systems on the planet.
links:
http://www.whaletrust.org/whales/whale_song.shtml http://www.noaa.gov/budget/ http://asia.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/06/13/bloop/index.html
RIght -waaaay too long on a rebuttal that frankly is not detailed enough and will get flamed if anyone bothers reading it. Work now.
The keyword here is "in tandem". Sure, in one hydrophone you'll hear a pebble dropping, in another, a fish drowning, but this is not it.
This is a loud sound, heard by an entire array of microphones simultaneously, pinpointed at 5000km away (or around 3100mi). (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloop )
"I am unclear what is a mathematical wave property, but I am clear that it is reasonable to use fish singing broadway melodies as a stand-in for unusual events underneath the ocean wave"
What I meant to say is that NOAA and others have looked at the sound spectrum (and power) and no good explanation has been found, but a "giant whale" (or a choir of fish) is as believable as "aliens".A crowd of people is loud, but an uncoordinated event only goes so far. Other known geological phenomena like ice falling apart have been ruled out more or less.
It's not promoted because "it's funny", it's promoted because there are not a good explanation for such events, and it's something scientifically significant (something that can be heard from 3000mi away is really loud)
"NOAA- Yes, Oceanographer" sure they are, but the comment doesn't do them justice. They are Oceanographers yes, but it's a little bit condescending given the work they do. Like saying the DOE makes your toaster work.
"Bloop"
Wow. Maybe it was the loch ness monster on vacation. Or maybe...a bubble. I mean, come on.
It's a rule of thumb stating that you should pick the simplest of two equivalent explanations. In this case there aren't even any proposed explanations, so it does not even apply.