Haunted by the Taos Hum

The advent of electricity and all its wonders also came with a breeze of uncanniness

Although James Clerk Maxwell's laws explain electromagnetism quite straightforwardly, they are not for the laywoman and -man. So a little bit of mystery got carried along with all the contraptions it made possible. 

This time I would like to refer to the Taos Hum or "The Hum". Although this phenomenon has been reported in the UK in the 1950s already, in 1989 there was a massive "surge" in the city of Taos (US, New Mexico) of these kinds of reports. I think it is not for no reason, that the district is called "Tierra del Encanto" (Land of Enchantment). 

Anyways, let us come back to "The Hum" and quickly describe it:

In silence, especially in want of sleep, people hear a deep, humming noise that disturbs them, like an idling Diesel engine in front of a building or something like it. It is modulated and can become very intense. But this is not the only false explanation. Besides the car (there is none), many more explanations can be ruled out.

Tinnitus & Otoacoustic Emissions:

While our hearing apparatus is capable of emitting virtual (tinnitus) and real(otoacoustic emissions, which can be used to measure a newborn child's hearing ability) noises, it does not caper for the description of the phenomenon, at all

Locally improved Hearing along the Spectrum:

It is possible, that certain people possess extremely finely tuned access to named emissions, but alas, as well, the statistics do not match up. But static does not tell the real truth in single cases.

Electromagnetic Frequencies:

Electromagnetic frequencies can be ruled out totally because there is no way that deep frequencies could be coupled to air compression-based sound emissions

Construction Sites:

This seems a more plausible explanation since variable deep vibrations can be brought into the ground easily and span quite a distance in urban environments, where the ground is sealed by asphalt, but nothing of the like could be brought to any statistical convergence with the perceived noise emissions.

While there can be no plausible explanation, the Taos Hum, as well as the Auckland Hum and the Windsor Hum did happen to be experienced by people.

I, myself was a victim of this (believe me, not very pleasant) phenomenon. I read tons of stuff about it, talked to many people, and went out at night to find possible sources. I even went to the local transformation station to find if it could be found as a source, but to no effect. It has to be said, that I was in a stressful situation at work at that time. 

A while later, as the stress was ebbing off, the phenomenon got weaker and easier to deal with. So I started to forget about it. But when, after all, I took a vacation in a mountainside cabin, travel was a bit far and stressful, I took the same experience! No power grid in 50 Kilometers! And no construction sites, trees only.

So: it could only come from me!

This is the last explanation I could accept, that the sense of hearing of some people is extremely fine-tuned to hear inter-organ noises produced by the body itself.  In extreme silence, we can even train ourselves to listen to the sound of our nervous operating system, it is about 4KHz hiss.

No one else was there.

by nokturnal