Low-level HUM Bothering Anyone Else? The Windsor Hum

**Jimaz** · August-28-11, 10:29 PM

I was about to bump it myself, wondering whether the mere mention of Tessonics struck an [[uh-oh, they're on to us) nerve, temporarily muting the thread.

I assume they've received phone calls inquiring about the matter.

**epiphany** · August-29-11, 04:42 AM

Originally Posted by Gannon

This is a bump, to see if anyone has had any experiences lately.

I've been quite busy, and have been sleeping like a deadman at the end of the days.

Stress may mask the sensitivity to this noise, the more high-strung I get from the busy-ness of my business...the less this seems to affect me.

Cheers

I woke up at about 4am this morning and didn't notice it. That might be attributed to the several people in this apartment complex that are running their window a/c's this morning for some bizarre reason. When I heard it before, all window units were quiet.

**Gannon** · August-31-11, 07:45 AM

It was back in full force last night in GPP. An unbelievable warbling two-toner, and sure enough, my honey had another nightmare. We both popped our earplugs in and finished the morning off well...but we'd gone to sleep before 9 p.m., since she had an early flight. So much for planning ahead. There are two or three places in the house where it is loudest, but I attribute that to the construction of the structure. Real plaster walls done almost a hundred years ago lead to some curiously strong echo chambers where this resonance seems to be amplified.

I am close to putting together my full analysis of this phenomena, since it is plural...not just one 'hum'. The hum I am chasing is a residual low-level diesel idling noise, below everything else. As I've said before, other low-level sounds can mask it, since our ear/brain mechanism has a very well-known tendency or trait of noticing blatant sounds above residual or background ones. If we didn't have this, it is likely we'd all be bonkers.

As I sit on ItsJeff's bench this morning, I can hear a period low rumble arriving which I'm quite sure is a tanker on the river. Due the crickets, I cannot perceive any of the hum. When I heard it here before, it was 3 in the morning, and nobody was about, but I didn't leave my car...so it was on the SE drive, not far from the streetlights.

There was just someone driving along Windsor's Riverfront Drive with an outrageous car stereo. The low rumble is getting louder, let's see what it is...

...five minutes and still no tanker. I wonder if the buildings downtown also channel and amplify their sounds, because there is something getting louder, but the periodic increases have stopped. Gosh, these crickets are healthy, though...and darned happy to see another day, too. [[Looks like someone finally took a chainsaw to the tree over the bench, too, but haven't moved anything away yet!)

OK, we're down to residual traffic noise and the crickets...I know this isn't rapturous prose, sorry...I'm merely curious to count the speed the next tanker is going, if it is against the current...since that may help establish how far away their infrasonic emanations travel. It is back to being periodic now, with a faster 'beat'...instead of wwOOOwww............wwOOOwww..........wwOOOwww, it is more of a wwOOww....wwOOww....wwOOww, shorter period with faster repetition. This is NOT the hum I usually talk about, this is diesel engine rumblings from a freighter.

OK, finally, nearly fifteen minutes after first hearing the engine noise, the freighter Endeavor took twenty seconds to pass...driven by a tug, actually...so it wasn't even under its own power. It has smokestacks, but looks more like a barge. But we can figure the speed the moment I learn the length of this vessel. If it started from a dead stop, and the tug had to go deep into its torque to get it moving, that would explain the deeper periodic sounds.

I went into this experiment to show that the sounds encountered even within a few miles of sources like the river, bridge, and freeways can travel a great distance. Where I sleep, it is easily a mile from the train-tracks near the Chrysler plant between Jefferson and Mack. I can hear the trains, and idling engines...VERY distinctly from the hum that I've been complaining about and was able to measure that morning.

<sigh>

I'll put some time into this later, but even without measuring the Schumann Resonance I'm pretty sure that is part of this issue...there are man-made additions of which some are benign, but some are nefarious...and then there may indeed be another astronomical component. It is complex...and affects some areas more than others probably due the proximity to bedrock, or the shallowness of the clay/dirt over it. High rises with footers tied to bedrock, which don't have any form of seismic decoupling, are particularly susceptible to it, too. Anything which excites the bedrock will resonate through the structures tied to it...not unlike a very weak, but continual, earthquake.

Cheers

**Bigb23** · September-01-11, 08:44 AM

...five minutes and still no tanker. I wonder if the buildings downtown also channel and amplify their sounds, because there is something getting louder, but the periodic increases have stopped.

That's a thought Gannon, the big Lakers rumbling through our waters above extensive salt mines on both sides of the border. Just a giant resonator. Reminds me of camping up in Algonac, the same feeling. But why only the past few years? Refitted ships?

**Wild** · September-03-11, 12:46 PM

Glad I found this thread! I live in Woodbridge. While I haven't heard the hum, I have heard loud booms. It's always in the early morning hours. The sound used to wake me, but I now sleep through it. Has anyone else heard it?

**Gannon** · September-14-11, 05:18 AM

Loud booms in the morning on your side of town could very well be railroad cars joining up...or actions on Zug Island and/or the salt mines.

Last night, the hum was quite loud. I was able to sleep because of those Mack's Solid Silicone earplugs...but for some reason I took 'em out around 5 and haven't been able to get back to sleep.

Right now, I can hear it quite plainly in our kitchen...one of the areas of the house where it resonates the greatest.

Cheers

**hhockey** · September-15-11, 01:24 PM

Gannon i live downriver near Woodhaven and have heard the same hum for the past two nights it goes up and down. I have heard this for long time and people thought i was nuts. My neighbor finally heard it and was complaining about it keeping him awake. I suggested ear plugs which i also use.

**UpTown** · September-22-11, 09:40 AM

Looks like a potential source may be emanating from Zug Island:

"Santiago Esparza/ The Detroit News
Zug Island is the likely source of a loud buzzing noise that has plagued Windsor, rattling windows, shaking homes and causing nausea, according to a report in the Windsor Star.
The Ontario Environment Ministry is to make an announcement Thursday about a study of the problem. Canadian scientists working on the problem have told government officials in advance of releasing official findings that the industrial Zug Island apparently is the cause of the problems that go back to 2009, according to the Windsor Star.
Since June, monitors have collected data about seismic activity on the island off West Jefferson Avenue near where the Detroit River and River Rouge meet.
Operations on Zug Island were pegged as the most likely cause of the problems, although the salt mines in southwest Detroit, transport truck traffic, freight trains and jets taking off from Detroit Metropolitan Airport also were examined, according to the Windsor Star.
Zug Island has operated for years without such problems popping up, the Windsor Star reported. But Zug Island was at the center of a map showing locations that experienced problems, an activist told the Windsor Star.
sesparza@detnews.com
[[313) 222-2320

From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20110922/...#ixzz1YgzNWSra

**Detroit_uke** · September-22-11, 09:51 AM

Arghhhhhhhhhh. Next time you hear the hum get in your car and drive to BASF in Wyandotte. If it sounds real loud when you get there...write them a letter and tell them to "knock it off" - some of my friends in Wyandotte have done just that.

**alleyc** · September-22-11, 11:13 AM

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windso...noise-zug.html

CBC 1550AM just reported a story on looking for a hum.

Also, home page of this CBC news link, shows a lot of people filing lawsuits saying the wind farms over there are making them sick. Some at 1 km away.

I also wonder about hums across the US [[maybe not our area) from Fracking [[ http://www.gaslandthemovie.com/ ). Our area is in the 'blue' on this map. Arkansas quakes and maybe the Virginia quake put Fracking as the source.

Gannon, we can hear booms from the salt mines?

Maybe this app could be re-purposed to track the hum in D. It will be open source when done.
http://www.detroityes.com/mb/showthr...y-Kick-Starter

**alleyc** · September-22-11, 11:23 AM

The Kokomo, IN and the Taos, NM hum that were talked about five [[?) years ago were not sourced to something like a Zug Island. Never located, I think. So, the news stories [[CBC and Det News) just tell me a lot of people are hearing a hum, rather than that is the source.

**kraig** · September-22-11, 12:06 PM

The Windsor Star appears to have the most details so far.

http://www.windsorstar.com/Island+li...127/story.html

**EL Jimbo** · September-22-11, 12:38 PM

Originally Posted by Detroit_uke

Arghhhhhhhhhh. Next time you hear the hum get in your car and drive to BASF in Wyandotte. If it sounds real loud when you get there...write them a letter and tell them to "knock it off" - some of my friends in Wyandotte have done just that.

At BASF, we didn't make the house you live in. We make the house you live in LOUDER.

**Detroit_uke** · September-22-11, 01:17 PM

@EL Jimbo - is this the same research they were doing in Wisconsin till they were asked to stop??? Just sayin' - but hummmmmmmm?????

**guito13** · September-22-11, 01:25 PM

Originally Posted by EL Jimbo

At BASF, we didn't make the house you live in. We make the house you live in LOUDER.

My old man works at that plan, I never hear a humm from it when im there or around it?

**Bigb23** · September-22-11, 01:28 PM

The so called Hum, is not just here in the Detroit/Windsor area, but world wide by some accounts. There has to be a better explanation. With exceptions, of course, Gannon, : )

**Jimaz** · September-22-11, 02:30 PM

From UpTown's above Detroit News link:

The noise, however, hasn't been heard on the U.S. side of the Detroit River.

Oh, really?

**Bigb23** · September-22-11, 03:18 PM

Originally Posted by Jimaz

From UpTown's above Detroit News link:Oh, really?

Oh really, are these the same reporters that can't spell or pronounce Livernois? Yes - its not on spell check.

**Orthophonic** · September-22-11, 08:51 PM

Originally Posted by Bigb23

Oh really, are these the same reporters that can't spell or pronounce Livernois? .

Livernois they maybe can make a decent stab at. But can they say "Gratiot"? And let's not reopen the "Lahser" pronunciation debate.

**Bigb23** · September-23-11, 01:01 AM

Originally Posted by Orthophonic

Livernois they maybe can make a decent stab at. But can they say "Gratiot"? And let's not reopen the "Lahser" pronunciation debate.

These so called "Talking Heads" recruited from out of town are a joke. I do my best to correct my mistakes on just this forum. They, [[news stations), don't seem to care, and will read their prompter verbatim, false or not. And the prompt is done from 20 something interns. Hilarity ensues.

**Gannon** · September-23-11, 07:12 AM

It seems our friends in Windsor have their scapegoat, and it is somewhere on Zug Island.

I'd like to see their data. I'd like to know if they considered any of the reports of a residual hum from various points on the Earth.

There is more to this story, this is not the end of the explanation for this hum. It may be a solution to some amplification or exacerbation of it...but not the root cause.

John Gallagher got some column inches in this morning's Freep over this...lotsa repetition in these stories.

http://www.freep.com/article/2011092...ial-Zug-Island

http://www.freep.com/article/2011082...-early-morning

Not a one of 'em do anything but declare the mystery solved. It is not.

If it were so, then why up in Petoskey too? That surely cannot be tied to Zug Island.

Why Taos, NM? London?! Australia?! <sigh>

Cheers anyways, as long as this is being discussed...

**old guy** · September-23-11, 11:15 AM

Attachment 10740The rational explanation is that all the honey bees that have been disappearing over the last few years have been kidnapped and are being held for an eventual ransom by the Monsanto Corporation in a warehouse somewhere on Zug Island.
Better call the Hardy Boys.

**Wild** · October-02-11, 06:02 PM

Back again. When I saw the strange sound referred to as a hum, I initially thought that I had not heard it. I ran across some links on Youtube, and it turns out that I have been hearing the sound for a few years now; in different parts of town.

Is this the noise? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvnHy...eature=related

**rid0617** · October-02-11, 06:51 PM

I didn't have time to read the entire thread but thought of something. Do you have what they call down here U-verse? Telephone company providing TV service like cable.

We are having a lot of complaints from the AT&T V-rad boxes that control this service. Lots of complaints from people to cops and TV stations. They emit a low frequency hum all the time and is not noticed until night time when the city noise calms down

**Wild** · October-03-11, 09:37 AM

Originally Posted by rid0617

I didn't have time to read the entire thread but thought of something. Do you have what they call down here U-verse? Telephone company providing TV service like cable.

We are having a lot of complaints from the AT&T V-rad boxes that control this service. Lots of complaints from people to cops and TV stations. They emit a low frequency hum all the time and is not noticed until night time when the city noise calms down

To my knowledge, Uverse is still not available in my area. Also, I have heard the sound for several years.