Paranormal
It sounded like an explosion, or a canon going off. Some thought it was a thunderclap. A million people heard it. A million heads turned towards the sea, wondering where the sound came from, and what had happened. But nobody knew. The only answer they got, was another boom.
The Barisal Guns
This was in the town of Barisal, Bangladesh, and the events occured in the 1870s. The booms occured from February to October every year, and investigations failed to find a cause. The booms would occur in groups of two or three, and everyone could hear it. These were named the Barisal Guns.
Mystery booms have been occuring all over the planet, startling people, and leaving them baffled as to the cause. In the Netherlands and Belgium, they are called mistpoeffers, in Italy as brontidi (or marinas), in the Phillipines as retumbos, and other places as fog guns, sea farts and air quakes. They are heard near bodies of water as well as far away inland, and investigations have always come up short of a conclusion.
More Booms
Mystery booms have been reported from all over the place. Here are a few of them:
* In January, 1999, a loud boom at 12:15 a.m. disturbed the residents of Colorado Springs and Denver. Some witnesses said the noise was accompanied by a flash of light in the sky. There was no electrical storm. Although it could have been a sonic boom, the military denied any military activity in the area.
* On January 10, 1999, dozens of people in Fairfield, Ohio reported a stunning, explosive sound. No cause was ever discovered.
* Thousands of homes were rattled by two huge, mysterious booms 30 miles southeast of Los Angeles just before 10 p.m. in May of 1998. Residents described the sounds as explosions, earthquake noises, and thuds. The two booms occurred about five minutes apart.
* A mysterious boom reverberated through Narragansett Bay, R.I. on August 1, 1998 at 9:30 p.m. Investigating officials could not find the source of the noise.
* On Sept. 16, 1997, the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was rocked by a boom that shook the ground and registered 1.1 on the Richter scale. Readings from ground-monitoring equipment showed that the energy did not come from the air, ruling out a sonic boom.
* On December 17, 1997, a huge aerial blast rattled windows and blew open storm doors in Rogersville, Mo., a town 13 miles east of Springfield. Again, the Air Force denied the possibility of a sonic boom caused by one of its aircraft.
* In September 1990, there were reports of unexplained detonations on Sunset Beach in South Carolina. In 1996, at Lake Seneca in New York State, loud explosions that sounded like thunderclaps occurred. They continue to this day.
To explain the cause of these sounds, some have often put forward the theory that the booms are being caused by movements in the earth's crust, but then they would have to had been accompanied by tremors. Other theories range among military exercises, secret weapons being tested, and of course, UFOs.
A large collection of mystery boom stories can be found here.
Related to mystery booms, are the case of mystery hums. These are basically a continuous, low, humming sound, of unknown origin, which occur in different localities throughout the world. Hums have very peculiar features.
The Taos Hum
The most famous of all the hums is the Taos Hum.
The Taos Hum is a faint, low-frequency humming noise heard in and near the town of Taos, New Mexico. Not only is the hum's source a mystery, but its peculiar qualities are as well: only about 2 percent of Taos residents - about 1,400 people - can hear it. The low hum - between 30 and 80 Hz on the frequency scale - has been described by hearers as sounding like a diesel engine idling in the distance or having a slow beat-note sound. Some people perceive it as being louder indoors than outdoors. More mysterious still, some hearers who are bothered by the sound have tried earplugs and other acoustic quieting devices to block it out - to no effect. Investigations by scientists, have failed to find a source or even a plausible explanation for the phenomenon.
You can read more about the Taos Hum at the Taos Hum homepage.
More Hums
Taos isn't the only town afflicted with an annoying hum. According to The Taos Hum Homepage, "Nearly every state in the U.S. has at least one 'hum hearer' report, including Alaska and Hawaii. The largest number of reports come from the southwestern U.S., the Pacific Northwest, and southeastern states. Worldwide, the hum has caused such problems in the U.K. and Sweden that hum-hearer support groups have formed there. There are hum-hearer reports from Italy and from Mexico."
The Bristol Hum is the most widely reported hum in the U.K. Some of the features of the Bristol Hum are:
* Sounds like an idling diesel engine.
* Most "hummers" are over the age of 50
* At least one partially deaf person hears the hum without using a hearing aid
* "Hearing" of radar signals can be ruled out, since aluminum foil enclosures do not attenuate the Hum.
* If a signal generator and loudspeaker is used, a zero beat can be heard around 100Hz
* Steel enclosures (such as cars, vehicles, some buildings) slightly attenuate the perceived hum, but only if greater than 1/8" wall thickness.
* J. Hall of Bristol UK committed suicide in 10/96 after having been driven crazy by the hum.
* The Hum can be detected and recorded using coil detectors.
