Latest / Lost Civilizations: Ancient Aliens & Forgotten History / The Taos Hum – The Mysterious Sound No One Can Find

Transcript

The Taos Hum – The Mysterious Sound No One Can Find · Lost Civilizations: Ancient Aliens & Forgotten History

• 0:00
  Imagine it is a little after two in
• 0:03
  the morning.
• 0:04
  You are somewhere near Taos, New Mexico.
• 0:08
  It is dark in a way many of
• 0:10
  us almost never experience anymore.
• 0:13
  There is no endless highway.
• 0:16
  There is no constant traffic.
• 0:17
  The mountains sit like black walls against the
• 0:20
  night sky.
• 0:21
  And when the wind dies down, the silence
• 0:24
  can be almost physical.
• 0:27
  Then you hear it.
• 0:28
  It is not loud.
• 0:29
  It is not a siren.
• 0:31
  It is not even a sound that you
• 0:32
  can easily identify.
• 0:34
  It sounds more like an engine, a diesel
• 0:36
  engine, far away.
• 0:38
  Maybe a truck sitting somewhere on the other
• 0:41
  side of the house.
• 0:42
  You wait for it to drive away.
• 0:45
  It does not.
• 0:46
  You walk to the window.
• 0:47
  There is no vehicle.
• 0:48
  You open the door.
• 0:49
  Outside the sound may actually become weaker.
• 0:52
  You go back inside.
• 0:54
  And now it seems stronger again.
• 0:57
  You turn off the refrigerator, the ventilation.
• 1:00
  Anything electrical you can think of, but it
• 1:03
  is still there.
• 1:04
  A deep, steady hum.
• 1:06
  Some people describe it as a sound.
• 1:08
  Others describe it as almost like a pressure,
• 1:11
  a vibration.
• 1:12
  Something right on the edge between hearing and
• 1:15
  feeling.
• 1:16
  And the strangest part, the person standing next
• 1:19
  to you may not hear anything at all.
• 1:22
  This is the story of the Taos Hum.
• 1:25
  And if you are experiencing that, by the
• 1:27
  end of this episode we will be able
• 1:30
  to point one machine in the desert and
• 1:33
  say, there it is.
• 1:34
  That is the sound.
• 1:35
  Well, it gets more complicated than that.
• 1:40
  Because scientists have looked.
• 1:41
  Engineers have measured.
• 1:43
  Sensitive microphones have been used.
• 1:45
  So have electromagnetic instruments and seismic equipment.
• 1:50
  And the harder people have tried
• 1:51
  to find the Hum...
• 1:54
  the more important another question has
• 1:56
  become: Was there ever only one?
• 2:05
  Why are we still talking about it?
• 2:07
  Taos is almost the perfect place for a
• 2:10
  mystery like this.
• 2:12
  The town sits in the landscape that seems
• 2:14
  made for strange stories.
• 2:18
  To the east are the Sangre de Cristo
• 2:21
  mountains.
• 2:23
  The Rio Grande cuts through the land at
• 2:25
  the west of the town.
• 2:27
  Taos Pueblo sits only a few miles away.
• 2:30
  It represents the Native American culture with roots
• 2:33
  that go back long before the United States
• 2:35
  existed.
• 2:37
  The area has attracted artists, wriTaos, spiritual seekers,
• 2:43
  hippies, scientists, and people who simply want to
• 2:46
  live far away from big cities.
• 2:48
  Then in the early 1990s, a strange story
• 2:51
  began to spread.
• 2:52
  Some people could hear sound.
• 2:53
  Other people could not.
• 2:56
  The people who heard it described it as
• 2:58
  slightly different ways.
• 3:01
  But certain details came up again and again.
• 3:05
  A low hum, a rumble, a buzz, something
• 3:09
  mechanical.
• 3:10
  It often seemed strongest at night.
• 3:12
  And in some cases people said that it
• 3:15
  was worse inside their homes than outside.
• 3:19
  And the last detail mattered.
• 3:22
  Most of us think that if a sound
• 3:24
  comes from the outside, a house should protect
• 3:27
  us from it.
• 3:28
  But some very low frequencies do not always
• 3:32
  behave that way.
• 3:34
  Low frequency sound has a long wavelength.
• 3:38
  It can move through and around buildings differently
• 3:41
  from higher frequency sounds like speech.
• 3:46
  Walls, floors, pipes, and rooms can also resonate.
• 3:51
  It means some frequencies can actually become stronger
• 3:54
  in certain parts of a building.
• 3:56
  So the reports are not physically impossible, but
• 4:01
  there is only one major problem.
• 4:04
  Nobody could find the source.
• 4:08
  The story eventually reached politicians, and in 1993
• 4:13
  it was taken seriously enough that researchers from
• 4:16
  several major institutions became involved.
• 4:19
  This included the University of New Mexico, Sandia
• 4:23
  National Laboratories, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Philips
• 4:28
  Air Force Laboratory.
• 4:30
  That is worth emphasizing.
• 4:33
  The story is sometimes told as if scientists
• 4:36
  simply laughed and said, people must be imagining
• 4:39
  these things.
• 4:41
  That is not what happened.
• 4:44
  They investigated it.
• 4:46
  And that takes us to the established story.
• 4:52
  One of the key people involved was engineer
• 4:54
  Joe Mullins from the University of New Mexico.
• 4:58
  The investigation was basically trying to answer two
• 5:01
  questions.
• 5:02
  First, how many people were actually experiencing the
• 5:06
  hum?
• 5:07
  And second, can we measure anything in the
• 5:10
  environment that matches what those people are hearing?
• 5:13
  Researchers carried out a population study.
• 5:16
  The word hearer began to be used for
• 5:20
  people who experienced the hum.
• 5:22
  The result shows an interesting pattern.
• 5:25
  The hearer was not at all one type
• 5:28
  of person.
• 5:29
  It was not of all men.
• 5:30
  It was not of all women.
• 5:32
  It was not at all one age group.
• 5:35
  Later materials from the Acoustical Society of America
• 5:39
  said that about 72% of the hearers
• 5:42
  were between the age 30 and 59.
• 5:46
  Men and women were represented roughly equal numbers.
• 5:51
  Most people reported hearing the hum between about
• 5:55
  8 at night and 9 in the morning.
• 5:58
  If researchers assumed that every hearer in the
• 6:01
  study had answered the survey, the number suggested
• 6:05
  a conservative minimum of around 2% of
• 6:08
  the population.
• 6:09
  We would be careful with that number.
• 6:12
  It does not prove that exactly 2%
• 6:14
  of all humans can hear the hum.
• 6:16
  It was an estimate from that particular study,
• 6:20
  but it tells us something important.
• 6:22
  We are not talking about an entire town
• 6:24
  hearing the same thing.
• 6:25
  We are talking about a minority.
• 6:29
  Then came the measurements.
• 6:32
  If a large industrial machine somewhere is producing
• 6:35
  a strong, low-frequency tone, you would expect
• 6:38
  that, in theory, sensitive equipment should be able
• 6:43
  to detect something.
• 6:45
  If vibrations are moving through the ground, seismic
• 6:48
  equipment might find them.
• 6:51
  If the case is electromagnetic, it could also
• 6:55
  be investigated.
• 6:56
  Researchers placed sensitive equipment around people who experienced
• 7:01
  the hum, and the results were frustrating.
• 7:06
  They did not find physical signals that clearly
• 7:08
  matched the moment when the hearer said, there,
• 7:13
  I can hear it right now.
• 7:15
  That means something very specific.
• 7:17
  It does not mean that the hum does
• 7:19
  not exist.
• 7:19
  It means that the researchers could not find
• 7:22
  an outside physical source using the methods they
• 7:26
  had.
• 7:27
  And right there, the mystery splits in different
• 7:31
  possibilities.
• 7:32
  What happens if a person says, I can
• 7:34
  hear it right now, but the microphone next
• 7:36
  to them does not record the expected sound?
• 7:39
  Maybe the equipment is not measuring the right
• 7:42
  thing.
• 7:43
  Maybe the signal reaches the body through a
• 7:45
  process that the microphone cannot detect.
• 7:47
  Or maybe the experience begins somewhere else, inside
• 7:51
  the body, inside the ear, inside the nervous
• 7:55
  system.
• 7:56
  That is another problem, too.
• 7:58
  The hearer did not always describe or match
• 8:01
  exactly the same frequency.
• 8:03
  That makes it difficult to talk about the
• 8:06
  Taos Hum as a single sound.
• 8:09
  So if it was not a normal outside
• 8:13
  sound, then what was it?
• 8:15
  If we look at the first cracks, this
• 8:21
  is where the story gets more interesting.
• 8:23
  The first problem may actually be our basic
• 8:26
  idea of hearing.
• 8:27
  We often say that a normal human hearing
• 8:30
  starts, runs about 20 hertz to 20,000
• 8:34
  hertz.
• 8:35
  And people sometimes take that to mean that
• 8:39
  19 hertz is complete silence.
• 8:42
  That is not true.
• 8:43
  A sound goes lower in frequency, it usually
• 8:48
  becomes much stronger before we can detect it.
• 8:52
  But humans can detect a sound below 20
• 8:55
  hertz if the sound pressure is high enough.
• 8:59
  And very low frequencies do not always feel
• 9:03
  like normal sound.
• 9:05
  A tone can begin, feels like a note,
• 9:09
  more like pulses, pressure, vibration.
• 9:13
  So when someone says I don't know if
• 9:18
  I hear it or feel it, that is
• 9:20
  not actually nonsense, or should I say automatically
• 9:24
  nonsense.
• 9:25
  There is a physical gray area between ordinary
• 9:28
  sound and very slow pressure changes.
• 9:32
  People also have different hearing threshold.
• 9:36
  A sound that sits right on the edge
• 9:38
  of a hearing might be obvious to one
• 9:40
  person and completely invisible to another.
• 9:44
  That is not very different from the fact
• 9:46
  that some people can hear high frequencies that
• 9:50
  other people can no longer detect.
• 9:52
  So the first possible explanation is simple.
• 9:55
  Maybe the hearer is unusually sensitive to real
• 9:59
  low frequency sound.
• 10:01
  But then the sound has still to exist.
• 10:05
  And why can't the microphone find it?
• 10:08
  Another possible explanation is resonance.
• 10:11
  A house is not a neutral box.
• 10:13
  Rooms have resonant frequencies.
• 10:16
  Walls can vibrate.
• 10:17
  Pipes can vibrate.
• 10:19
  Ventilation systems can vibrate.
• 10:21
  Large surfaces can react to low frequency energy.
• 10:25
  So a weak sound from outside may become
• 10:28
  much stronger in one room than another.
• 10:32
  That could also explain why some people experience
• 10:36
  the hum more strongly inside.
• 10:39
  But it does not fully explain why two
• 10:42
  people standing in the same room may disagree
• 10:44
  about whether the sound exists at all.
• 10:48
  A third possibility comes from the ear itself.
• 10:51
  Tinnitus.
• 10:52
  When we say tinnitus, many people imagine the
• 10:55
  classical high pitch.
• 10:59
  But tinnitus is not one sound.
• 11:03
  It can hiss, click, pulse, buzz, and hum.
• 11:10
  And it can sometimes be very low in
• 11:13
  frequency.
• 11:15
  There is also something called otoacoustic emissions.
• 11:22
  That sounds exotic.
• 11:24
  But the basic idea is simple.
• 11:26
  The inner ear is not just a passive
• 11:28
  microphone.
• 11:30
  It contains active biological systems.
• 11:36
  Outer hair cells help boost and fine-tune
• 11:39
  sounds.
• 11:40
  And because of that activity, a healthy ear
• 11:43
  can actually produce extremely weak sounds of its
• 11:46
  own.
• 11:47
  So another possible explanation appears.
• 11:51
  What if some hearers are in some way
• 11:55
  detecting activity created inside their own hearing system?
• 12:00
  And then there is one more strange detail.
• 12:04
  Some people say that the hum follows them.
• 12:07
  They travel.
• 12:08
  They move to another place.
• 12:10
  And the hum is still there.
• 12:13
  If that experience is accurate, there might be
• 12:15
  two different ways to explain it.
• 12:17
  Either the signal is extremely widespread, or the
• 12:21
  source is not in Taos.
• 12:22
  Maybe the source is inside the hearer.
• 12:27
  But before we go down that road, we
• 12:29
  need to give the opposite idea a fair
• 12:30
  chance.
• 12:31
  What if the hearer, right from the beginning,
• 12:35
  what if something is really out there?
• 12:43
  If we look at the alternative theory, we
• 12:45
  are going to take, should we say, this
• 12:48
  part very much seriously.
• 12:50
  The physical hum is physical.
• 12:52
  It is a signal.
• 12:54
  It is not an illusion.
• 12:56
  It is not mass psychology.
• 13:00
  Something in the real world is affecting certain
• 13:03
  people.
• 13:04
  But it exists near the edge of the
• 13:07
  normal human perception, and maybe near the edge
• 13:11
  of the normal measurement, too.
• 13:13
  If it's out there, several pieces begin to
• 13:15
  fit.
• 13:16
  First, the description.
• 13:18
  A distant diesel engine.
• 13:19
  That is exactly the kind of a sound
• 13:22
  we might expect from a rotating machinery.
• 13:25
  Large fans, pumps, compressors, transformers, ventilation systems, and
• 13:31
  all other machines that produce a lot of
• 13:34
  low frequency energy.
• 13:36
  Low frequency sound behaves differently from many of
• 13:40
  the sounds we normally use to understand our
• 13:45
  surroundings.
• 13:46
  A bird in a tree is usually easy
• 13:49
  to locate.
• 13:50
  A deep hum can be much harder.
• 13:53
  Low frequencies can bend around objects.
• 13:56
  They can travel long distances.
• 13:58
  They are not always stopped by walls, and
• 14:02
  because the wavelengths are so long, it can
• 14:06
  become difficult to tell exactly where the sound
• 14:09
  is coming from.
• 14:10
  That gives us our first alternative model.
• 14:14
  The source may not be in Taos at
• 14:15
  all.
• 14:16
  It could be far away.
• 14:18
  Imagine a large industrial system, a compressor station,
• 14:22
  a mine, a pump, a large fan, maybe
• 14:26
  a facility that runs harder at night.
• 14:28
  Under certain atmospheric conditions, sound can travel surprisingly
• 14:34
  long distances.
• 14:37
  Temperature layers in the atmosphere can bend sound.
• 14:43
  Wind direction can change how far it carries.
• 14:46
  The mountains around Taos is complicated.
• 14:49
  Mountains, valleys, large open spaces, they can create
• 14:54
  acoustic effects.
• 14:56
  A sound may not behave the way we
• 14:59
  expect, and there's an interesting comparison.
• 15:02
  Kokomo, Indiana.
• 15:04
  People there are also complaining about hum.
• 15:09
  Investigations eventually found real industrial low-frequency tones,
• 15:14
  including noise connected to a cooling tower and
• 15:17
  a compressor system.
• 15:18
  That matTaos.
• 15:20
  Kokomo shows when people describe a nearly unbearable
• 15:25
  low-frequency hum, it can sometimes be reacting
• 15:29
  to a real technical signal that many other
• 15:32
  peoples either do not notice or simply cannot
• 15:35
  hear.
• 15:36
  So the fact is that only some people
• 15:38
  hear sound does not mean that the sound
• 15:41
  does not exist in their heads.
• 15:43
  People have different hearing thresholds, different sensitivities, and
• 15:50
  low-frequency sounds is especially good for creating
• 15:53
  that kind of situation.
• 15:55
  So maybe the Taos investigation is looking for
• 15:59
  one steady tone.
• 16:00
  While the real problem is more complicated, maybe
• 16:03
  the signal changes over time.
• 16:05
  Maybe it only travels into the area under
• 16:10
  certain atmospheric conditions.
• 16:14
  Maybe it came from interference between different sounds.
• 16:19
  That brings us to another possibility, beats.
• 16:23
  When two frequencies are close to each other,
• 16:25
  they can create the feeling of a slow
• 16:28
  pulsing pattern.
• 16:29
  Wow, wow, wow.
• 16:32
  That slow pulse is not necessarily produced by
• 16:34
  a separate low-frequency machine.
• 16:37
  It can be created by two higher tones
• 16:40
  interfering with each other.
• 16:42
  That could matter in Taos because some hearers
• 16:45
  describe the hum as modulated.
• 16:48
  Not as completely steady, but pulsing.
• 16:52
  If several physical sources are involved, different people
• 16:55
  in different buildings could hear it with different
• 17:00
  versions of the same general environment.
• 17:03
  That gives us a model where the Taos
• 17:05
  hum does not have to be one tone.
• 17:08
  It could be an acoustic condition, a mix
• 17:11
  of weak low-frequency signals.
• 17:14
  When conditions are right, the signals become noticeable.
• 17:18
  And only to people those hearings happen to
• 17:21
  be sensitive in the right range.
• 17:23
  But some hearers also describe something even deeper.
• 17:28
  Not only sounds.
• 17:30
  Vibration.
• 17:32
  Pressure in the body.
• 17:33
  That brings us to infrasound.
• 17:36
  Infrasound normally means sound below 20 hertz.
• 17:41
  People also call it inaudible.
• 17:44
  But that is too simple.
• 17:46
  At high enough sound pressure levels, humans can
• 17:50
  actually detect infrasound.
• 17:53
  And as the frequency gets lower, the experience
• 17:56
  changes.
• 17:56
  It becomes more like a musical tone.
• 18:00
  As it becomes less like a musical tone,
• 18:05
  it becomes more pulsing, more pressure, discomfort, or
• 18:09
  even physical vibration.
• 18:12
  So if the Taos Hum contains an infrasonic
• 18:15
  part, maybe it would be difficult to detect
• 18:18
  it using equipment or methods mainly designed for
• 18:21
  normal audible sound.
• 18:25
  There are many natural sources of infrasound.
• 18:29
  Storms.
• 18:30
  Ocean waves.
• 18:32
  Volcanoes.
• 18:33
  Earthquakes.
• 18:34
  Large weather systems.
• 18:36
  And there are also human-made sources too.
• 18:40
  Explosions.
• 18:41
  Large fans.
• 18:42
  Industries.
• 18:43
  Aircraft.
• 18:44
  Turbines.
• 18:45
  But Taos is not sitting in the middle
• 18:47
  of an industrial center.
• 18:53
  So maybe the natural environment becomes important.
• 18:57
  Taos is close to the Rio Grande Rift.
• 19:01
  This is a major geological system where the
• 19:04
  Earth's crust has been stretched for millions of
• 19:07
  years.
• 19:08
  Could the ground itself create the vibration?
• 19:12
  Groundwater.
• 19:13
  Small seismic movement.
• 19:15
  Rock movements.
• 19:17
  Resonance inside the underground structures.
• 19:20
  If a deep vibration moves through the ground
• 19:23
  and entered buildings, it could help explain why
• 19:27
  some people experience the hum more strongly than
• 19:30
  others.
• 19:31
  A floor.
• 19:32
  A mall.
• 19:33
  A pipe.
• 19:33
  A bed.
• 19:34
  The building itself can act like a resonator.
• 19:38
  It's also worth remembering that under very specific
• 19:42
  conditions, humans can sometimes notice weak patterns better
• 19:47
  than simple instruments.
• 19:50
  Not because the body is magical, but because
• 19:54
  the brain can study a weak repeating pattern for
• 19:58
  a long time.
• 19:59
  If a microphone records a complicated sound environment,
• 20:04
  a weak signal may disappear back into the
• 20:07
  background noise.
• 20:09
  But if a person lying in the same
• 20:11
  bedroom every night, they slowly learn the pattern.
• 20:16
  Some hearers also report that the Hum changes
• 20:18
  when they move their heads.
• 20:21
  Or is it stronger in one part of
• 20:24
  the room than another?
• 20:26
  That fits very well with standing waves.
• 20:30
  When a low frequency sound reflects between walls,
• 20:33
  floors, ceilings, it can form zones where the
• 20:37
  sound becomes stronger.
• 20:38
  And those zones where it almost disappears.
• 20:43
  So a person might move a short distance
• 20:47
  and hear a big, major difference.
• 20:49
  But the physical hum theory does not stop
• 20:53
  from normal acoustics.
• 20:55
  Some people, the facts that researchers fail to
• 20:58
  find normal sound point, sorry, normal sound sources
• 21:02
  point toward electromagnetism and this is where the
• 21:08
  Taos becomes more an acoustic mystery.
• 21:12
  Can humans hear electromagnetic signals?
• 21:16
  Not directly in the normal sense.
• 21:18
  A radio signal does not move in the
• 21:21
  eardrum in the same way as a sound
• 21:23
  wave.
• 21:24
  But there are documented physical situations where electromagnetic
• 21:29
  energy can create an auditory sensation.
• 21:35
  The best known example is the microwave auditory
• 21:39
  effect, also called the Frey effect after researcher
• 21:42
  Allan Frey.
• 21:44
  Short pulses of microwave energy can, under certain
• 21:47
  conditions, create tiny thermoelastic pressure waves inside tissue.
• 21:54
  The hearing system can then detect those pressure
• 21:58
  waves as clicks or other sounds like sensations.
• 22:04
  That does not mean that the Taos Hum is
• 22:07
  caused by microwaves, but it proves an important
• 22:09
  principle.
• 22:10
  A person can experience a sound if there
• 22:13
  is no normal acoustic sound wave outside the
• 22:16
  head for a nearby microphone to record.
• 22:26
  If a technological signal creates the experience through
• 22:30
  the body itself, then the microphone may not
• 22:32
  be simply the wrong tool.
• 22:35
  And that is where the military theories begin
• 22:39
  to make more sense to some people.
• 22:42
  New Mexico is not a random place in
• 22:44
  the American military history.
• 22:46
  Los Alamos, Sandia, White Sands, Kirtland Air Force
• 22:50
  Base, the history of the nuclear weapons, rocket
• 22:53
  testing, radar, advanced weapons research, secret projects.
• 23:00
  The United States government really did run highly
• 23:04
  classified technological programs in New Mexico.
• 23:07
  That is not a conspiracy theory.
• 23:11
  It's fact.
• 23:11
  It's history.
• 23:13
  So when people begin to experience a strange
• 23:15
  signal and federal laboratories cannot explain it, some
• 23:20
  people naturally ask, can it be military?
• 23:23
  Transmitter?
• 23:24
  Communication system?
• 23:26
  Navigation system?
• 23:28
  An experiment?
• 23:30
  A signal that was never meant for human
• 23:32
  beings, but some people still can detect.
• 23:35
  During the Cold War, both the United States
• 23:39
  and the Soviet Union developed systems using very
• 23:43
  long electromagnetic frequencies.
• 23:48
  VLF and ELF has unusual properties.
• 23:52
  Very low frequency electromagnetic systems were studied and
• 24:00
  used because they can reach places where normal
• 24:03
  radio waves are difficult, including communication with submarines.
• 24:08
  And when people look into the numbers without
• 24:10
  separating sound waves from electromagnetic waves, something seems
• 24:15
  strange.
• 24:17
  The hum is often discussed in frequencies of
• 24:22
  a few tens of hertz.
• 24:25
  ELF also exists at extremely low frequencies.
• 24:30
  So the connections become tempting.
• 24:32
  Maybe the hum is an electromagnetic ELF signal.
• 24:39
  From there the story actually moves toward HAARP.
• 24:43
  H-A-A-R-P.
• 24:45
  The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, a
• 24:51
  research facility in Alaska, built to study the
• 24:53
  ionosphere.
• 24:54
  HAARP uses a large antenna array to send
• 24:57
  powerful radio signals into the ionosphere.
• 25:01
  And through interactions with the ionosphere, HAARP can
• 25:05
  create modulation in the VLF and ELF ranges.
• 25:11
  That detail matTaos, because if someone says HAARP
• 25:15
  can create ELF, there is a real physical
• 25:19
  idea behind the statement.
• 25:21
  Through interactions with the ionosphere, HAARP can create
• 25:25
  a very low frequency electromagnetic signals.
• 25:30
  So if the hum is electromagnetic instead of
• 25:34
  acoustic, it is understandable that some people ask
• 25:38
  whether high energy ionosphere experiments could play a
• 25:43
  role.
• 25:44
  Then we come to Schumann resonances.
• 25:48
  The Earth and the ionosphere forms a huge
• 25:51
  electromagnetic cavity.
• 25:55
  Lightning storms around the world feed the energy
• 26:00
  into this cavity.
• 26:01
  This creates resonances.
• 26:04
  The main one is about 7.8 hertz,
• 26:09
  which is higher resonance above it.
• 26:12
  That leads to an interesting idea.
• 26:15
  If we live inside a planet-wide electromagnetic
• 26:18
  resonance system, the human nervous system works electrically.
• 26:24
  The brain contains rhythmic electrical activity.
• 26:30
  So could especially sensitive people detect changes in
• 26:33
  the Earth's electromagnetic environment.
• 26:36
  And if the technology affects the ionosphere, could
• 26:41
  it also affect the environment?
• 26:43
  It's a big idea, but people find it
• 26:46
  attractive for a reason.
• 26:49
  It can explain why several parts of the
• 26:51
  mystery at once.
• 26:53
  Why are the hum reports found in many
• 26:56
  places?
• 26:57
  Because the signal is global.
• 27:00
  Why is it hard to locate?
• 27:02
  Because it's not normal sound coming from one
• 27:05
  machine.
• 27:06
  Why might a microphone fail to detect it?
• 27:09
  Because the signal is not mainly acoustic.
• 27:15
  Why do some people only some people notice
• 27:19
  this?
• 27:20
  Because biological sensitivity differs.
• 27:23
  And why is the experience often stronger at
• 27:27
  night?
• 27:28
  Because normal background sounds become quieter and people
• 27:31
  notice weaker sensations more easily.
• 27:34
  The full idea becomes something like this.
• 27:37
  The hum may not be a sound in
• 27:39
  the normal sense.
• 27:41
  It may be a physical signal that the
• 27:43
  human nervous system sometimes converts into a sound
• 27:47
  -like experience.
• 27:49
  And this is where the Havana Syndrome becomes
• 27:52
  a part of the story.
• 27:54
  Starting in 2016, American diplomats, intelligence officers, and
• 27:58
  family members reported unusual experiences.
• 28:01
  Pressure, sounds, pain, dizziness, balance problems, cognitive problems.
• 28:08
  One technological explanation discussed publicly was a pulse
• 28:12
  radio frequency energy.
• 28:15
  If technology can affect humans from a distance
• 28:19
  and create strange auditory or neurological experiences, then
• 28:25
  a technological hum at least has a possible
• 28:28
  physical mechanism.
• 28:31
  But not necessarily the same technology, but the
• 28:34
  principle.
• 28:36
  And in New Mexico, the rabbit hole goes
• 28:38
  even deeper.
• 28:39
  A few hours northwest of Taos is the
• 28:43
  town of Dulce, a small community in the
• 28:48
  Jicarilla Apache Reservation.
• 28:52
  Since the 1980s, especially Dulce has become famous
• 28:56
  in the conspiracy circles because of stories of
• 28:59
  a secret underground base beneath Archuleta Mesa.
• 29:07
  In the full story, this base is enormous.
• 29:11
  Several underground levels, advanced military technology, genetic experiments,
• 29:17
  UFOs, non-human beings, tunnel systems, blah, blah.
• 29:21
  Phil Schneider later became one of the people
• 29:24
  who made the story famous.
• 29:28
  He claimed that he had worked on a
• 29:30
  secret underground facility and had personally been involved
• 29:33
  in the violent confrontation with non-human beings
• 29:37
  beneath Dulce.
• 29:40
  If you accept that story, the Taos Hum
• 29:43
  changes completely.
• 29:45
  The hum could then be imagined as a
• 29:47
  side effect of a huge underground installation, with
• 29:51
  ventilation systems, tunnel boring, generators, energy systems, communications,
• 29:58
  etc.
• 29:59
  in the Carilla Apache Reservation.
• 30:05
  Since the 1980s especially Dulles becomes famous in
• 30:10
  the conspiracy circles because of stories of a
• 30:13
  secret underground base beneath Archuleta Mesa.
• 30:21
  In the full story this base is enormous,
• 30:25
  several underground levels, advanced military technology, genetic experiments,
• 30:30
  UFOs, non-human beings, tunnel systems, blah blah.
• 30:35
  Phil Schneider later became one of the people
• 30:38
  who made the story famous.
• 30:41
  He claimed that he had worked on a
• 30:43
  secret underground facility and had personally been involved
• 30:47
  in the violent confrontation with non-human beings
• 30:50
  beneath Dulles.
• 30:53
  If you accept that story the Taos Hum
• 30:56
  changes completely.
• 30:58
  The hum could then be imagined as a
• 31:01
  side effect of a huge underground installation with
• 31:04
  ventilation systems, tunnel boring, generators, energy systems, communications
• 31:11
  equipment, something underground sending the vibrations through the
• 31:17
  rock.
• 31:21
  In the material used for this episode the
• 31:24
  connection between the hum, underground tunnels, and the
• 31:26
  wider four corners areas appears more than once.
• 31:31
  It creates a story where geology, military secrecy,
• 31:35
  and UFO mythology began to blend together and inside
• 31:40
  that model the pieces from a surprisingly complete
• 31:44
  picture.
• 31:45
  A state with well-documented military research, large
• 31:50
  empty areas, a major history of nuclear technology,
• 31:56
  stories of underground facilities, a hum that researchers
• 32:00
  simply cannot explain easily, and senses with people
• 32:06
  who detect something instruments do not have clearly
• 32:10
  identified, and a government that has in the
• 32:14
  past keep major technological programs secret.
• 32:18
  There's also a broader argument.
• 32:20
  History contains examples of strange reports that were
• 32:24
  first ignored but later turned out that to
• 32:26
  have a real physical causes.
• 32:35
  Low frequency industrial noise is one example.
• 32:39
  A person may complain about a sound that
• 32:42
  the neighbor cannot hear.
• 32:44
  A normal sound meter may show nothing unusual,
• 32:49
  but later a specialist analyze the low frequencies
• 32:51
  and discover a fan or a compressor.
• 32:55
  From this point on viewing saying we did
• 32:58
  not measure it so it's not outside hum.
• 33:02
  That may be too simple.
• 33:04
  Maybe we just have not made the right
• 33:07
  measurements yet.
• 33:08
  That is the strongest versions of the alternative
• 33:10
  theory.
• 33:11
  The hum is real.
• 33:12
  It's a physical source.
• 33:14
  Maybe several sources.
• 33:16
  People have different levels of sensitivity.
• 33:20
  Buildings can amplify weak signals, and our measurements
• 33:24
  may not have identified the exact process connecting
• 33:28
  to the source, to the people who actually
• 33:32
  hear it.
• 33:33
  It does not have to be aliens.
• 33:35
  It does not have to be HAARP.
• 33:36
  It doesn't even have to be military.
• 33:39
  It could be something as ordinary as machinery.
• 33:43
  A complex long-distance sound moving through the
• 33:46
  atmosphere as deep as the geological vibration.
• 33:52
  And something technological that we have not yet
• 33:55
  identified.
• 33:56
  But in this model one basic idea remains.
• 34:00
  When the hearer says there is something out
• 34:05
  there, there is really something out there.
• 34:13
  If we should have a look at the
• 34:15
  rabbit hole then we need to leave Taos
• 34:18
  for a moment.
• 34:19
  Because Taos is not alone, not even close.
• 34:22
  In Britain stories about strange hums have been
• 34:25
  reported for decades.
• 34:27
  The Bristol hum became especially famous in the
• 34:29
  1970s.
• 34:30
  Again people described the same kind of experience.
• 34:34
  A deep machine-like sound.
• 34:35
  Worse at night, hard to locate and only
• 34:39
  some people could hear it.
• 34:41
  Later became similar reports from other places.
• 34:45
  Kokomo, Windsor, Auckland, Largs and many more.
• 34:50
  This is where the idea of the worldwide
• 34:52
  hum becomes interesting.
• 34:54
  Canadian researchers Glen MacPherson began collecting of self
• 34:58
  -reported hum cases in a global database.
• 35:02
  When you look at the map it seems
• 35:04
  dramatic.
• 35:05
  Reports appear all over the world and many
• 35:09
  people describe similar things.
• 35:12
  Diesel engine sound, nighttime humming, a sound
• 35:16
  that seems stronger indoors, pulsing and the experience
• 35:20
  of being the only person in the house
• 35:23
  that could hear it.
• 35:26
  MacPherson's projects has suggested that maybe two to
• 35:30
  four percent of people may experience some
• 35:34
  kind of hum under the right conditions.
• 35:38
  But one of the most interesting things about
• 35:41
  the project's later direction is that MacPherson's did
• 35:44
  not end up in one of those worldwide
• 35:47
  machines.
• 35:49
  Instead the project becomes, sorry, began separating people
• 35:53
  who may react to real environmental sounds from
• 35:57
  people whose Hum may come from inside the
• 36:01
  hearing system.
• 36:02
  That is important because the more hum cases
• 36:06
  we studied the more it looks like the
• 36:08
  world may be described several different things.
• 36:13
  Look at Kokomo.
• 36:15
  There investigators have found industrial components.
• 36:19
  That tells us something important.
• 36:20
  Some hums are real environmental sounds.
• 36:25
  Then there is the Windsor in Canada.
• 36:28
  For years residents complained about a deep vibration
• 36:32
  and a low rumbling sound.
• 36:34
  The Canadian government found scientific, sorry, founded a
• 36:38
  scientific investigation.
• 36:41
  Researchers found signals that seems to point toward
• 36:45
  the Zug Island area on the American side
• 36:49
  of the Detroit River.
• 36:51
  It is a heavy industrialized area.
• 36:55
  Researchers got close to an answer.
• 36:58
  But even there the story did not end
• 37:00
  with one technician finding of one machine.
• 37:04
  Flipping one switch and saying, there, mystery solved.
• 37:08
  Hum problems can acoustically be difficult.
• 37:13
  And that actually supports one of the alternative
• 37:17
  arguments.
• 37:19
  Failing to locate a source does not always
• 37:21
  mean there is no source.
• 37:23
  But then we have Schumann resonance. 7.83
• 37:28
  hertz.
• 37:29
  That number appears again and again in alternative
• 37:31
  explanation.
• 37:33
  It has almost become a mystical number.
• 37:36
  The earth frequency, the heartbeat of the planet,
• 37:39
  some people connected to meditation, sleep, brainwaves, health,
• 37:43
  consciousness, and the hum.
• 37:46
  There is something almost poetic about the idea.
• 37:50
  The earth really does have electromagnetic resonances.
• 37:56
  And all of us live inside the electromagnetic
• 37:58
  environment.
• 38:01
  That part is real.
• 38:06
  Schumann resonances are caused by electromagnetic waves moving
• 38:10
  through the space between the earth and the
• 38:12
  ionosphere, driven mainly by the lightning around
• 38:15
  the planet.
• 38:16
  But the question is whether Hum hearers are
• 38:18
  is actually detecting them. Then we have HAARP.
• 38:22
  HAARP has become something like a Swiss Army
• 38:26
  knife in a modern conspiracy culture.
• 38:29
  Earthquake? HAARP. Weather? HAARP. Strange sound? HAARP. Mind
• 38:33
  control? HAARP.
• 38:35
  And that is actually a shame because the
• 38:38
  real HAARP is already interesting.
• 38:41
  The facility has 180 antennas.
• 38:44
  It can send up to 3.6 megawatts
• 38:48
  of high frequency radio energy to study the
• 38:51
  ionosphere.
• 38:52
  That's real physics, real radio science.
• 38:56
  And HAARP can create ELF and VLF modulation
• 39:00
  through processes in the ionosphere.
• 39:03
  We do not need to invent that what
• 39:05
  HAARP does to make it interesting.
• 39:09
  But going from that to saying therefore people
• 39:13
  in Taos hear diesel engines is a much
• 39:16
  bigger step. Then there is Havana Syndrome.
• 39:19
  That's also difficult because real people reported real
• 39:23
  symptoms.
• 39:26
  There have been years of investigations.
• 39:28
  Doctors, scientists, politicians and intelligence agencies have not
• 39:33
  always agreed.
• 39:35
  And some technological mechanism has been discussed are
• 39:39
  not science fiction.
• 39:41
  But we do not have a simple chain
• 39:43
  that says Havana Syndrome equals microwave weapon.
• 39:47
  Microwave weapon equals Taos Hum.
• 39:50
  There are separate questions.
• 39:53
  And the American intelligence community has remained diverted
• 39:56
  in the part of the Havana Syndrome issue.
• 39:59
  In an updated assessments in January 2025, five
• 40:04
  of seven U.S. intelligence agencies still believe
• 40:08
  that it is very unlikely that a foreign
• 40:11
  enemy is responsible for the most of the
• 40:14
  cases.
• 40:15
  But two agencies with low confidence believe that
• 40:19
  it is roughly possible for a foreign actor
• 40:22
  to have developed or used a new technology
• 40:24
  in a smaller number of incidents.
• 40:28
  That is not exactly a clean Hollywood ending.
• 40:31
  And finally... Dulce.
• 40:35
  I have to concentrate a little here because
• 40:38
  names like Archuleta Mesa and Jicarilla Apache were
• 40:44
  clearly not designed for my Danish speaking podcast.
• 40:48
  But the story is fascinating.
• 40:52
  The Dulce conspiracy did not grow directly out
• 40:56
  of the Taos Hum.
• 40:57
  It is developed from the UFO reports of
• 40:59
  cattle mutilation stories, Paul Bennewitz, claims about
• 41:04
  underground facilities, and later Phil Schneider's lectures.
• 41:08
  It is really its own conspiracy universe.
• 41:12
  And its being close to a map does
• 41:15
  not prove a new, does not prove a
• 41:17
  connection.
• 41:18
  But when two mysterious stories exist in the
• 41:21
  same general region, people naturally begin to connect
• 41:24
  them.
• 41:25
  An unexplained vibration in Taos. A supposed underground
• 41:29
  base near Dulce. Military laboratories in New Mexico.
• 41:33
  UFO history. HAARP. ELF. Schumann resonance. Havana Syndrome.
• 41:38
  Suddenly you no longer have one mystery.
• 41:40
  You have a network.
• 41:43
  And this is where we need to be
• 41:44
  careful.
• 41:45
  Human beings love networks of strange facts.
• 41:48
  We love patterns.
• 41:49
  But connection on a map does not always
• 41:51
  have a connection in the real world.
• 41:53
  So now we have reached the part where
• 41:55
  we deliberately have waited for.
• 41:56
  It's time to take the connections apart again.
• 42:02
  So let's look at the critics.
• 42:05
  We start with the simplest idea.
• 42:07
  An unknown industrial machine that is physically possible.
• 42:11
  We know ventilation systems, transformers, compressors, turbines, cooling
• 42:15
  towers, pumps and heavy industrial can create low
• 42:18
  frequency noise.
• 42:20
  We also know low frequency noise can be
• 42:23
  unusual, difficult to deal with.
• 42:25
  It can travel far, it can move through
• 42:28
  structures, and buildings can change the way it
• 42:31
  is experienced.
• 42:33
  So the explanation belongs high on the list
• 42:39
  in any individual Hum case.
• 42:41
  The problem in Taos is that the original
• 42:44
  investigation did not find a steady outside acoustic
• 42:50
  signal that matched the hearers what they have
• 42:54
  reported.
• 42:56
  That does not make industrial noise impossible.
• 43:00
  But after many years without a clear source,
• 43:02
  the idea becomes less satisfying if we try
• 43:05
  to use it to explain the entire Taos
• 43:08
  phenomenon.
• 43:09
  Next is infrasound, also completely real.
• 43:13
  And there is one myth that we should
• 43:16
  get rid of.
• 43:17
  Infrasound does not automatically, is impossible to hear.
• 43:22
  Humans can detect extremely low frequencies if the
• 43:26
  sound pressure is high enough.
• 43:28
  Researchers have studied humans' perception at low, very
• 43:33
  low frequencies.
• 43:34
  And the frequency drops, the experience changes.
• 43:38
  It becomes less a musical tone and more
• 43:41
  like a pressure pulsing or individual waves.
• 43:45
  So that part works.
• 43:46
  But there's another problem.
• 43:48
  If infrasound is strong enough to create a
• 43:51
  clear and constant experience, proper equipment should normally
• 43:56
  be able to measure it.
• 43:58
  And on a worldwide infrasonic source, it is
• 44:02
  supposed to explain every Hum report.
• 44:06
  It is also to explain why people match
• 44:09
  different frequencies, and why experiences are varied so
• 44:13
  much, and why some people say that the
• 44:16
  homes follow them when they travel.
• 44:20
  Then there's geology.
• 44:22
  Taos sits on an interesting geological area.
• 44:26
  But an interesting geological location is not the
• 44:29
  same thing as evidence for particular vibration.
• 44:33
  The earth is constantly producing background seismic noises.
• 44:37
  Ocean waves can create small seismic signals that
• 44:40
  travel across continents.
• 44:44
  Wind and weather can create signals too.
• 44:47
  But if geology is going to explain the
• 44:50
  Taos Hum, we need a measurable chain: a
• 44:53
  geological process, a specific signal, a transmission path,
• 44:58
  a clear connection to what the hearers experience.
• 45:02
  We do not have that chain.
• 45:05
  And then we come to Schumann resonance.
• 45:08
  Here we need to separate two very different
• 45:11
  things that often get mixed together because they
• 45:15
  are measuring in hertz.
• 45:16
  Hertz simply means cycles per second.
• 45:20
  A guitar string can vibrate with a certain
• 45:22
  number of times per second.
• 45:26
  An electrical signal can do the same.
• 45:29
  Electromagnetic waves also have a frequency.
• 45:31
  But that does not make it that the
• 45:33
  same physical things.
• 45:35
  The Schumann resonance around 7.8 hertz
• 45:38
  is electromagnetic.
• 45:41
  It is not a normal sound floating through
• 45:43
  the air like a giant subwoofer.
• 45:46
  So if Schumann resonance causes the Hum, there
• 45:50
  need to be a biological mechanism that converts
• 45:54
  this very weak electromagnetic field into a sound
• 45:58
  experience.
• 46:00
  And this is where the evidence becomes weak.
• 46:04
  Schumann resonances are real, but the popular idea
• 46:07
  that people simply hear Earth's 7.83-hertz frequency
• 46:11
  is not established science.
• 46:13
  The same problems appears when people compare human
• 46:17
  resonance with brain waves.
• 46:20
  The two things can exist in similar frequency
• 46:23
  ranges without directly interacting.
• 46:27
  Similar numbers are not evidence of physical connections.
• 46:31
  Then there is HAARP.
• 46:32
  The facility exists.
• 46:33
  It's powerful.
• 46:34
  It studies the ionosphere.
• 46:41
  It can indirectly create ELF and VLF signals.
• 46:44
  All is documented.
• 46:46
  HAARP's main transmitter operates in a high frequency
• 46:50
  radio range, roughly between 2.7 and 10
• 46:53
  .0 megahertz.
• 46:55
  The ELF and VLF effects are produced indirectly
• 46:59
  through the ionosphere.
• 47:00
  But we do not have a connection to
• 47:03
  TERS.
• 47:04
  There is no documented correlation between HAARP activities
• 47:07
  and the hum.
• 47:09
  No recorded HAARP-related signal has been found
• 47:13
  around hearers.
• 47:16
  And the timeline is not especially helpful either.
• 47:21
  TERS' story is already developing while HAARP itself
• 47:25
  was being developed in the 1990s.
• 47:28
  Of course, someone can always suggest an earlier
• 47:31
  military system.
• 47:33
  But the moment a theory requires an unnamed
• 47:37
  secret system in order to survive, it
• 47:39
  becomes much harder to test.
• 47:42
  That does not make it logical impossible, but
• 47:45
  the evidence becomes weaker.
• 47:47
  Then we have the microwave auditory effect.
• 47:51
  This may be the alternative theory's strongest technical
• 47:54
  point.
• 47:55
  Yes.
• 47:56
  Electromagnetic energy can, under certain conditions, create an
• 47:59
  auditory sensation.
• 48:01
  That's real.
• 48:02
  But the classic microwave auditory effect is more
• 48:06
  often described as clicks, buzzing, or short sound
• 48:10
  experiences connected to a pulsed signal.
• 48:13
  To use it as an explanation for a
• 48:15
  constant low frequency hum, we would need a
• 48:20
  exposure source.
• 48:22
  Where is the transmitter?
• 48:24
  How powerful is it?
• 48:26
  What frequencies does it use?
• 48:28
  What pulse patterns?
• 48:31
  Why does it affect these people?
• 48:35
  Why, for years or even decades, where are
• 48:38
  the locations?
• 48:40
  No one has provided a complete chain of
• 48:43
  evidence for Taos.
• 48:44
  Havana Syndrome does not automatically make the connection
• 48:49
  stronger.
• 48:50
  It shows that discussing possible radio frequencies' effects
• 48:55
  on people is not completely absurd.
• 48:58
  But Havana Syndrome is itself still disputed and
• 49:03
  unresolved.
• 49:05
  It cannot take one mystery, place it underneath
• 49:07
  another mystery, and call it result-proof.
• 49:11
  Then there's Dulce.
• 49:12
  Here the problem becomes much bigger.
• 49:15
  There is no verified evidence for a huge
• 49:17
  human-alien underground base described in the Dulce
• 49:20
  stories.
• 49:21
  No confirmed technical plans.
• 49:24
  No verified workers with documents proving that the
• 49:27
  base exists as described.
• 49:30
  No independently confirmed tunnel system in the claimed
• 49:34
  scale.
• 49:35
  No physical evidence proving the existence of non
• 49:38
  -human beings described in the stories.
• 49:41
  Phil Schneider told dramatic stories, but his claims
• 49:44
  about an underground battle cannot be established as
• 49:48
  a historical fact from the evidence available.
• 49:52
  That means Dulce may be a fascinating cultural
• 49:56
  rabbit hole, but as an explanation for the
• 49:58
  TEROS hum, the evidence is extremely weak.
• 50:02
  And now we come for the most difficult
• 50:05
  explanations for some hearers to accept.
• 50:08
  The ear itself, tinnitus.
• 50:10
  Some hearers reject this immediately because the hum
• 50:14
  feels external.
• 50:16
  They say, I know what tinnitus feels like.
• 50:20
  It is coming from the house, the road,
• 50:22
  the ground.
• 50:23
  But our hearing system is incredibly good at
• 50:26
  placing sound.
• 50:27
  And sometimes it can place sounds incorrectly.
• 50:31
  The brain builds our sense with the sound
• 50:36
  that is located using timing, loudness, reflections, and
• 50:39
  other signals.
• 50:41
  An internal sound does not always feel like
• 50:43
  it's coming from a tiny speaker inside our
• 50:46
  head.
• 50:47
  Tinnitus can feel inside one ear, both ears,
• 50:51
  inside the head, or something less clearly defined.
• 50:56
  And then in 2026, a very relevant study
• 50:59
  was published.
• 51:01
  Researchers studied 28 people who reported almost constantly
• 51:06
  low humming or pulsing sounds.
• 51:09
  The mid-range of the frequency they matched
• 51:12
  the hum was about 50 hertz.
• 51:15
  Researchers tested two important possibilities.
• 51:17
  First, are these people simply unusually good hearing
• 51:21
  low frequency sounds?
• 51:23
  For most of them, the answer was no.
• 51:25
  There were a few exceptions, but as a
• 51:27
  group, they do not have the extremely low
• 51:30
  frequency hearing sensitivity we would expect if they
• 51:33
  were hearing normal outside sound that everyone else
• 51:37
  simply missed.
• 51:40
  Second, could they be hearing spontaneous low frequency
• 51:45
  sounds produced by their own ears?
• 51:48
  Researchers look for low frequency spontaneous uh auto
• 51:54
  -acoustic emissions.
• 51:57
  They did not find what would be needed
• 52:01
  to explain the experience in that way either.
• 52:04
  The overall conclusion was that subjective low frequency
• 52:10
  tinnitus probably explains many of the cases.
• 52:14
  And notice there were many, not necessarily all.
• 52:18
  The researchers did not rule out a real
• 52:21
  outside sound source for every person.
• 52:24
  And to me, that might be the most
• 52:25
  interesting part of the entire story.
• 52:28
  Science may slowly be moving away from the
• 52:31
  questions, what is the source of the hum?
• 52:33
  And towards different questions, what type of hum
• 52:37
  is this particularly person experiencing?
• 52:40
  That is a very different question.
• 52:45
  So if you look what actually holds up,
• 52:48
  let's start clearing the table.
• 52:50
  What do we actually know?
• 52:51
  We know that people in Taos reported a
• 52:53
  hum.
• 52:54
  That's documented.
• 52:55
  We know the problem was taken seriously enough
• 52:58
  for a multidisciplinary scientific investigation.
• 53:03
  That is also documented.
• 53:04
  We know that only a small part of
• 53:06
  the population reported the experience.
• 53:08
  Around two percent was used as a conservative
• 53:11
  estimate.
• 53:12
  We know researchers did not find one external
• 53:16
  acoustic seismic electromagnetic source that could explain the
• 53:20
  hearer's experience.
• 53:21
  That matTaos.
• 53:23
  So the documented mystery is not.
• 53:26
  Scientists detected a mysterious 40-hertz sound across
• 53:30
  Taos and still cannot explain where it comes
• 53:32
  from.
• 53:33
  That would be a much stronger mystery.
• 53:36
  But that was not what happened.
• 53:37
  The real story is this.
• 53:39
  People reported an experience.
• 53:42
  Researchers could not find an outside signal that
• 53:44
  clearly matched the experience.
• 53:48
  So what is likely?
• 53:50
  It is very likely that some hum cases
• 53:52
  around the world are caused by ordinary outside
• 53:55
  sources.
• 53:56
  We have real examples of low frequency industrial
• 53:59
  noise.
• 54:00
  So when someone complains about a hum, the
• 54:02
  first response should not automatically be tinnitus.
• 54:05
  The first response should probably be, let's measure
• 54:10
  the environment properly.
• 54:11
  Vibration, pumps, transformers, heat pumpss, cooling systems, industry,
• 54:16
  traffic, ships, compressors, wind, building resonance pipes.
• 54:20
  All of this matTaos.
• 54:23
  It is also likely that some people are
• 54:26
  more sensitive to low frequencies than other people.
• 54:30
  Human hearing thresholds vary.
• 54:34
  And with low frequency sound, a small change
• 54:36
  in the sound pressure can sometimes mean the
• 54:38
  difference between almost nothing and something extremely annoying.
• 54:45
  Then we have what is possible.
• 54:49
  Atmospheric and geological conditions may sometimes allow weak
• 54:55
  signals to travel in a strange way.
• 55:01
  There may be interactions between outside sounds and
• 55:05
  the human hearing system.
• 55:08
  Weak signals could possibly trigger or strengthen an
• 55:12
  internal sound perception.
• 55:17
  But it does not always mean that it
• 55:19
  has to be either.
• 55:21
  And finally we have the speculative idea.
• 55:24
  HAARP as the source of the Taos Hum.
• 55:27
  Secret ELF weapons. Global military transmissions. Schumann resonance
• 55:32
  as a direct auditory cause. Dulce Base. Underground alien
• 55:38
  facilities.
• 55:38
  In some cases we have real technology, but
• 55:42
  no evidence connecting them to Taos.
• 55:44
  In other cases the supposed source itself has
• 55:47
  never been verified.
• 55:49
  And then we have tinnitus.
• 55:50
  That is no longer just boring default answers.
• 55:54
  Modern hearing research makes it a serious candidate,
• 55:58
  especially because it can explain some of the
• 56:00
  strangest details.
• 56:02
  Why other people do not hear the hum?
• 56:05
  Why microphones do not record it?
• 56:09
  Why some people hear it in different places?
• 56:13
  Why the frequencies differ between people?
• 56:17
  And why the experience still feels completely real?
• 56:21
  The last point is important.
• 56:23
  If the hum is caused by tinnitus, that
• 56:26
  does not mean that the person is pretending
• 56:28
  to hear something.
• 56:30
  The perception itself is real.
• 56:33
  Every sound you would ever experience finally exists
• 56:36
  inside the brain.
• 56:37
  That includes my voice right now.
• 56:40
  The difference is where the signal begins.
• 56:44
  In a microphone, in the ear, in the
• 56:47
  cochlea, in the auditory nerve, or somewhere deeper
• 56:52
  inside the hearing system.
• 56:53
  Maybe that question about where the signal
• 56:56
  begins.
• 56:57
  It is the real tale's mystery.
• 57:02
  If we look at the final balance, at
• 57:04
  the beginning of the episode I asked you
• 57:06
  to imagine an engine outside the house.
• 57:08
  You hear the engines, but you do not
• 57:10
  find the vehicle.
• 57:12
  For more than 30 years people have been
• 57:14
  asking where is the vehicle.
• 57:16
  Maybe that was the wrong question, because the
• 57:18
  hum may not be one thing.
• 57:20
  In Kokomo a hum may come from industrial
• 57:24
  equipment.
• 57:25
  Somewhere else it may come from a compressor.
• 57:28
  In another house building resonances may be involved.
• 57:32
  One person may be unusually sensitive to real
• 57:36
  low frequency sound.
• 57:38
  Another person may be experiencing low frequency tinnitus.
• 57:42
  And there may be some cases where we
• 57:44
  do not have a satisfying explanation.
• 57:46
  That is less elegant than the idea than
• 57:49
  one secret worldwide transmitter.
• 57:51
  But nature does not owe us an elegant
• 57:53
  mystery.
• 57:55
  At the same time we should not make
• 57:57
  the opposite mistake.
• 57:58
  We should not say we have a possible
• 58:01
  neurological explanation, so we never need to
• 58:04
  investigate the environment again.
• 58:07
  That would be too lazy.
• 58:09
  Industrial hums are real.
• 58:11
  Low frequency noises are real.
• 58:13
  Infrasound are real.
• 58:15
  Human sensitivity varies and complicated acoustic problems can
• 58:20
  be very difficult to identify.
• 58:23
  So where does that leave Taos?
• 58:25
  It's something that to me is actually more
• 58:27
  interesting than one simple answer.
• 58:30
  The Taos Hum is not a good mystery
• 58:33
  because it proves secret weapons.
• 58:35
  It does not.
• 58:37
  And it's not a good mystery because science
• 58:40
  has proven that every ear has simply tinnitus.
• 58:43
  Science has not proved that either.
• 58:47
  It's a good mystery because it sits right
• 58:49
  on the border between the world outside us
• 58:52
  and the world of our senses that are
• 58:54
  built inside of.
• 58:56
  Normally we do not think about the difference.
• 58:58
  We open the eyes and the world seems
• 59:00
  to be there.
• 59:01
  We listen and the sound seems to be
• 59:03
  there.
• 59:04
  But our senses are not windows.
• 59:06
  They are interpretations.
• 59:09
  And that means that two people can stand
• 59:11
  in the same room and honestly live in
• 59:13
  two different sound worlds.
• 59:15
  One person hears silence.
• 59:17
  The other people hear an engine that never
• 59:19
  stops.
• 59:20
  And I think that's strange enough.
• 59:22
  We do not really need an underground alien
• 59:25
  base to make it interesting.
• 59:27
  But if you're lying if you're lying awake
• 59:30
  tonight and suddenly you hear deep engine sound
• 59:35
  somewhere outside the window.
• 59:37
  Well how far the rabbit hole do you
• 59:40
  want to go?
• 59:41
  It's completely up to you.
• 59:43
  See you next week.