The world communicates with us in intriguing ways, sometimes with eerie, unexplainable whispers and hums. Strange sounds have long haunted human imagination across every nation on Earth. In the deepest stretches of our oceans, there are noises so weird, so unsettling that they defy the laws of known science. Tonight we're going to hear eight strange sounds that can't be explained. This is a study of strange. Welcome back to the show. I'm Michael May. Strange sounds.
You've likely heard some of these before. And I was researching a few of them for their own individual episodes, but I discovered it was hard to cover this topic with just 1 or 2. So I've put together the eight sounds that I think are still not definitively explained, and that creep me out. Tell me what you think and if there's any sounds that creep you out. Do you want to share with me? Send me a message on Instagram and a study of strange or an email. A study of strange at gmail.com.
number one. The bloop. Let's begin with the most well known of these strange sounds. From the deep, uncharted expanses of the ocean. In 1997, NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration captured something in the remote area of the South Pacific Ocean around 50 degrees south 100 degrees west. And this is west of the southern point of South America. It was an ultra low frequency, extremely powerful sound, so loud it was picked up by several hydrophones more than 3000 miles apart.
Hydrophones. I'll mention them a lot today. Are a type of underwater microphone. This sound. They called it the bloop. It's hard to tell from that recording because it just sounds sort of like a bubble in water, but it is at an immense volume and it has a unique profile, which led to speculation about a giant sea creature like a gargantuan whale and even a kazoo Lou type monster. In fact, it is the loudest underwater noise ever recorded.
For comparison, blue whales, the largest animals on Earth, can produce calls that carry across hundreds of miles. The bloop dwarfed even that. Doctor Christopher Fox, a researcher with the NOAA, famously admitted that he thought it could be a living animal, yet undiscovered. Eventually, the consensus has settled on ice quakes after triangulation of recordings and other sciencey things. Ice quakes are massive icebergs fracturing or grounding against the seabed near Antarctica.
The sound profile has matched these events, but the bloop scale, it's overwhelming reach still leaves some skeptical. There are conspiracies of not just giant sea creatures, but secret submarines or other military experiments. How could ice alone create such resonance? And why does it trigger our imaginations so vividly? Perhaps because we know more about the surface of Mars than the ocean floor. Number two, the hum. You may have heard of the Tao some. Or the Bristol hum.
There's a handful of these phenomena around the world towns Bristol, Windsor, Ontario, just to name a few of these hot spots. What is it? First reported in the 1970s, it's a persistent, invasive, low frequency humming or rumbling sound. Sometimes described as being like the idling of a truck engine. it's frequently worse at night. And it sounds like it's coming from everywhere. And nowhere.
Each of those recordings are from a different location, but you can tell that they all share some similar aspects. And here's what's wonderfully strange about this sound. Not everyone hears it. In any given location, about 2 to 4% of the population can perceive the hum for those who do. It can be unbearable and has caused insomnia, headaches, nausea, nosebleeds.
There are some vague articles from England I read that say that this sound has caused at least one suicide, though I have not been able to confirm that. Here's a quote from The Atlantic. Sufferers known as Hummers have pointed fingers at sources such as electrical power lines, wireless communication devices, and low frequency electromagnetic radiation. For decades, doctors dismissed patients complaints as tinnitus, an auditory problem that affects 15% of people.
But the latest research suggests that the noise is not a hallucination, and that many Hummers do not suffer from impaired hearing. End quote Steve Koolhaas, an engineer from Connecticut, was so tormented by the hum that he spent over $30,000 on an investigation and some legal fees because of the hum. A study in Taos, New Mexico, conducted by Los Alamos National Laboratory, say that the Hums origin remains a mystery in most locations.
In some cases, machinery or infrastructure have been identified and addressed, but in others nothing. There's no explanation. Some researchers suggest the hum could stem from seismic activity or atmospheric conditions. Others propose it could be a product of human sensitivity to low frequency electromagnetic fields. I came across some information about a small percentage of people that might be able to have essentially super sensitive hearing.
Being able to hear sounds outside of our normal range or frequency. But there's still been no definitive conclusions on these hums. And they may all be unrelated. There could be a variety of causes since all these locations are so far apart in the world, but it is a very curious thing. Number three up sweep. we return to the ocean. This is another recording from Eno, a captured from the equatorial autonomous hydrophone arrays.
The up sweep was discovered when the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory began using a sound surveillance system in 1991, and it's a repeating series of narrow band up, sweeping sounds across the Pacific. Up sweep is seasonal. It peaks in the spring and autumn of each year. It's also loud enough to be heard through the entire Pacific Ocean. This pattern suggests it's likely natural. Another theory is that it's possible underwater volcanic activity.
Its source was triangulated to an area near volcanic seamounts in the south central Pacific. But the exact cause has never been confirmed. In a way as proposed, it could be due to the interaction between magma and seawater. But what's strange about that is that up sweeps intensity has been slowly declining over the decades. If this were simply volcanic activity, why this steady fade? And no direct observations of eruptions have matched these sounds. Number four Julia.
In 1999, a mysterious voice emerged from the ocean, one that sounded disturbingly familiar and lasted about a minute and carried a haunting, resonant quality. NOAA scientists have named it Julia. Julia's source is traced to a region between Brandes Fields Strait and Cape Adare near Antarctica, an area rich with icebergs. So naturally, the prevailing theory is an enormous iceberg grounding itself on the ocean floor. This could produce a long, reverberating cry underwater.
Indeed, Julia's Events location and sound profile match what would be expected from an iceberg impact. But the sound? It's rising, sort of wailing, human like pitch invites speculation and conspiracies that it could be something beyond our understanding. Part of the fun of this is that Julia has only been recorded once, but that single occurrence was powerful enough to be heard across the entire Eastern Pacific hydrophone array. One recording, one moment that continues to stir imaginations.
Number five, the slowdown. I was tempted to combine this with Julia, so maybe I'll call it for a because it's another underwater mystery with a similar theory. It was first recorded on May 19th, 1997, near the equatorial Pacific region. The sound is a long, eerie moan that slowly descends in pitch, lasting for seven minutes. To me it almost sounds like a plane landing, but the name says it all Its source was pinpointed near the Antarctic Peninsula. Much like Julia.
The leading theory is that this, too, is the sound of an iceberg dragging along something like a seabed. But here's where it's different. Slow down has been recorded multiple times each year since 1997. If it's just ice scraping along rock, why does it occur with such consistency? Number six the Seneca guns in 1850. James Fenimore Cooper, author of The Last of the Mohicans, wrote a book called The Lake Gun about a phenomena he heard at Seneca Lake, New York.
It was a loud, startling boom or explosion, seemingly coming from the sky, but with no visual phenomena. He mentioned a deep, hollow, imposing nature, while emphasizing that it couldn't be explained by known natural law. This sound, or something similar, has been heard in many other locations around the globe. The North Sea, parts of Italy, Bangladesh, Japan, India, Australia, as well as Canada and Mexico.
These mysterious sounds are also known as sky quakes, depending on where you are, and they have been mentioned even earlier than 1850. In 1804, the Lewis and Clark Expedition encountered something bizarre near Great Falls in Montana. Meriwether Lewis wrote.
Since our arrival at the falls, we have repeatedly witnessed a noise which proceeds from a direction a little to the north of west, as loud and resembling precisely the discharge of a piece of ordinance of 6 pounds at the distance of three miles. Clark added in his notes a rumbling like cannon at a great distance is heard to the west of us. The cause we can't account. I found a recording from Colorado that seems to be very similar to these descriptions, and similar to the Lake Seneca Sound.
Here it is. Scientists have proposed a range of possible causes meteors exploding high in the atmosphere, gas erupting from pockets underground, Distant thunder or lightning generated. Shock waves funneled over long distances, even big waves hitting offshore cliffs and making sonic like concussions. Manmade causes like sonic booms from aircraft or secret military tests are also considered in modern accounts. But here's something interesting. From that second sound I played.
The video I got that from is captioned that it sounds right before an earthquake. And some theories for these sounds suggest that shallow earthquakes make booms, earthquake booms, and that has been considered for the sinica guns, though I also have come across a report that contradicts that. It's from seismologists stating that these sounds are not seismic events.
Since there are many reports across many locations and time, these events may be due to various causes and they just have a similar sound. But regardless, it's a major mystery. Before I move on, I want to mention that a lot of the recordings I've had to look up for today's episode have been proven to be hoaxes or fake.
I've only been sharing ones that I think are legitimate recordings of these sounds, but it's been difficult because there are a lot of fake ones online, and people are repurpose those fake ones over and over again for TikTok or YouTube shorts. So you have to navigate this subject very delicately. And I mention this now because the sky quake topic, the Seneca guns here was particularly difficult, probably more than the other ones, to find decent recordings.
And I mention this only because if you're interested in this topic and you want to pull up some YouTube videos or recordings online, just be careful what you come across. A lot of people will speed up or slow down these sounds, which makes it sound like something entirely different. So do with that information, as you will. Number seven, I'm turning to a phenomenon that inspired H.P. Lovecraft, the Moodys noises.
For centuries, the small town of Moody, Connecticut, has been plagued by strange and unsettling sounds. These noises, often described as a boom or a slight rumble, can't be explained. The earliest records date back to the 17th century, with Native American tribes referring to the area as a place of noises. Colonial settlers also allegedly documented experiences describing loud, sudden sounds that seemed to emanate from the ground itself. These noises were often accompanied by a sense of unease.
Early explanations and theories have ranged from supernatural causes to geological phenomena. Some believe the sounds were the work of spirits or demons. While others have speculated about underground caverns collapsing or volcanic activity. Seismologists have suggested that the sounds could be related to small earthquakes. We don't think of Connecticut as having earthquakes, but they do. They even had one around five on the Richter scale, just within the last year or two of my memory serves.
However, the unique characteristics of the modest noises, such as their variability and unpredictability, have led some to doubt. Earthquakes alone can fully explain the experience. Another theory involves the presence of underground water systems. It's possible that the movement of water through subterranean channels, or the collapse of water filled cavities, could produce these strange sounds. Despite numerous investigations, the exact cause of the Buddhist noises remains a mystery.
Number eight of rural sounds. So we've covered a lot deep in the ocean today, but now we're looking up to the sky because our next mystery deals with the northern and Southern lights. For centuries, cultures across the Arctic Circle have spoken of faint crackles, hisses, or even whispers accompanying these brilliant displays of light. But for a long time, scientists dismissed these claims as folklore. After all the auroras occur high in the ionosphere, far too distant to produce audible sound.
That is, until technology caught up. Finnish scientists soon to lane recorded these elusive noises and has studied them for many years. he discovered that under specific conditions, the auroras can indeed produce sound, but not from above. The theory charged particles from the aurora disrupt the electric field near the surface, causing electrostatic discharges. Tiny sparks just a few hundred feet above the Earth.
It's these small bursts of electricity that create the faint, popping, hissing, crackling, whisper type sounds This does require more studying to fully confirm the theory, because there are other scientists that have different ideas. Some initially even speculated that the sound is actually just an illusion. It's an eerie experience. Imagine standing in a frozen, silent field beneath the dancing curtains of the aurora borealis and hearing strange sounds that creep me out.
Again, if you have any sounds that I didn't cover earlier today that really intrigue you, creep you out, or just fascinate you, feel free to send me a message on Instagram or an email. A study of strange at gmail.com. Com. Thank you so much for listening to the show. Looking ahead, I have a very fascinating interview coming up in the next week or two that you won't want to miss. So if you're new to the show, make sure to subscribe, follow, leave a rating and review.
It goes a long way to helping us out, and you can learn more at his study of strange.com. Thank you and good night.