This Paranormal Life - #292 Can you Hear THE HUM?

Episode Date: December 6, 2022

For years, 2 percent of the worlds population has been HAUNTED by a mysterious noise known only as The Hum. No one knows how it starts or where it's coming from, all we know is once you hear it... it never goes away...Support us on Patreon.com/ThisParanormalLife to get access to weekly bonus episodes!Buy Official TPL Merch! - thisparanormallife.com/storeFollow us on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTubeJoin our Secret Society Facebook CommunityIntro music by www.purple-planet.comResearch by Amy GrisdaleEdited by Louis Blatherwick Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When it's a new moon, where does the old moon go? Do all spiders go to hell? All of these questions you can find the answer to on This Paranormal Life! Hello everyone and welcome to This Paranormal Life, the award-winning comedy paranormal podcast where every week myself and Kit Greer-Malvena investigate a brand new paranormal tale case claim beast and

come to the conclusion at the end as to whether or not it truly is paranormal whilst i do like you saying that we're an award-winning show to be honest puts me a little on edge because i'm feeling the pressure i'm hot under the collar uh and every time i think about the fact that we've won an award like i don't want to alarm you rory but it's been approximately one to two months since we've won an award yeah and i'm starting to worry that that's because the quality's slipping and i understand that next year's awards don't come around until next year but i'm starting to worry that they're already looking and they're already paying attention and if the quality isn't high enough okay slow down slow down slow down buddy all right you're getting stressed i know ramped up just because don't be stressed that we haven't won a 2023 podcast award because that year doesn't exist yet it would break my heart

it would break my heart okay because we didn't win anything i don't want to again i don't want to focus on it too much but we didn't win anything in 2020 we didn't win anything 2021 or 20 well actually we did this year. We've won awards is what we're trying to say. We've won multiple awards. We're going to win more. We're going to win more for sure. I think a part of that is, you know,

coming into these episodes with confidence. It's coming in with confidence. And I definitely made a big mistake because I decided to go straight from a haircut into today's recording session. Everyone knows you should never go straight from a haircut into anything except your own apartment. Because you shouldn't go anywhere other than into a beanie. You walk out of the salon, put on a beanie hat and hide from the world. I went in there looking like a lost Hemsworth brother, a surfer dude with my long golden locks. Yeah, of course. I mean, everyone knows that, you know, you could be

the ugliest motherfucker alive, but on the day of the cut, your hair looks unbelievable. You look in the mirror. You're like, bro, have I lost weight? I look fine as hell. Why does your hair always look so good the day of the cut? I was going in there like I'm pacing outside the salon, just like it's not worth it. It looks great. What am I doing here? When you finally do sit down in the chair, they're like, so what are we doing today? It's like, honestly, maybe nothing. Maybe not.

Like maybe you can take the tiniest millimeter. Otherwise, it's perfect, right? Can you make it longer, actually? Do you have a lotion or some shit to make it longer of course classic barbers they're not listening no they've already started as soon as he said what are we doing today he walked off stopped listening got the clippers which they're already buzzing as you're trying to talk your way out of this hole it's it's i'm struggling with it a little bit hey i got my money's worth for sure, because I definitely paid for my hair to be cut. Quite a dramatic level.

You know, as I get older, I do start to wonder if there is a vicious cycle, because this happens to me too. And I think that we're trapped in a kind of abusive haircut relationship where we get a bad cut. We then have such bad memories of the hairdresser. We don't go for three months. Yeah. And then anytime you do go back, you're so overdue a cut.

They're like, this mother... You need it bad. The barber's like, I know this cheap son of a bitch isn't coming back for another six months. So I'm going to try and keep them right for a long time. Yeah.

It's like shearing that sheep that's grown way too much fur. They're like, he needs it. He needs it cut hard. And I'm like, no, please, just a trim. You lost your Hemsworth hair privileges because you didn't keep it properly.

Yeah. So yeah, the confidence today is fluctuating. It's fluctuating. But hey, you know what I am confident about? My paranormal investigating abilities. And that's what's on display today to the public because we're not filming video. Yeah, Roy unplugged the cameras

as soon as he walked in today. I walked in the door, ate the SD card and said, what are you going to do now? All right, that's enough silly small talk at the start of the episode. We need to dive in today to our paranormal case because it's a big one. You know, while this is a paranormal podcast, on occasion, we like to cover some things that are more of a

mystery than an outright paranormal phenomenon. But even then, we sometimes struggle to find quality evidence. Quite often, we get a mix of sightings in the 70s, maybe the 80s, 90s. But this case is the opposite, because what we have on our hands, or should I say, in our ears, is a phenomenon reported consistently across the entire world. Interesting. Something completely universal. I have to say, I'm quite intrigued by the idea of an auditory phenomenon because normally this podcast is like pulling teeth because we're sitting here describing images, videos, and our listeners are tearing their hair out because they have no idea what we're talking about. But today this is perfect for a podcast. Yeah. We can finally go, hey, you know that evidence that you're looking for? Listen to this. And I turn the volume down, deafening everyone who listens to our show.

You're right. This is the kind of case and the kind of evidence that we need on this show. But before we dive into today's case, how about a quick word from our sponsors? Our story today starts in Halifax, West Yorkshire, a beautiful part of the country. One night, 50-year-old Yvonne Connor awoke in her home to a strange noise. Now, Halifax is a pretty chill place, and Yvonne was in the suburbs. It's not like living in the big city like us London boys. our old apartment that we used to live in together we described it a lot as if you were living in gta's vice city which is not a good place to record a podcast unless this week's investigation is on crime the history then we

got some first-hand evidence which is just pointing the microphone out the window. As we said, in Halifax, usually things were pretty chill. But this night, something was making a noise. It was a low, humming noise, like a rumbling, that had managed to penetrate even the walls of her stone-terraced house. Curious to figure out where it was coming from, Yvonne got out of bed and began searching her home. The problem was, this hum was coming from everywhere. God, that's going to drive you crazy. It was in front of her, behind her, outside the house, inside her body, in her mind. Oh no, I'm starting to get the heart rates going.

Yeah. I'm starting to feel claustrophobic over here. This thing was impossible to pin down no matter where she searched. In the following days, the hum continued to return. She turned off all the electronics in her house. Told her neighbors to do the same. She even drove around town trying to track it down, which sounds very dangerous. That didn't take long for her to go

mad. I think if you, if your doorbell goes ding dong. Oh, Mrs. O'Connor, how you doing today? Turn everything off. What? Shh. There's no time to

explain. Do you hear the hum? Okay, Mrs. O'Connor, get in the car. We're going to find it. I do like the idea of getting into a car, closing your eyes, and steering towards a noise that you hear until you've found it. Yeah. A dangerous way to live, but damn if it doesn't get some kind of result. You know, there's a funny relationship

between driving and hearing because I always find it hilarious that everyone drives around listening to like music or radio or podcasts. Yeah. But everyone knows that if you're following directions and trying to find somewhere, it's all fine and dandy listening to radio one full blast

while you're on the motorway or coming into town or whatever. But everyone knows that as soon as you are like in those final couple streets and you're trying to see the house number or the address, you got to turn that dial down to zero. Like you cannot have any information going in your ears in order to concentrate. It's so weird.

Every day we think and listen at the same time. But for some reason, when you're driving a car, it's like, all right, was that supposed to be a left or a right? Turn,

fucking turn it down! You're like, why do we have to turn it down? Turn off Bruce Springsteen. What the fuck are you thinking? Like, yeah, all of a sudden,

everything is way too much. It's kind of crazy. Yeah. I heard someone describe it as turning down the radio so I can see better. It doesn't make any sense. But it completely does in our heads. Fun fact.

Did you know that you can't fail your driving test for turning right when the instructor tells you to turn left? Why? Why do you know this? Because I did it a lot. I did it many, many times. But apparently that's not you driving bad. That's your brain being wrong, which they can't penalize you for being dumb. Oh, so as long as you make a safe, elegant turn and you do all your mirror three point checks and stuff.

They'd be like, hey, you nailed that wrong direction. But that was a great turn. Let's go left next time. That's pretty interesting. I guess it kind of makes sense. It's like, hey, like taking, I'm not a rally driver. Taking directions isn't part of the test, really. Yeah.

I wonder if that works for the rest of it. Like if he's like, all right, so now we need you to demonstrate your three point turn. You're like, didn't hear it. Didn't hear it. Just going to keep going straight. Yeah. Yeah. Like take a right up here.

Mm-hmm. Okay, so what you did was a Tokyo Drift-style turn around the roundabout. But it was perfect. It was. Vin Diesel would be proud, so you passed. I don't know how you activated NOS in this test vehicle, but that was f***ing sick, bro. You passed.

She drove around town for hours trying to track it down, but as we said, the sound was everywhere. It couldn't be tracked down. In fact, when she got home and closed the doors to her house, that's where it was the loudest. Weird. Yvonne

felt like she was going insane. She said, quote, I'd find myself with my ears pressed to the walls and floors. I used to sit in our front room after tea, and at around seven o'clock every night, I'd go, It's coming! Oh, God. Now for the scariest part of all.

Yvonne had a husband and a son. Neither of them heard a goddamn thing. This is terrifying. This is one of the scariest stories we've covered in recent times because I feel like I am Yvonne. Yeah. I mean, this is why this case is so fascinating. We've told stories of people who have been haunted by demons, ghosts, poltergeists, vampires, night beasts. But there is something so genuinely terrifying about some sort of bizarre phenomenon like this where you are the only one who can perceive it what do you think would be worse if you were in this situation do you think if it was like a foghorn style blast is like so loud

or if it was uh just kind of a creepy little just background won't go away, quieter noise. I don't know. I feel like you'd maybe get used to a mighty foghorn. It is crazy how quickly you get used to some of those things. I remember I was living in an apartment once in London where, no joke, I think like every hour the fire alarm in the hallway would make a beep noise. Right. Like a beep. Sure. Give it another hour. Beep. like every hour the fire alarm in the hallway would make a beep noise right like a beep sure give it another hour beep and anytime people came to my house they were like how do you put up with

this like this it would drive me crazy but i was so numb to it by the end of staying there that i didn't even hear it anymore might have been a carbon monoxide monitor actually now that i think about it do you remember a carbon monoxide alarm went off in my flat when we were recording a podcast? Yeah. The day we felt very ill. We both felt very ill and tired. We came out of the studio and we were like, that was a weird one, right? That was a weird episode of the podcast. We were like, oh yeah, there's a gas leak. But I think what we're going to find out today about this phenomenon, the hum, is that you don't get used to it. Right.

It doesn't become something that you can deal with. Yeah, maybe it's worth bringing up now rather than later, because I'm sure a lot of listeners sitting at home will be thinking what I'm thinking, which is that I, as a drummer and musician, have tinnitus, which is where, you know, we have a little bit of a hum of our own. Is it not tinnitus? I don't know. I don't know. I couldn't f***ing hear what the doc said. This sounds somewhat different. Yeah, it sounds like you found ways

to deal with that better than the people who are dealing with the hum. Because by the time January rolled around, Yvonne was falling apart. She was barely sleeping, constantly being bothered by this insistent humming that no one else could hear. Eventually, in a desperate attempt to figure out what the sweet f*** was going on, she made a Facebook page about it. I assume it was something called like the Hum Survivors Group or something like that. I'm imagining she's typing in all caps just because she can barely hear herself type. As soon as the page went live, the comments began

flooding in. Thank God. I thought I was the only one. You hear it too? Where is it coming from? Only one. You hear it too? Where is it coming from? People describe the sound a bunch of different ways. A diesel engine humming. The sound of vibrating. A low but powerful noise.

One resident said, it's like you can hear a car coming, but it never gets there. I like the idea of like, everyone is likening it to a different thing, but it's just whatever references they have in life. Like I'm imagining like a mechanic covered in oil and he's like, it's like a diesel engine humming along. And like a farmer's like, it's like a cow that never stops mooing. And while these descriptions don't sound too terrifying, a low hum, a vibrating noise, there could be more to this sound than we think.

Possibly something a lot darker. Those who have suffered from the hum have also reported headaches, anxiety, fears of going insane. One woman who experienced the hum said, quote, I'm literally crying at night. It seems to get louder and louder and louder. I feel so bad for these folks. This sucks. And this is maybe the scariest part of all. Once you hear the hum, you can't unhear it. Right. It's kind of a ring style seven days thing where you hear it and that's it. Your life's over. Which is terrifying.

I know that we just told everyone basically in the audience not to listen out for the hum because once you hear it, you can't unhear it. I thought it would be fun and cool. I thought it would be pretty cool to actually try and hear it. No, what we're going to do is play a little sample of what the hum allegedly sounds like. This isn't the hum.

If you think you're about to hear the hum. This is not the ring VHS tape. You're not cursed now. It's going to be fine. Okay. We're going to play this. Granted, I'm only going to play it for like five minutes. Five minutes?

No, five minutes. I didn't mean five minutes. I meant five seconds. Five seconds. I am going to cover my ears and leave the room this is like when the doctor the dentist is like we're just gonna do a super quick routine x-ray of like your mouth or like your chest um just to make sure that nothing's out of line it takes two seconds super super safe and then he runs out of there as if they're about to detonate a f***ing nuke. Yeah. And there's like a countdown.

It's like, boop, boop, boop. He's like, shut it down. Shut it. I thought you said it was safe. Oh. Flash of light. I remember when I broke my knee and I had to go into one of those big, almost like an MRI machine where they x-ray it. And he was like, we're going to x-ray it.

Don't worry. It's perfectly safe. While he's basically putting on me a lead suit of armor it is a lead suit to defend me from the rays yeah they ever give you the lead panel just to put over your nut sack what i thought that was for my eyes uh no i didn't no shit should i have had that I don't know dude am I gonna have like X-Men babies now I don't know how this works how did we get here

you're about to play the hum I'm about to play the hum yes Kit and I are gonna leave the room and put metal caps on our dick and balls but it's fine you guys are gonna be fine it's not a real hum it's a fake hum check it out this is what it sounds like. Check it out. This latest f***ing drop from the hum.

Sound of the summer right here. Latest hits from the hum. Alright, here it is. The hum. Alright, welcome back everyone. Hopefully you've stopped hearing it now. We lied. You're insane now. Hopefully you've stopped hearing it now. We lied. You're insane now.

We just come back and it's like, all right. So as we said, now we're about to play for the first time the sound of the hum. People are like, what? What was that? No, that was a little sample of what these people are hearing. And I know that doesn't sound very terrifying. But as we said, if you're hearing this 24 seven, any noise would be terrifying. Rory, I don't even need to imagine that whenever I flew to Tokyo, the one and only time I went, I got an Air France flight and I didn't realize like how early they board you onto those flights. And we must've been sitting there for about an hour and a half as thousands of people filed onto this plane um while they repeated you know that song it's like tell me did you walk across did you fly to the milky way to see the lights all faded then heaven is overrated

is it a country song no oh um When that loops for a good 90 minutes, I might as well have been in Guantanamo Bay in an orange jumpsuit because I was ready to jump in my jumpsuit. So where the heck did the legend of the hum come from? Well, one of the earliest reliable cases of the hum dates all the way back to the mid-1970s. We're in Bristol, London's no-nonsense little brother. The local news agency was settling in at the office, getting ready to start a fresh

day of work, when a letter arrived. What you got there, Michael? Oh, just some mad old woman complaining about a hum. Ha! Jesus! Slow news day, am I right? But it wasn't long before another letter arrived. And another. In the end, hundreds of people complained to the local council that a strange humming noise was keeping them up at night. They all described the same thing. A low rumble, a vibrating buzz, A pain in the f***ing ass. Some people believe that the

sound came from a set of large industrial fans used in a warehouse nearby. But other victims weren't that gullible. More realistic theories began swirling around. Secret government projects. Hell yeah. UFO activity. Let let's go some sort of giant b yeah the people who believed it was fans that was people on day one of hearing the hum the people who think it's a ufo craft they're on day 200 yeah it's a gradual escalation uh finally of course resulting in giant b which full, that's Rory Power's original theory. There will not be any evidence to back up the claim of the giant B. And yet I stand firmly in defense of it.

Yeah. The first letter that someone writes into the council is like, dear sir or madam, I would like you to look into a peculiar noise of a letter. 50 is like, where's the queen? Where is she? There's not enough honey in the world to justify this um it's worth stating too that even though that was a long time ago the hum has not gone away or gotten any quieter in the uk in fact only recently 53 year old wayne smith from stapleton told bristol live that the hum disrupted his sleep so much earlier this year that the carpenter found himself on one occasion, quote, running up and down the street in my comfies, asking the neighbors if they could hear it too.

He said, they were looking at me like I was loco that's because you are my friend honestly though if this was happening to you and you hadn't had any experience with a hum or a noise like this before you would just assume that everyone in your neighborhood was dealing with it at the same time yeah it doesn't seem like a like if i was hearing a crazy high pitch right now or a strange hum, I'd be like, what is that? What do you, do you hear what that is? It wouldn't be a weird thing. If it was in my comfies, maybe you'd be a little bit more suspicious, but I can't even imagine what this must be like to deal with. You know, I actually worked with a guy who lived next to and encountered a hum sufferer. Really? So this is something you've heard about before, the hum? with a guy who lived next to and encountered a hum sufferer.

Really? So this is something you've heard about before, the hum? No, my old colleague didn't explain it this way using the words, the hum, but he described as his neighbor knocked on his door in a panic one night saying, basically, can you hear it too? It's driving me crazy. This escalated. Like, I know that sucks for the person who's driving me crazy. This escalated. Like, I know that sucks for the person who's experiencing the hum. What a scary thing to have happen when you open your door at night to a stranger. And the first thing they say in a panic is, can you hear it too? I'm closing the door.

The call to the wild, brother. The call to the wild. I think it actually started maybe even a little bit more casual than that it started off with simple things like have you left your tv on no well you know have you have you left a hob on have you left a fan on there's like no no and double no but then it escalated like i say to you know are you really not hearing this i'm hearing this this this no i'm not hearing anything and it got to the point where this guy like kind of snapped and like, and was getting quite aggressive

and was like, basically like, I don't believe you. Like, can I come in and look in your house? And like, he, he needs, this guy needed to see and feel for himself. He needed to go and look at all the power outlets, turn them all off, make sure that no electricity was running in the guy i know in his flat yeah and then he would like go back downstairs

to his flat and be like okay i can still hear it it's not your flat he was losing it this guy actually interestingly i'm not gonna out the show but he's supposedly like a top kind of editor of quite a big tv show here in the uk yeah Yeah. So in theory, quite a, like not an insane person, but someone driven insane by this thing. I like that they're sending him the files to edit. And he's like, these are unusable. I can't hear a goddamn word. I'm trying to denoise these tracks, but the hum is unbearable.

It's crazy to hear that you know someone who has had to deal with this experience before. Because believe it or not, we also know someone who has had first-hand interactions with the hum. Is that right? Our own researcher, Amy. That's right. The call's coming from inside the house. The hum.

She said, it's most common for me at about 3 a.m. The sound starts out of nowhere, but I can't recall catching it stopping. My two prime suspects are my ancient freezer making a noise working overtime, or the rumbling made by the ships working at the docks 750 meters away from my flat. That's fascinating. So we really have a hum believer in our midst. Yeah. And just to show you how rare that is, it's reported that somewhere between 2% and 4% of the world are able to hear the hum. Allegedly, it's at an incredibly low frequency and has been linked to a number of worrying health issues, which I guess makes sense if you're not sleeping for like five days straight.

Health issues such as insanity, madness, going loco, the permanent appearance of comfies. Inability to get dressed. You got pajamitis. Comfitis. This is terrifying. This really is the stuff of horror movies it's like i could imagine a kind of a quiet place or like a bird box style movie premise where like the opening credits to the movie would be like in 2025 a hum descended upon earth rendering 75 of the population

completely deaf yeah those who heard the hum did not survive, but a rare few were not able to hear it and are trying to save humanity. Oh, I love it. This is great. Yeah, like, mankind worked tirelessly to save the bees, but who will save mankind from the bees? Welcome to the Humming. The camera pans out.

Earth is being descended upon by a swarm of killer space bees. Of course. It really writes itself. There's something so funny about, from the bees. It's like it was so believable until that inflection. This year, the galactic bees return to Earth. Honey, they're home. You know, just any kind of variation on that, you know.

I feel like at that point, it's less about the hum and more about possibly the bees, the intergalactic bees, which is still a good movie, to be fair. You know, they don't give movies taglines quite like they used to. Yeah, I kind of miss that. Petition to bring back the movie of a guy. Maybe we can get him to do one for This Paranormal Life. That would be pretty cool.

Yeah. All right, well, we've talked about the hum in Bristol and the UK already, but it's important to note that this sound affects people all over the world. We're just about to find out how widespread the sensation of the hum is, but before we do, how about a quick word from today's sponsors? Now, we've talked about the hum in Bristol and the UK already, but it's important to note that this sound affects people from all over the world. Even weirder still, it can pop up in an area without warning and then disappear again just as suddenly. One of the first locations that the hum was studied was in Taos, New Mexico.

A study in this location into the hum in the early 1990s found that at least 2% of those surveyed could hear it. of those surveyed could hear it. Interestingly, each ear witness reported a slightly different frequency, but they were all between 32 and 80 hertz. I believe there's a term for sounds like this that's like an infrasound, which is commonly referred to as a very low-status sound, describing sound waves with a frequency below the lower limit of human audibility yeah like 50 is very much getting down there i think 20 is the theoretical limit which almost no one could hear down at these depths uh we experience paranormal phenomenon such as the brown note uh which we talked about on this podcast before, a note that allegedly makes humans shit themselves. Sure.

That would be very unfortunate if the hum did a f***ing feature on a brown note track, if they collowed. When the hum appeared in Kokomo, Indiana, the city poured $80,000 into a long-term investigation that aimed to determine the source and come up

with a strategy to reduce it spoiler alert they didn't do jack shit that's crazy because you can't solve paranormal problems with nerd equipment so you're gonna say with cash cash can hire sure paranormal investigators and mediums and exorcists but the cash itself cannot solve the hum yeah they pumped that money into the wrong place they were probably hiring scientists geologists uh people who have understanding of the world and sound and how all of that works with the human ear when they should have just thrown money into a wizard's hole somewhere. Hired an old lady

with a crystal ball. Just to see. You know, I'm a big fan of supporting the paranormal arts, ladies and gentlemen, and this is a case that needs paranormal investigators, people who are aware

of the world of the supernatural. You thinkkins over there with his casio wristwatch and his pocket protector is gonna know what to do when he starts hearing the hum he's gonna crack like a thin glass frame he's pathetic that being said jenkins i don't have a wristwatch can you tell me the time real quick because i'm starting to hear the hum and i don't know how long it's been. A little help, buddy. We're in the war room ranting to the general.

It's like, this is about life or death. And you can make a choice here between the logical scientific explanation that's doing everything the same way everyone's ever done it. Or you could roll the dice, general. Roll the dice on a man like me that knows that sometimes you gotta think outside the box and you gotta jenkins is just like it was a factory fan it was a factory fan two roads away was making a weird noise we shut it down the hums god uh really it wasn't uh bees it wasn't sorry my voice cracked there i think you're wrong jenkins i can still hear it you're humming you're humming we can still hear it. You're humming.

You're humming. We can all hear the hum. No, I'm not. I'm not humming. I can hear that. Can you all hear that? You guys are all going to regret this when the queen shows up. You're going to regret it when the queen shows up.

Now, we've talked a lot about the hum, people who have been inflicted and infected with the hum. At this point, you might want to know what you can do to protect yourself against the hum. Maybe we should have started with that. I don't know. Rather than playing it to our listeners. The actions that you can take are pretty extreme. I'm not going to lie. Oh God. Number one is uprooting your entire life and moving away to a different location. Okay. This is assuming that yes, it is somewhat, even if paranormal, it is locally located. Yeah, this isn't something that is going to chase you down via an ancient curse. It seems to be that Bristol, for example, was a place where people were being infected with the hum. But if you had left Bristol, the hum ain't coming with you. You are able to escape it. Now, people did, as you

heard, drive for miles and miles. So you're going to have to go further than that. We're talking maybe across the world to get away from this thing. You might think that soundproofing your home would work. Apparently, that can make it even worse. Traditionally, home soundproofing methods tend to dampen environmental noise, not paranormal noise. It'll make the hum even clearer and louder. We're really calling this thing a noise. It's kind of much more disturbing than that. It's like saying that the banshee scream is a noise that you can deal with.

It's like trying to put up egg cartons on the wall to keep out the voice in your head. Yeah. It ain't going anywhere, chief. It's you. You're it. Honestly, if you're one of the unlucky few who can hear the hum, your options are really limited. One user on Reddit tried everything to get away from it. They wrote, In the spring of 2012, when I was living near British Columbia's Sunshine Coast, I began hearing a humming sound, which I was living near British Columbia's Sunshine Coast, I began hearing a

humming sound, which I thought was just planes. The noise usually started later at night, between 10 and 11 p.m., but the sound didn't fade away like a plane. And the slightest ambient noise, even turning my head quickly, caused it to momentarily stop. I was the only person in the house who could hear it. My family said they didn't know what I was talking about. Naturally, I assumed something in the house was the culprit, and I searched for the source in vain. I ended up even cutting the power to the entire house. After that, the sound got even louder.

I could still hear it in my car at night with the windows closed and the ignition off. I drove for miles in every direction and it was still there in the background when I stopped the car. There was nothing nearby that could have been causing it. No industrial activity, marine traffic, electric substations or highway noise. I mean, this is someone who, as we heard, has tried every possible way to get rid of it, tried to find it, tried to escape it in the car. And still the hum is there. It is with them. It just shows you how desperate it makes one to hear the hum. They cut the power to their frigging house. They're driving for miles, screaming into the night.

The problem that I think we're going to have with this case is although we have something that is so, in theory, easy to prove its existence because it's a thing that people have recorded. It's real as hell to the people who are experiencing it.

Yeah. That's not me or you. I think there are some people who have managed to allegedly capture the sound of the hum as a frequency on an audio recording device. Right. Well, that's the elephant in the room. Yeah. Is it is it actually a physical noise? Which some scientists say it's not, which is kind of a difficult thing to explain because I don't know what a noise is if it's not physical. Right. Yeah. I mean, like audible, then what is it?

Is it a noise by definition? I don't know. Right. Well, this is getting down to the crux of- Jenkins tried to explain it to me and I punched him in the glasses. This is the definition of, you know, tinnitus versus an actual noise in the real world.

Tinnitus is generated by your ears in your brain compared to the sound of a jackhammer outside your house, which is traveling through the air and can be picked up by a microphone. My weird version of this story and the hum is when I was growing up, basically as a little kid, I was trying to explain to my brother and my sister that I can make a noise inside my head at will

like i can i can make a noise if i'll do it literally right now there you go i just made it he just closed his eyes and his face went red from concentration and for years they were like what are you talking about you can't make a noise inside your head like what do you can't flex and make a noise and i was like how can you not do it and they head. Like what do you, you can't flex and make a noise. And I was like, how can you not do it? And they would say, well, what does it sound like? And I'm like, well, it's like this, like a low radiator hum that I can just kind of do for a little bit. And then it fades away. You can't really hold it for very long. They had no clue what I was talking about. And for years, I kind of thought I was crazy or at least had something wrong with one of my ears, which I also do.

But that's irrelevant. That's a different story. But it wasn't until a few years ago that I saw an article online that was like, hey, can you do this weird thing with your ears? Where there's a small group of people who basically have a muscle inside of their ear, inside of their head that they can like flex. And when they do, it creates this like radiator, like vibration noise inside their own heads. That's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. I can't do that. That's for sure. This is exactly like the hum, like me trying to explain, like I'm lucky I've basically managed to weaponize the hum. I can turn it on and off inside my own head by flexing. This is you talking to the general. I think we can weaponize this son of a bitch.

Turn it on the commies. Well, we'll get to that in just a minute. Don't worry. But, you know, if one day I was flexing on my siblings and turning on and off my hum and then, why didn't it stop that time? The hum is permanent now. That would have been a very difficult thing for me to try to explain to people as it was when it was just a little noise I could turn on and off in my head. So I'd be really interested to hear, even from our listeners, if they've ever experienced the hum, whether it's a constant background noise or something they can do like me where they flex their ears. This is where this type of phenomenon gets so dicey because I think it was Socrates himself

who said, you know, what goes on in the noggin stays in the noggin. Now that was Socrates. Oh yeah, okay, that tracks. That, you know. It was when the police were trying to interrogate him after stealing a basket of grapes. And he said, what goes on in the noggin stays in the noggin. Like that's not a grape at their heads.

He was a bad man. It gets back to the crux of these issues that are like, is my blue the same as your blue? Once the phenomenon is in your head, in your sensory system, it's very difficult to pick that apart and untangle it. Yeah, especially describing sounds. That's a very complicated thing to do. But it's interesting, Kit, that you briefly mentioned weaponizing the hum. Because while there is no proof that the hum itself has come from some sort of military technology, it wouldn't be the first time that governments and militaries across the world have been able to weaponize essentially audio and noises to damage their enemies in some form or another, whether that's damage their hearing or create some sort of unfortunate response in the bodies. For example, there is such a thing as a LRAD, a long range acoustic device, which can produce a 30 degree

cone of audible sound in frequencies within the human hearing spectrum that can basically make humans feel like they're going crazy. I think I've come across this type of thing. I mean, this is essentially an AK-47 mixed with a Vuvuzela. It's like it shoots horrible sound. Sound bullets. Very specific kind of direction somehow. Yeah, they can do anything from blow out your ears to make you feel nauseous, make you feel sick.

A lot of the symptoms that we heard actually relating to the hum itself. Yeah. It doesn't, you know, take a lot volume wise for a sound to do some damage. You know, I remember reading that, I think it's like submarines and ships, military ones that use, you know, let's say underwater radar and stuff. I never thought about it, but you know, people have campaigned to stuff i never thought about it but you know people have campaigned to try and get those people to stop using whatever like audio system of radar um because they're like yeah that radar ain't free like that's like letting off a bomb of audio underwater it just kills every living thing nearby jesus jellyfish and fish um just like nukes their

brain because it's so loud like we couldn't hear it but it just melts their head imagine going out there and being like an important part of conserving the wildlife of the ocean is making sure that we understand what's going on below the waves they hit the sonar button thousands of fish just float to the surface. Ah, how unfortunate. Cook them up, boys! So you were planning on cooking them the whole time. No, no, no, no, of course not.

It's just an unfortunate circumstance here. You did it again! Keep it going, boys! Well, Rory, you mentioned weaponizing it. We would be remiss if we didn't mention probably the most famous audio mystery of the last few years, which was the Cuban embassy auditory attack. events unfolded that came to be known as Havana Syndrome. Jesus! One day, many embassy workers reported hearing strange grating noises coming from a specific direction. People experienced pressure, vibration, or sensation comparable to driving a car with the window partly rolled down.

You know when it starts going like dum-dum-dum-dum? Oh yeah, your ears start going weird. these noises lasted from 20 seconds to 30 minutes and happened either while they were at home or in hotel rooms oh wow so it wasn't even just in the building holy shit other people nearby including their family members or guests did not experience the same syndromes. People reported hearing loss, memory loss, nausea. It caused a big f***ing deal because it was understood then and to some understood still now as potentially an attack of some kind, that it was potentially an attack by an enemy government or terrorists or something on US embassy workers. Right, like trialing some sort of experimental audio weapon.

And to this day, no one knows what happened. Some people think it was a mass hysteria, that they all just went loco and talked themselves into it. Others think that it was caused by microwave radiation, whether that was a weapon or something happening in the building or to those specific people. Damn. But others thought that it was, yeah, some kind of newfangled military audio weapon. But maybe it was the hum.

Yeah, holy shit. That's insane. And this is the problem that we're going to have when we're talking about the hum, because even though so many people have heard it all over the world, it's been so persistent, it's given people these health problems and these psychological problems they've had to deal with, there isn't even a paranormal explanation behind it. You you know there is no history or lore as to why it's happening there's no curse there's no creature or ghost or legend behind explaining why it's appearing the fact that it's happening in so many different countries would also lead you to believe it probably isn't some sort of government project. The only possible and plausible paranormal explanation

would be some sort of alien interference, you know, something beyond the Earth's control, whether that's some sort of intelligent life that is creating these signals that it's audible all over the world. But shy of that, this thing is a proper mystery. all over the world. But shy of that, this thing is a proper mystery. It is. Rarely do we have something that is so mysterious and yet affects so many people and is kind of unexplained. Yeah, I really don't know where to come down on this. You know, we've investigated stuff like this in the past. Not too long ago, we had the Lavender Town Syndrome from the Pokemon games. That's right. That allegedly made children go crazy. We've talked about the Whistler, a paranormal entity who's known and can be spotted and

detected by the sounds of whistling. But those stories kind of logically made sense and had an explanation. This is just a hum that comes out of nowhere and then goes without any explanation. Even when looking into possible paranormal explanations, there really aren't that many out of nowhere and then goes without any explanation. Even when looking into possible paranormal explanations, there really aren't that many out there. So when we're coming down on our conclusions, I guess we have to think about what we would define as being paranormal. So it's going to be an interesting one to come down on a conclusion for.

And that's why I'm going to let you take the lead, Kit. Yeah, you're absolutely right. There's a number of problems as you say we have to decide whether any of it could even be considered paranormal but another problem is that the actual phenomenon is so vague and simple yeah this sound that whilst we do have yes a percentage of the earth's population saying they're experiencing it we'll never know who's hearing the hum for real and who really does live next to a wind farm like some people genuinely are hearing rumbling yeah

and they're like yeah man i heard it for uh one summer in 2020 and then if you really looked into it maybe there was yeah um ships sailing by that summer. A hundred percent. And you were hearing it, but other people actually are hearing something in their head. I mean, full disclosure, if you do research on the hum, pretty much 80% of the biggest cases involving the hum were explained almost immediately by something nearby. Whether that was boats, whether that was, as I said, factory fans, wind farms. I think there's a particular fish in the ocean that when it wants to bang, it admits a very loud humming noise that apparently explained a few cases. It's hard, right? A hum can come from so many different places. It's difficult to tell which one is actually being emitted from somewhere and which

one is otherworldlyly it's a difficult thing to describe you know all the population of the earth say that they've experienced uh love happiness you know things that have eluded me for years and it's kind of like you know is that is that is it paranormal or is it like a normal thing that people feel it's definitely normal is it like most people feel it do two to four percent of the population are sad all the time is that is that something that would be more paranormal yes what is love can you run from it can you drive away from it in the car will it chase you down uh that's what sadness does i could tell you that one for free i feel like

you're kind of shoehorning your own experiences in here. More for you to talk about them than to actually serve the conclusions portion of the podcast. This is me talking to Jenkins after he's solved the mystery of the hum. Guys, pick your head for a minute. Jenkins, you're a smart guy. What do women like? He's like, I don't know. Leave me alone. Don't figure out what love is yet because brother needs some tips over here.

Imagine getting a tour of the NASA headquarters and being like, yo, you'll crack this love thing. Is it like a f***ing smell or like a vibe? I don't know what's going on here. You'll crack the perfect Tinder opener yet because I'm getting nothing. I don't really know where to come down on this one. I think. I do. All right.

Well, let's chat about it a little bit more. Sorry, I got kind of excited there. Do you want me to let you finish? Because I do. I do. To be fair. Okay, that's cool. Well, let's, you know, we'll bat it back and forth a little bit.

I feel like we've been batting it back and forth already. I feel like we weren't quite done yet. We weren't quite done yet. We weren't quite done yet. So the thing about the hum is, you know, it's everywhere and it's nowhere at the same time. So when considering that, one must think about it for sure. We have to think about it. We have to think about all these things. Sorry, I was trying to hold my breath.

I can't do it anymore. It's a no. All right. Wow. about we have to think about all these things sorry i was trying to hold my breath i can't do it anymore it's a no uh all right wow um that would hurt me more if i also wasn't agreeing that it is a no okay so we got there yes we did get there um i think we just need some even if there was just any possible way that this could be linked to the world of the paranormal i might be more on the fence but this thing is such a standalone bizarre phenomenon. I don't really see how this could be linked to anything otherworldly. This sounds scientific. I don't know how, but it sounds like there's something going on in the wind or the balance of the earth or magnetic fields or

some Jenkins bullshit that makes the hum appear. Now, if someone heard the hum in New Mexico and then flew to Canada to get away from it and the first thing they hear in the arrivals lounge is the hum, then we'd be looking at something else. But what we're seeing is this is a very geolocated thing, which means it's probably existing within our world. Happy with that? Couldn't have said it better.

Hard to give a yes on a case which is impossible to prove. Yeah. Or impossible to provide evidence for. The evidence is noise. It's not really that. A noise that not everyone can hear and cannot be recorded. Yeah. Well, anyway, I had a blast researching this episode. A shout out to

researcher Amy for pulling this one together and Louis Blatherwick for editing. Thank you so much, everyone, for listening to this week's episode of This Paranormal Life. To a lot of you guys out there, we're the hum. We are a constant in your ears, just relentlessly attacking the paranormal. And we appreciate that. You know, there's a lot of podcasts out there that you can choose, a lot of paranormal podcasts. But I like to think nobody does it quite like TPL, quite like Kit and Roy. We got our own special sauce. Yeah, much like the hum.

It was all fun and games when everyone tuned in back in 2017. But the jokes worn off for many of our listeners listening to TPL in 2022. When you realize you can't turn getting Rory off, you can't make him stop. Yeah, it's a constant. And if you want This Paranormal Life to be like The Hum, to never stop and keep going, then boy, do I have the answer for you. Welcome to patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life, where you can get all the juicy extras. You get monthly bonus episodes.

You also get the after party, a weekly show where we dive into the behind the scenes of this paranormal life and talk about all the extra bits that we couldn't squeeze into the weekly episodes. about all the extra bits that we couldn't squeeze into the weekly episodes. In fact, not too long ago, we talked about a paranormal accident that happened to me where I woke up with beast scratches all over my wrists. This is a true story. I still have a scratch right here on my wrist. Looks infected, I will say. It's getting worse. It truly is. You can hear all about that on the after parties at patreon.com. Forward slash this paranormal life. And of course, if you support us on the $20 tier,

what we love to do is give you a special personal shout out at the end of every episode. Let's go. Special shout out to the three brown broke girls. Ooh, not a lot of room in the commune for broke girls. We kind of need cash. We got enough of them. The commune needs a cash injection. We got broke guys, broke gals,

and broke everything in between. So if we could get some loaded individuals coming to the commune, that would be great. Granted, the exchange rate on the commune dollar is very bad very bad so honestly if you had 50p a pound you would be a millionaire within the doors of the commune you have your own private suite next to kit and mine thanks to katie harrell katie harrell about you come on down and

toss a coin in the bucket of the paranormal pals. Please do. Been a while since we used that one. I forgot about that one. We will do it. We'll do anything. It's because we were doing fine, but the bucket is back out on account of the economic conditions within the commune. Yeah. What do you want? We will dance. We'll sing.

We'll do whatever you want. Thanks to Emma Davidson Hassan. Emma, we're in a bit of a dilemma. The conditions inside the paranormal communormal Commune were already pretty dire, and now people are starting to chatter about a hum, an insistent hum that's kind of infecting some of the peasants. So, Emma, if you could just kind of go down there, reassure people everything's going to be fine.

Here is a whip if needs be. I insist you don't use it but honestly if you need to use the whip thanks to allison yahata allison yahata than me but that's not saying much uh you know i'm trying to butter you up here because we need your help down in the commune you know um much like the democrats of north america uh we are fundraising we are fundraising and we need your help to to secure the rights of the citizens here in the commune yeah well big time you know there isn't so much of any kind of election or war between parties because it very much is an authoritarian situation inside the commune but uh we still are fundraising we need the cash and if we can get a

hottie to help get people in line that would really help because after my haircut i just ain't doing it anymore thanks to carter taylor carter is a carter counter that's right he can count carter's rat yeah he went to las vegas went up to the high stakes table and he said to his buddies hey give me all your cash don't worry worry. I can count carters. And they were like, all right, sure. They gave him the money. And the dealer was dishing out the cards

and he was like, one, two, three, four. Don't do it out loud. They were like, that's not what counting cards means. It's like a mathematical system you work out in your head. He's like,

I thought you just meant you counted them as they were dealt out. He lost a lot of money that day. Right. Whenever the dealer turned to him and said, it's your hand, he said 15. As if he had won the game. He showed his hand and it was a bust.

Thanks to Liz. Lizzy, can you get busy putting up some soundproofing? I don't think it'll actually work, but we need to do something about this. God forsaken hum, because between you and me, I'm starting to hear it too. It's crazy. It's bad, right? I bought noise cancelling headphones, but they can't cancel my thoughts, Lizzie. So get to work, please. Thanks to Daniel Beach. Life's a beach when you're Daniel. Is he got it good?

Doesn't so much have it good as he just takes it easy no matter what the consequences. Right, living that chill life. I can vibe with that. You know, he's running late for a flight. Eh, just miss it. Whoa, all right. You know, he didn't feel like going to work that day. I guess I'm not going to work. Economically, this must have a lot of repercussions. Couldn't be bothered cooking a nutritious meal? Just eat a handful of fucking Cheerios. Yeah, I'm actually on board with that one. You want me back rounds. Life's a beach when you're Daniel. Thanks to blend 123100. That sounds like you just said a phrase that would activate a machine at a lab so that scientists would have no liability for just what happened. Like they put you on speaker and you're like,

thanks to activate blend specimen 3215. And then a machine does something and they're like, we didn't tell him to do it. That's on you, brother. You just destroyed like 16 clones in a machine. Thanks lastly, but not leastly to Christina Crivelli. Christina Crivelli Christina Crivelli is your telly on

because there's a noise in the commune somewhere and I could see through your window that you were watching television earlier so I need to know if

it's still on in case the hum is coming from there let me in so I can see it for myself and if it isn't we might just start pulling wires out of

the walls because it is here somewhere. Christina. Thank you so much, Christina, and thank you to everyone who supports us on Patreon. We literally could not make the show without you guys, so we are so grateful for your support. Wow. I hope no one

at the end of this episode is hearing a humming noise. Hopefully you guys are safe, but rest assured that if you are and you need answers, this paranormal life has always got your back. Make sure to check out some of the bonus content over on patreon.com. And of course, we'll see you back here next Tuesday for another paranormal tale.