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In Taos, New Mexico, some residents hear a low pulsate
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hum that others cannot detect. They describe it as a
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distant diesel engine, an electrical drone, or a vibration with
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no source. Experts and scientists have found only silence, and
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tonight we'll take a look at the investigation. What you
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were about to be is burity based on witness accounts, testimonies,
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and public record. This is terrifying and true truth. Late
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at night in the quiet desert town of Taos, New Mexico,
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silence begins to change. For most people, there's nothing unusual,
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no engine, no machinery, no vibration in the walls. But
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for a few, the sound is unmistakable. A low hum,
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a distant diesel, a pulse that seems to come from
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everywhere and nowhere. Residents search their homes, They shut off
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the power, They step outside and listen for a truck
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that never arrives. Scientists come with microphones, antennas, magnimeters, and geophones.
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They look for sound in the air, vibration in the ground,
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electromagnetic fields, secret transmissions, and hidden machinery. The instruments only
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record silence. The hearers keep hearing the Hum. Tonight we're
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exploring the Taos Hum, one of the most famous unexplained
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sound mysteries in America, where science, tenetus, conspiracy, government secrecy,
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and human perception collide in the space between what can
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be measured and what cannot be ignored. So make sure
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you're subscribed to hear a new episode every Monday. Now,
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let's see what all the buzz is about. Spring nineteen
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ninety three, four o'clock in the morning, guitarist and music
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teacher Steve Walters is asleep inside his Taos home after
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several days of deliberate quiet. He's been treating the week
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like a personal retreat, yoga meditation, long stretches without the
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usual noise of daily life. Then a dream tears through
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the stillness. In it, a souped up Pontiac gto is
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idling directly outside his bedroom window. The engine isn't roaring,
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It's simply there, low and heavy, cycling with no end.
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The vibration feels menacing because it refuses to alter. Walters
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wakes abruptly, but the engine doesn't stop. He lies still
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and listens. The car from the dream is gone, However,
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the sound remains Walters gets out of bed and searches
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the house. No appliance is running, Nothing outside explains it.
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He moves from room to room, then shuts off the
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circuit breakers, cutting electricity to the entire home. The lights die,
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the house becomes as silent as he can make it.
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The low pulsing continues. Quote. It was very Stephen Kingish.
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That is when Walters realizes he's not hearing a malfunction
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or the echo of a nightmare. He's hearing the thing.
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Neighbors have been trying to describe a distant engine, with
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no vehicle vibration, with no visible machinery, a sound that
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seems to occupy the space just beyond ordinary hearing. By daylight,
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Taos will look unchanged, The desert will stretch beneath the
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Sangre de Cristo mountains. Adobe walls will catch the morning sun.
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Most residents hear nothing unusual, But for Walters, silence has
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acquired a pulse, and once he recognizes it, the Taos
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Hum is waiting whenever the world becomes quiet enough to listen.
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The Taos Hum did not begin with a scientist or
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a government report, or even a single dramatic event. It
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began privately inside homes where people could not expect why
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quiet no longer felt quiet at all. Tao sits in
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northern New Mexico, where open land and high elevation can
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make distance feel almost tangible. In a place known for
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landscape art and stillness, an unexplained mechanical drone felt especially intrusive,
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even among hearers. Descriptions varied. Sarah Allen compared it to
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a distant tractor. Casey Graham's described throbbing power lines with
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a thin wine. Photographer Bob Saltzman heard low grinding static
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like hissing, and a higher ring. Others reached for the
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image that would become most common, a diesel engine idling
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beyond the horizon. Those differences are worth considering. A single
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machine should, in theory, produce a measurable signal with recognizable characteristics.
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The Taos reports behaved more like overlapping impressions. Some hearers
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described one tone, others perceived layers, pulses, or a sensation
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bordering on vibration. Some found it nearly continuous, Others noticed
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it only at particular hours or locations. Most people in
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the same rooms heard nothing. Catania Saltzman said she first
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became aware of the sound in May of nineteen ninety one.
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Bob noticed it roughly two weeks later. Once they both
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recognized it, the hum became part of their home life.
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At night, they played ocean wave recordings to mask it
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just enough to fall asleep. Catanya reported difficulty with balance
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and concentration. The couple eventually spent two months in South
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Carolina seeking relief, only to face the larger question if
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the sound followed them or reappeared elsewhere, what exactly were
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they escaping? Music gave some hearers a more precise vocabulary.
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Walters described a low throb rather than an ordinary ringing tone,
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While musicians consulted by investigators placed the hum near a
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low e flat around forty one hertz. A trained ear
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can identify pitch without identifying origin. The narrow range deepened
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the puzzle. People reported something organized enough to imitate, yet
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the room itself seemed too quiet to explain it. It's
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important not to turn every symptom into proven medical evidence.
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People associated the hum with sleeplessness, headaches, anxiety, nausea, chest sensations,
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and fatigue, but the investigation never established one source capable
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of producing all of those effects. What was documented was
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the distress itself. Disrupted sleep, and constant vigilance can become
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their own burden. Casey Graham's first searched for something wrong
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in her old adobe home. When she couldn't find it,
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she tried to live around the noise. Then she went
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camping about thirty miles away and heard it there too.
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The experience was frightening because it removed the most comforting explanation.
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A broken pump can be repaired, a neighbor's generator can
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be located. But a sound that survives a change of
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scenery begins to feel less like an object and more
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like a pursuer. Months later, at a potluck supper connected
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to her son's school, a stranger asked whether she heard
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a hum. Graham's nearly burst into tears quote, it's such
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a relief to know you're not crazy and not alone.
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That relief explains why the story grew. The Saltsmans began
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asking questions publicly, circulating an informal survey, and speaking with
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people who had believed they were isolated cases. More than
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a hundred contacts were reported in early press coverage. Residents
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attended local meetings compared descriptions and wrote officials. The result
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was not a neat catalog of one phenomenon. It was
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a community discovering that many people had independently given similar
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names to experiences they couldn't prove to anyone standing right
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beside them. There was also a social danger in speaking
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up an invisible sound heard by only a small minority
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invites ridicule. Later, technical writing on unexplained hums would emphasize
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that those reporting them did not appear to be mentally infirm,
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despite the mockery they would sometimes receive. The problem wasn't
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only the noise, It was being required to defend the
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fact that the experience existed at all. The Saltsman's pushed
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the issue toward Washington. Representative Bill Richardson. Initially admitted he
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had regarded the complaints as coming from some of his
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more colorful constituents, but the number and consistency of reports
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persuaded him that dismissal was not enough. Richardson and other
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members of New Mexico's congressional delegation sought federal attention that
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decision brought suspicion into the story. New Mexico was inseparable
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from secret military research nuclear laboratories and restricted testing if
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residents feared an unseen government system of the landscape itself
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seemed to supply reasons. Richardson publicly entertained the possibility of
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a defense related project. The Defense Department and Air Force
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denied responsibility. Neither position identified the source, and every denial
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could be read by a frightened hearer as reassurance or
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further proof of secrecy. By spring of nineteen ninety one,
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the question had become too public to ignore. A team
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of roughly a dozen investigators assembled from the University of
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New Mexico, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, and
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the Air Force's Phillips Laboratory. Because some residents suspected government involvement,
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the inquiry was presented as open and public, rather than
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a closed examination can conducted only by federal laboratories. The
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scientists arrived with microphones, antennas, magnetometers, geophones, and recorders. Taos
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had spent two years asking whether anyone else could hear
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what they heard. Now the instruments would be asked the
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same question before searching for a source. The nineteen ninety
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three team had to define what a successful explanation would
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need to account for interviews suggested three central traits. The
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hum was selective, only a small fraction of residents perceived it,
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It was persistent, many hearers encountered it at least weekly,
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and it was widespread. Similar reports came from beyond one neighbor,
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sometimes far beyond Taos itself. Those traits made ordinary detective
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work difficult. If a factory fan is loud enough to
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disturb a community, microphones should detect it, and more than
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a few people should notice. If the sound exists only
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inside one listener's auditory system, geography should matter less. The
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Taos hum appeared to borrow features from both possibilities, while
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fitting neither cleanly. The investigation was coordinated by University of
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New Mexico engineer Joe Mullens and included researchers from Los Alamos,
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Phillips Laboratory, Sandia and the University of New Mexico Health
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Sciences Center. Their specialties were important because the hum crossed
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so many boundaries. Acousticians could search the air, geophysicists could
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search the ground, Electrical engineers could examine fields and transmissions.
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Hearing scientist James Kelly could ask whether the missing source
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was not outside the listener at all, but somewhere between
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inner ear and brain. The team began with the hearers.
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Then people took part in matching tests inside a guesthouse
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bedroom near the rural home of Bob and Catania Saltzman.
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Investigators played a controllable low frequency tone through a speaker
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and asked each participant to adjust it until it resembled
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the hum. Eight of the ten reproduced their chosen match
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with notable consistency. Their selected carrier frequencies ranged from about
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thirty two to eighty hertz, near the lowest portion of
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normal human hearing. The pulse or modulation they added ranged
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from roughly half a cycle to two cycles per second.
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The matching levels complicated the picture. Participants generally chose amplitudes
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near or below standard hearing sensitivity in that range. The
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test showed what the hum resembled, but not how loud
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an external source would have to be. It revealed pitch
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and pulse without proving that a matching wave was moving
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through the room. To capture anything present, the team built
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an extraordinary detector. An eighteen inch woofer was repurposed as
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an ultra sensitive low frequency microphone with its enclosure, the
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device weighed more than one hundred and fifty pounds. The
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researchers nicknamed it the Big Ear and connected it to
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analysis equipment in a recreational vehicle parked at a distance,
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reducing the chance that their own machinery would contaminate the measurements.
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The hearers could create sounds resembling what they perceived. The
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Big Ear could not find a matching signal in the
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environment at the Saltzman residence. The recorded background was estimated
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to be fifteen to twenty decibels below accepted hearing thresholds
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in the relevant low frequency range. Several participants said they
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could still hear the hum while that quiet background was
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being measured. Some reported another intriguing effect. When the generated
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test tone approached the hum they already perceived, they heard beats,
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a rhythmic waxing and fading that normally occurs when two
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nearby frequencies interact. If genuine, that would suggest a second
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physical tone was present, but similar beat reports could not
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be demonstrated reliably in controlled matching experiments involving tinatus. The
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clue was provocative, not conclusive. The investigation expanded beyond acoustics.
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The Saltsman Home and the Taus golf course became principal
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measurement sites, with additional readings around the region. Geophones listened
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for ground vibration, Magnetometers tracked low frequency magnetic activity. Antennas
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and receivers surveyed electromagnetic signals from twenty hertz to eighteen gigahertz.
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There were findings, but each led to somewhere ordinary. A
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strong sixty hertz harmonic appeared around Taos, consistent with the
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electrical power grid, yet hearers reported an intense hung near
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remote trespedris, where investigators found little of that component. Natural
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Shuman resonances appeared normal. Radio and television transmissions were identifiable
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as exactly that the seismic equipment offered. The investigation's most
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human moment, one apparently massive event looked dramatic until the
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team discovered a gopher had been restoring a burrow obstructed
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by the geophone. The Earth had spoken, but not with
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the voice anyone was seeking. Researchers also examined a theory
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already spreading through the community, extremely low frequency transmissions used
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by the United States Navy to communicate with submarines. They
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watched the relevant range around sixty five to seventy five hertz.
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Nothing rose above the noise. Considering the transmitter's location, antenna limitations,
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and the distance to northern New Mexico, the team concluded
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the Navy signal would be below local background levels. One
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investigator made the negative result especially unsettling. Sandia physicist Horace
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Poteite could hear the hum himself. Years later, he remembered
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it as sounding like a large diesel engine operating far away.
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This was not a room full of technicians telling residents
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that nothing was happening. One of the scientists shared the perception,
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while his instruments remained silent. That distinction shaped the team's conclusion.
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They had not disproved the hearers. They had failed to
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detect an acoustic signal, seismic event, or unusual electromagnetic source
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that explained what hearers reported. Weak electromagnetic fields had no
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established mechanism by which they could become sound in the
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human ear. The grid signal did not fit the geography,
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The Navy theory did not fit the measurements. The microphones
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did not record the hum quote. As a result, we
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are left with a mystery. But the week of fieldwork
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had revealed something valuable. Eight hearers could match the thing
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they perceived. Their choices clustered in a genuinely low range.
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The experience was not random, yet it did not correspond
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to a sound the equipment could capture. Investigators began shifting
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attention away from the desert toward the people themselves. They
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mailed questionnaires to eight thousand residents in Taos, Ranchos de Taos,
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Trespiedres Questa, Eaglenest, and Penasco. The transmitters search had produced silence.
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The next evidence would arrive in envelopes. Of the eight
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thousand surveys distributed across the Taos region, one thousand, four
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hundred and forty were returned. Investigators classified one hundred and
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sixty one respondents as hearers. If every person experiencing the
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hum had answered an assumption the researchers knew could not
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be guaranteed, the minimum estimate would be about two percent
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of the surveyed population. The number was small enough that
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an individual hearer could feel alone, yet large enough to
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resist dismissal. It also gave the phenomenon a rough shape.
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Most identified hearers were between thirty and fifty nine. The
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gender split was nearly even. Nearly two thirds most often
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perceived it between evening and morning, when ordinary environmental noise
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falls away. Around eighty percent encountered it at least weekly.
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The geographic answers created a deeper problem. Most people reported
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first noticing the hum in the immediate Taus area, but
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nineteen percent said their first experience occurred more than fifty
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miles away. The team was not looking at a complaint
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confined to one road, one power substation, or one industrial site.
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Either a widespread source was reaching selective listeners, or many
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different experiences were being gathered beneath the same name. That
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second possibility is less cinematic than a hidden transmitter, but
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scientifically important. The tause hum may sound like one object,
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in practice, it could describe several low frequency experiences that
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feel similar. One person might detect a real machine neighbors
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cannot hear. Another might experience tinatus. A third might be
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affected by environmental noise, attention, hearing physiology, and sleep disruption.
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Tinetus became one of the most obvious possibilities. Doesn't mean
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a person is pretending. It simply means the perception of
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sound without an external acoustic source that would be audible
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to others. Although ringing is the stereotype, tinatus can present
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as buzzing, roaring, hissing, clicking, or humming. It can be
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low or high, intermittent or constant, and it can interfere
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with sleep and concentration. In nineteen ninety five, however, the
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TAUS researchers could not simply stamp the case as tinatous
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and walk away. Typical tinatus matching often involved tones between
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three and six thousand herts. The TUSE matches were dramatically lower,
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concentrated between roughly thirty and eighty hertz. Many hearers also
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located the sound outside themselves and insisted it interacted with
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test tones. The reported beats were not reliably reproduced, but
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they kept the external source question alive. The investigators proposed
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more detailed hearing tests, including low frequency threshold comparisons and
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searches for spontaneous autoacoustic emissions faint sounds generated by the
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inner ear itself. The human ear is not merely a
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passive microphone. The cochlia is an active biological system. In
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the nineteen nineties, however, researchers did not have a demonstrated
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low frequency emission capable of explaining the hum. Later studies
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returned to that possibility. In two thousand sixteen, a questionnaire
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study examined one hundred sixty two people who identified as
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hum hearers and focused on features such as beats with
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00:28:04.359 --> 00:28:10.759
outside sounds, head turning effects, and delayed return after air travel.
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Seventy three percent reported at least one The author proposed
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00:28:16.799 --> 00:28:22.359
that for many respondents the cochlia or semi circular canals
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might produce a rare low frequency form of tinatus, but
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the conclusion was based on self reported patterns and not
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every respondent fit. A peer reviewed study published in twenty
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twenty six brought modern equipment to the same question. Researchers
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examined twenty eight people who perceived low frequency sounds that
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most others couldn't hear, along with control groups. Participants who
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could match their percept selected a median frequentcy of fifty hertz,
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00:29:02.440 --> 00:29:07.359
strikingly close to the band identified in Taos decades earlier.
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The study didn't find one decisive physical marker. Only a
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00:29:13.400 --> 00:29:20.000
few participants showed unusually sensitive low frequency hearing. Researchers detected
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00:29:20.079 --> 00:29:25.559
no spontaneous autoacoustic emissions in the low frequency range, despite
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00:29:25.599 --> 00:29:30.519
equipment designed to search for them. The results made low
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00:29:30.599 --> 00:29:37.839
frequency ear generated emissions and unlikely general explanation. They argued
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00:29:37.920 --> 00:29:43.039
that subjective low frequency tenetus was often plausible when no
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00:29:43.279 --> 00:29:48.359
external source could be verified, while explicitly refusing to rule
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00:29:48.400 --> 00:29:55.160
out real external sounds in individual cases that caution is
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00:29:55.359 --> 00:29:59.839
very important. The twenty twenty six work was designed around
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00:30:00.160 --> 00:30:06.079
auditory explanations. It did not test every environmental theory ever
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00:30:06.160 --> 00:30:11.559
attached to the hum. Its sample was also small, yet
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00:30:12.039 --> 00:30:16.160
it strengthened an idea the Taus team had begun confronting
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00:30:16.240 --> 00:30:20.440
in nineteen ninety three. The mystery may not yield a
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00:30:20.519 --> 00:30:25.200
single mechanism because the people gathered under the label may
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00:30:25.240 --> 00:30:30.200
not all be experiencing the same thing. For some hearers,
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00:30:30.759 --> 00:30:36.039
that can sound like evasion. They know the perception feels external.
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00:30:36.680 --> 00:30:40.279
It may seem to occupy a room, a valley, or
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00:30:40.960 --> 00:30:45.680
the space beyond a wall, but the brain normally constructs
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00:30:45.799 --> 00:30:51.480
location from the signals it receives. A sound generated or
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00:30:51.839 --> 00:30:57.039
misprocessed within the auditory system can still be experienced as
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00:30:57.079 --> 00:31:02.640
though it exists outside the head. Calling that tenetus would
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00:31:02.720 --> 00:31:09.839
describe a physiological perception, not an imaginary one. The alternative
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00:31:10.200 --> 00:31:14.480
is no simpler. If a faint external source exists, it
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00:31:14.559 --> 00:31:20.480
may fluctuate, travel unusually through terrain and buildings, or remain
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00:31:20.640 --> 00:31:24.839
audible only to people at the sensitive edge of low
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frequency hearing. To prove it, investigators must record the correct
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signal at the precise moment a hearer perceives it, then
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00:31:35.480 --> 00:31:41.359
show that changing the signal changes the experience. Taos never
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reached that standard. The survey had shown that the hum
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was real as a reported human experience. The instruments had
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shown that no obvious local source explained it. Hearing science
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00:31:57.000 --> 00:32:02.759
offered plausible routes, but no us universal answer. The mystery
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00:32:02.839 --> 00:32:07.640
had divided in two, a sound outside the body that
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00:32:07.720 --> 00:32:14.039
no microphone could find, or a sound within perception that
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00:32:14.160 --> 00:32:27.880
felt as if it filled the world. The unresolved nature
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of taos encouraged theories. Because uncertainty rarely remains empty. It
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attracts whatever a community already fears, industrial pollution, electrical infrastructure,
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military experiments, geology, or technologies too secret to name. Some
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00:32:51.160 --> 00:32:56.839
possibilities were reasonable enough to test, Others grew because no
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00:32:57.160 --> 00:33:02.519
ordinary explanation had closed the case. Industrial noise could not
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be dismissed. In principle, low frequency sound travels efficiently penetrates
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structures and can be difficult to locate by ear alone.
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A later investigation in Kokomo, Indiana, showed how complicated a
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community hum could be. In two thousand and three, investigators
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00:33:26.559 --> 00:33:30.839
traced strong tones at ten and thirty six hertz to
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air compressors and a cooling tower at separate plants. The
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facilities installed controls, and follow up measurements showed the tones
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had been reduced until they were no longer detectable above background.
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At the same locations. Some residents reported relief, most who
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had identified as affected did not. Kokomo did not prove
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their remaining experiences were un It showed that the word
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hum could contain more than one problem at once. Measurable
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industrial noise heightened awareness, possible tenetus, and perception that continued
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after the obvious source was removed. Taos, however, never produced
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even that partial mechanical solution. The electrical grid generated a
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prominent sixty hertz component close to the matched frequencies, but
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the pattern weakened In places where hearers still reported a
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00:34:38.400 --> 00:34:44.039
strong hum. No unusual acoustic tone rose from the background.
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Seismic monitoring found no relevant earth movement electromagnetic measurements located
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00:34:51.840 --> 00:34:57.280
known power, radio and television signals, not an unexplained field
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00:34:57.320 --> 00:35:03.239
aligned with the reports. The secret government theory survived because
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it offered a source powerful enough to be widespread and
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hidden enough to evade ordinary inspection. It also fit New
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00:35:12.960 --> 00:35:20.840
Mexico's history Los Alamos nuclear testing, military ranges, and classified research.
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00:35:21.840 --> 00:35:26.239
Richardson's early suspicion of a defense related project gave the
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00:35:26.320 --> 00:35:33.679
idea political legitimacy, even as the military denied responsibility. Yet
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suspicion is not evidence. The nineteen ninety three team included
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scientists from the very national laboratories some residents distrusted, but
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it was coordinated through the University of New Mexico and
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00:35:50.159 --> 00:35:55.280
structured as a public inquiry For that very reason. The
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00:35:55.360 --> 00:36:01.079
team specifically examined the frequency band associated with naval extremely
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00:36:01.159 --> 00:36:07.239
low frequency transmissions and found nothing above noise. The known
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00:36:07.320 --> 00:36:11.000
transmitters were so distant that their signals should have been
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00:36:11.199 --> 00:36:17.039
overwhelmed by local background in northern New Mexico. No released
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00:36:17.079 --> 00:36:23.079
measurement tied a classified system to the HUM. One bureaucratic
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00:36:23.199 --> 00:36:28.400
episode later added more fuel. Writer Greg Long sought a
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00:36:28.440 --> 00:36:32.559
Department of Energy document through the Freedom of Information Act.
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The Albuquerque Operations Office had withheld a draft report under
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an exemption protecting internal deliberation. In nineteen ninety five, the
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00:36:43.159 --> 00:36:48.280
department's appeals office found that officials had not adequately determined
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00:36:48.360 --> 00:36:52.400
which portions were truly exempt, and sent the matter back.
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00:36:53.320 --> 00:36:57.159
The record confirms that a draft existed and had never
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00:36:57.239 --> 00:37:02.280
been finalized or officially issued. It doesn't establish that the
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00:37:02.400 --> 00:37:09.679
draft identified a weapon transmitter or concealed answer. Still, for
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00:37:09.840 --> 00:37:15.840
people already worried about secrecy, the image was hard to resist.
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00:37:16.760 --> 00:37:22.679
A government HUM report sitting unfinished behind a legal exemption
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00:37:23.559 --> 00:37:30.079
bureaucratic uncertainty looked uncomfortably similar to concealment, even when the
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00:37:30.079 --> 00:37:35.199
public record did not prove a cover up. As national
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00:37:35.239 --> 00:37:39.960
coverage spread, people in other states and countries recognized their
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00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:45.360
own experiences in the Taos descriptions. Joe Mullens received reports
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00:37:45.400 --> 00:37:49.239
from across the United States, but he warned there was
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no way to know whether they involved the same sound.
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00:37:54.360 --> 00:37:59.639
That warning has become more important with time. The phrase
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00:38:00.159 --> 00:38:05.119
the HUM now operates as a global category, not the
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00:38:05.239 --> 00:38:10.960
name of a demonstrated worldwide signal. This may be the
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00:38:11.000 --> 00:38:15.440
central truth of the case Taos gave the mystery a
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memorable home, but not necessarily a single birthplace. The reports
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00:38:22.519 --> 00:38:29.039
could include faint external sounds, low frequency tenetus, unusual sensitivity,
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00:38:29.400 --> 00:38:35.480
sleep related attention, and mechanisms not yet identified. The fact
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that one explanation fits one hearer does not require it
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00:38:39.920 --> 00:38:45.119
to fit the next. That plural answer can feel unsatisfying.
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A monster can be unmasked, a machine can be switched off.
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Even a government program can eventually leave records. Multiple causes
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00:38:57.079 --> 00:39:01.679
deny the story a clean ending. They also match the
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00:39:01.719 --> 00:39:06.519
evidence better than pretending the investigation solved what it didn't.
401
00:39:07.719 --> 00:39:10.400
For the people who heard the hum the absence of
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00:39:10.440 --> 00:39:15.599
a source was not neutral. It meant no repair order,
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00:39:16.119 --> 00:39:20.199
no authority responsible for stopping it, and no simple way
404
00:39:20.360 --> 00:39:26.119
to convince a spouse or neighbour. The Taos researchers did
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something essential, even while failing to explain the phenomenon. They
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00:39:31.679 --> 00:39:36.719
treated the hearers as witnesses to an experience worth studying.
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More than three decades after the field investigation, modern hearing
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00:39:42.480 --> 00:39:48.360
research has narrowed possibilities, but hasn't closed the case. Low
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00:39:48.440 --> 00:39:56.039
frequency subjective tenetus appears capable of explaining many reports. Rare sensitivity,
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00:39:56.119 --> 00:40:02.199
and ordinary environmental sources can explain others. Ear generated emissions
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00:40:02.280 --> 00:40:06.480
have not emerged as a broad solution, and no evidence
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has established a single hidden transmission encircling Taos. So imagine
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the town after midnight. The day's traffic is gone. The
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00:40:19.800 --> 00:40:24.960
wind settles against the adobe walls. For most people, the
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00:40:25.079 --> 00:40:31.519
quiet is complete. For a few, something begins at the threshold,
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A distant engine, a pressure, a pulse that seems to
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00:40:37.639 --> 00:40:43.880
come from everywhere and nowhere. They check the appliances, they
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00:40:43.920 --> 00:40:48.920
step outside, They listen for a truck that never approaches.
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Some leave town and hear nothing. Some leave and discover
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the sound has come with them. The frightening possible ability
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is not simply that an unknown machine is operating in
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the desert. It's that perception has become a locked room,
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an experience undeniable to the person inside it and inaccessible
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to everyone standing only a few feet away. In Taos,
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the instruments recorded silence, the hearers did not, and somewhere
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between those two facts, the hum continues. Terrifying and True
427
00:41:36.679 --> 00:41:40.320
is narrated by Enrique Kuto. It's executive produced by Rob
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00:41:40.400 --> 00:41:44.519
Fields and bobble Topia dot Com, and produced by Dan Wilder.
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00:41:44.639 --> 00:41:47.599
With original theme music by Ray Mattis. If you have
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00:41:47.679 --> 00:41:50.719
a story you think we should cover on Terrifying and True,
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send us an email at Weekly Spooky at gmail dot com.
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And if you want to support us for as little
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as one dollar a month, go to Weeklyspooky dot com
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slash join. Your support for as little as one dollar
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a month keeps the show going. And speaking of I
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want to say an extra special thank you to our
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Patreon podcast boosters, folks who pay a little bit more
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to hear their name at the end of the show,
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and they are Johnny Nicks, Kate and Lulu, Jessica Fuller,
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Mike Escuey, Jenny Green, Amber Hansburg, Karen Wee, Met Jack Ker,
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and Craig Cohen. Thank you all so much, and thank
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00:42:22.039 --> 00:42:24.800
you for listening. We'll see you all right here next
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time on Terrifying and True.
1
00:00:00.880 --> 00:00:05.879
In Taos, New Mexico, some residents hear a low pulsate
2
00:00:06.000 --> 00:00:12.039
hum that others cannot detect. They describe it as a
3
00:00:12.199 --> 00:00:17.559
distant diesel engine, an electrical drone, or a vibration with
4
00:00:17.679 --> 00:00:23.120
no source. Experts and scientists have found only silence, and
5
00:00:23.199 --> 00:00:30.960
tonight we'll take a look at the investigation. What you
6
00:00:31.039 --> 00:00:40.119
were about to be is burity based on witness accounts, testimonies,
7
00:00:40.960 --> 00:00:55.479
and public record. This is terrifying and true truth. Late
8
00:00:55.520 --> 00:01:00.679
at night in the quiet desert town of Taos, New Mexico,
9
00:01:00.960 --> 00:01:07.519
silence begins to change. For most people, there's nothing unusual,
10
00:01:08.560 --> 00:01:14.079
no engine, no machinery, no vibration in the walls. But
11
00:01:15.000 --> 00:01:20.560
for a few, the sound is unmistakable. A low hum,
12
00:01:21.280 --> 00:01:25.400
a distant diesel, a pulse that seems to come from
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00:01:25.439 --> 00:01:32.439
everywhere and nowhere. Residents search their homes, They shut off
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00:01:32.480 --> 00:01:36.680
the power, They step outside and listen for a truck
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00:01:36.840 --> 00:01:45.560
that never arrives. Scientists come with microphones, antennas, magnimeters, and geophones.
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00:01:46.560 --> 00:01:50.319
They look for sound in the air, vibration in the ground,
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00:01:50.680 --> 00:01:57.640
electromagnetic fields, secret transmissions, and hidden machinery. The instruments only
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00:01:57.719 --> 00:02:06.120
record silence. The hearers keep hearing the Hum. Tonight we're
19
00:02:06.200 --> 00:02:10.840
exploring the Taos Hum, one of the most famous unexplained
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00:02:11.000 --> 00:02:18.800
sound mysteries in America, where science, tenetus, conspiracy, government secrecy,
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00:02:18.879 --> 00:02:23.719
and human perception collide in the space between what can
22
00:02:23.800 --> 00:02:28.840
be measured and what cannot be ignored. So make sure
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00:02:28.879 --> 00:02:32.479
you're subscribed to hear a new episode every Monday. Now,
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00:02:32.560 --> 00:02:48.080
let's see what all the buzz is about. Spring nineteen
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00:02:48.280 --> 00:02:53.879
ninety three, four o'clock in the morning, guitarist and music
26
00:02:53.960 --> 00:02:59.520
teacher Steve Walters is asleep inside his Taos home after
27
00:02:59.639 --> 00:03:04.960
several days of deliberate quiet. He's been treating the week
28
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like a personal retreat, yoga meditation, long stretches without the
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usual noise of daily life. Then a dream tears through
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the stillness. In it, a souped up Pontiac gto is
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idling directly outside his bedroom window. The engine isn't roaring,
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It's simply there, low and heavy, cycling with no end.
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The vibration feels menacing because it refuses to alter. Walters
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wakes abruptly, but the engine doesn't stop. He lies still
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and listens. The car from the dream is gone, However,
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the sound remains Walters gets out of bed and searches
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the house. No appliance is running, Nothing outside explains it.
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He moves from room to room, then shuts off the
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circuit breakers, cutting electricity to the entire home. The lights die,
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the house becomes as silent as he can make it.
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The low pulsing continues. Quote. It was very Stephen Kingish.
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That is when Walters realizes he's not hearing a malfunction
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or the echo of a nightmare. He's hearing the thing.
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Neighbors have been trying to describe a distant engine, with
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no vehicle vibration, with no visible machinery, a sound that
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seems to occupy the space just beyond ordinary hearing. By daylight,
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Taos will look unchanged, The desert will stretch beneath the
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Sangre de Cristo mountains. Adobe walls will catch the morning sun.
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Most residents hear nothing unusual, But for Walters, silence has
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acquired a pulse, and once he recognizes it, the Taos
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Hum is waiting whenever the world becomes quiet enough to listen.
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The Taos Hum did not begin with a scientist or
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a government report, or even a single dramatic event. It
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began privately inside homes where people could not expect why
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quiet no longer felt quiet at all. Tao sits in
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northern New Mexico, where open land and high elevation can
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make distance feel almost tangible. In a place known for
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landscape art and stillness, an unexplained mechanical drone felt especially intrusive,
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even among hearers. Descriptions varied. Sarah Allen compared it to
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a distant tractor. Casey Graham's described throbbing power lines with
61
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a thin wine. Photographer Bob Saltzman heard low grinding static
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like hissing, and a higher ring. Others reached for the
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image that would become most common, a diesel engine idling
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beyond the horizon. Those differences are worth considering. A single
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machine should, in theory, produce a measurable signal with recognizable characteristics.
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The Taos reports behaved more like overlapping impressions. Some hearers
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described one tone, others perceived layers, pulses, or a sensation
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bordering on vibration. Some found it nearly continuous, Others noticed
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it only at particular hours or locations. Most people in
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the same rooms heard nothing. Catania Saltzman said she first
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became aware of the sound in May of nineteen ninety one.
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Bob noticed it roughly two weeks later. Once they both
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recognized it, the hum became part of their home life.
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At night, they played ocean wave recordings to mask it
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just enough to fall asleep. Catanya reported difficulty with balance
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and concentration. The couple eventually spent two months in South
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Carolina seeking relief, only to face the larger question if
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the sound followed them or reappeared elsewhere, what exactly were
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they escaping? Music gave some hearers a more precise vocabulary.
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Walters described a low throb rather than an ordinary ringing tone,
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While musicians consulted by investigators placed the hum near a
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low e flat around forty one hertz. A trained ear
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can identify pitch without identifying origin. The narrow range deepened
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the puzzle. People reported something organized enough to imitate, yet
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the room itself seemed too quiet to explain it. It's
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important not to turn every symptom into proven medical evidence.
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People associated the hum with sleeplessness, headaches, anxiety, nausea, chest sensations,
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and fatigue, but the investigation never established one source capable
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of producing all of those effects. What was documented was
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the distress itself. Disrupted sleep, and constant vigilance can become
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their own burden. Casey Graham's first searched for something wrong
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in her old adobe home. When she couldn't find it,
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she tried to live around the noise. Then she went
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camping about thirty miles away and heard it there too.
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The experience was frightening because it removed the most comforting explanation.
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A broken pump can be repaired, a neighbor's generator can
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be located. But a sound that survives a change of
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scenery begins to feel less like an object and more
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like a pursuer. Months later, at a potluck supper connected
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to her son's school, a stranger asked whether she heard
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a hum. Graham's nearly burst into tears quote, it's such
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a relief to know you're not crazy and not alone.
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That relief explains why the story grew. The Saltsmans began
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asking questions publicly, circulating an informal survey, and speaking with
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people who had believed they were isolated cases. More than
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a hundred contacts were reported in early press coverage. Residents
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attended local meetings compared descriptions and wrote officials. The result
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was not a neat catalog of one phenomenon. It was
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a community discovering that many people had independently given similar
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names to experiences they couldn't prove to anyone standing right
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beside them. There was also a social danger in speaking
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up an invisible sound heard by only a small minority
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invites ridicule. Later, technical writing on unexplained hums would emphasize
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that those reporting them did not appear to be mentally infirm,
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despite the mockery they would sometimes receive. The problem wasn't
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only the noise, It was being required to defend the
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fact that the experience existed at all. The Saltsman's pushed
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the issue toward Washington. Representative Bill Richardson. Initially admitted he
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had regarded the complaints as coming from some of his
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more colorful constituents, but the number and consistency of reports
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persuaded him that dismissal was not enough. Richardson and other
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members of New Mexico's congressional delegation sought federal attention that
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decision brought suspicion into the story. New Mexico was inseparable
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from secret military research nuclear laboratories and restricted testing if
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residents feared an unseen government system of the landscape itself
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seemed to supply reasons. Richardson publicly entertained the possibility of
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a defense related project. The Defense Department and Air Force
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denied responsibility. Neither position identified the source, and every denial
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could be read by a frightened hearer as reassurance or
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further proof of secrecy. By spring of nineteen ninety one,
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the question had become too public to ignore. A team
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of roughly a dozen investigators assembled from the University of
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New Mexico, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, and
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the Air Force's Phillips Laboratory. Because some residents suspected government involvement,
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the inquiry was presented as open and public, rather than
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a closed examination can conducted only by federal laboratories. The
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scientists arrived with microphones, antennas, magnetometers, geophones, and recorders. Taos
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had spent two years asking whether anyone else could hear
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what they heard. Now the instruments would be asked the
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same question before searching for a source. The nineteen ninety
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three team had to define what a successful explanation would
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need to account for interviews suggested three central traits. The
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hum was selective, only a small fraction of residents perceived it,
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It was persistent, many hearers encountered it at least weekly,
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and it was widespread. Similar reports came from beyond one neighbor,
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sometimes far beyond Taos itself. Those traits made ordinary detective
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work difficult. If a factory fan is loud enough to
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disturb a community, microphones should detect it, and more than
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a few people should notice. If the sound exists only
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inside one listener's auditory system, geography should matter less. The
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Taos hum appeared to borrow features from both possibilities, while
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fitting neither cleanly. The investigation was coordinated by University of
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New Mexico engineer Joe Mullens and included researchers from Los Alamos,
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Phillips Laboratory, Sandia and the University of New Mexico Health
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Sciences Center. Their specialties were important because the hum crossed
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so many boundaries. Acousticians could search the air, geophysicists could
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search the ground, Electrical engineers could examine fields and transmissions.
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Hearing scientist James Kelly could ask whether the missing source
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was not outside the listener at all, but somewhere between
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inner ear and brain. The team began with the hearers.
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Then people took part in matching tests inside a guesthouse
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bedroom near the rural home of Bob and Catania Saltzman.
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Investigators played a controllable low frequency tone through a speaker
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and asked each participant to adjust it until it resembled
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the hum. Eight of the ten reproduced their chosen match
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with notable consistency. Their selected carrier frequencies ranged from about
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thirty two to eighty hertz, near the lowest portion of
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normal human hearing. The pulse or modulation they added ranged
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from roughly half a cycle to two cycles per second.
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The matching levels complicated the picture. Participants generally chose amplitudes
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near or below standard hearing sensitivity in that range. The
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test showed what the hum resembled, but not how loud
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an external source would have to be. It revealed pitch
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and pulse without proving that a matching wave was moving
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through the room. To capture anything present, the team built
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an extraordinary detector. An eighteen inch woofer was repurposed as
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an ultra sensitive low frequency microphone with its enclosure, the
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device weighed more than one hundred and fifty pounds. The
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researchers nicknamed it the Big Ear and connected it to
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analysis equipment in a recreational vehicle parked at a distance,
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reducing the chance that their own machinery would contaminate the measurements.
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The hearers could create sounds resembling what they perceived. The
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Big Ear could not find a matching signal in the
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environment at the Saltzman residence. The recorded background was estimated
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to be fifteen to twenty decibels below accepted hearing thresholds
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in the relevant low frequency range. Several participants said they
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could still hear the hum while that quiet background was
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being measured. Some reported another intriguing effect. When the generated
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test tone approached the hum they already perceived, they heard beats,
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a rhythmic waxing and fading that normally occurs when two
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nearby frequencies interact. If genuine, that would suggest a second
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physical tone was present, but similar beat reports could not
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be demonstrated reliably in controlled matching experiments involving tinatus. The
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clue was provocative, not conclusive. The investigation expanded beyond acoustics.
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The Saltsman Home and the Taus golf course became principal
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measurement sites, with additional readings around the region. Geophones listened
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for ground vibration, Magnetometers tracked low frequency magnetic activity. Antennas
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and receivers surveyed electromagnetic signals from twenty hertz to eighteen gigahertz.
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There were findings, but each led to somewhere ordinary. A
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strong sixty hertz harmonic appeared around Taos, consistent with the
201
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electrical power grid, yet hearers reported an intense hung near
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remote trespedris, where investigators found little of that component. Natural
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Shuman resonances appeared normal. Radio and television transmissions were identifiable
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as exactly that the seismic equipment offered. The investigation's most
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human moment, one apparently massive event looked dramatic until the
206
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team discovered a gopher had been restoring a burrow obstructed
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by the geophone. The Earth had spoken, but not with
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the voice anyone was seeking. Researchers also examined a theory
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already spreading through the community, extremely low frequency transmissions used
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by the United States Navy to communicate with submarines. They
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watched the relevant range around sixty five to seventy five hertz.
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Nothing rose above the noise. Considering the transmitter's location, antenna limitations,
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and the distance to northern New Mexico, the team concluded
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the Navy signal would be below local background levels. One
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investigator made the negative result especially unsettling. Sandia physicist Horace
216
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Poteite could hear the hum himself. Years later, he remembered
217
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it as sounding like a large diesel engine operating far away.
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This was not a room full of technicians telling residents
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that nothing was happening. One of the scientists shared the perception,
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while his instruments remained silent. That distinction shaped the team's conclusion.
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They had not disproved the hearers. They had failed to
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detect an acoustic signal, seismic event, or unusual electromagnetic source
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that explained what hearers reported. Weak electromagnetic fields had no
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established mechanism by which they could become sound in the
225
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human ear. The grid signal did not fit the geography,
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The Navy theory did not fit the measurements. The microphones
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did not record the hum quote. As a result, we
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are left with a mystery. But the week of fieldwork
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had revealed something valuable. Eight hearers could match the thing
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they perceived. Their choices clustered in a genuinely low range.
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The experience was not random, yet it did not correspond
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to a sound the equipment could capture. Investigators began shifting
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attention away from the desert toward the people themselves. They
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mailed questionnaires to eight thousand residents in Taos, Ranchos de Taos,
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Trespiedres Questa, Eaglenest, and Penasco. The transmitters search had produced silence.
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The next evidence would arrive in envelopes. Of the eight
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thousand surveys distributed across the Taos region, one thousand, four
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hundred and forty were returned. Investigators classified one hundred and
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sixty one respondents as hearers. If every person experiencing the
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hum had answered an assumption the researchers knew could not
241
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be guaranteed, the minimum estimate would be about two percent
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of the surveyed population. The number was small enough that
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an individual hearer could feel alone, yet large enough to
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resist dismissal. It also gave the phenomenon a rough shape.
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Most identified hearers were between thirty and fifty nine. The
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gender split was nearly even. Nearly two thirds most often
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perceived it between evening and morning, when ordinary environmental noise
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falls away. Around eighty percent encountered it at least weekly.
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The geographic answers created a deeper problem. Most people reported
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first noticing the hum in the immediate Taus area, but
251
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nineteen percent said their first experience occurred more than fifty
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miles away. The team was not looking at a complaint
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confined to one road, one power substation, or one industrial site.
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Either a widespread source was reaching selective listeners, or many
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different experiences were being gathered beneath the same name. That
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second possibility is less cinematic than a hidden transmitter, but
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scientifically important. The tause hum may sound like one object,
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in practice, it could describe several low frequency experiences that
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feel similar. One person might detect a real machine neighbors
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cannot hear. Another might experience tinatus. A third might be
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affected by environmental noise, attention, hearing physiology, and sleep disruption.
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Tinetus became one of the most obvious possibilities. Doesn't mean
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a person is pretending. It simply means the perception of
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sound without an external acoustic source that would be audible
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to others. Although ringing is the stereotype, tinatus can present
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as buzzing, roaring, hissing, clicking, or humming. It can be
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low or high, intermittent or constant, and it can interfere
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with sleep and concentration. In nineteen ninety five, however, the
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TAUS researchers could not simply stamp the case as tinatous
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and walk away. Typical tinatus matching often involved tones between
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three and six thousand herts. The TUSE matches were dramatically lower,
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concentrated between roughly thirty and eighty hertz. Many hearers also
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located the sound outside themselves and insisted it interacted with
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test tones. The reported beats were not reliably reproduced, but
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they kept the external source question alive. The investigators proposed
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more detailed hearing tests, including low frequency threshold comparisons and
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searches for spontaneous autoacoustic emissions faint sounds generated by the
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inner ear itself. The human ear is not merely a
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passive microphone. The cochlia is an active biological system. In
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the nineteen nineties, however, researchers did not have a demonstrated
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low frequency emission capable of explaining the hum. Later studies
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returned to that possibility. In two thousand sixteen, a questionnaire
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00:27:55.279 --> 00:27:59.839
study examined one hundred sixty two people who identified as
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hum hearers and focused on features such as beats with
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00:28:04.359 --> 00:28:10.759
outside sounds, head turning effects, and delayed return after air travel.
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00:28:11.720 --> 00:28:16.799
Seventy three percent reported at least one The author proposed
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00:28:16.799 --> 00:28:22.359
that for many respondents the cochlia or semi circular canals
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00:28:22.880 --> 00:28:28.000
might produce a rare low frequency form of tinatus, but
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00:28:28.319 --> 00:28:32.920
the conclusion was based on self reported patterns and not
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00:28:33.119 --> 00:28:39.119
every respondent fit. A peer reviewed study published in twenty
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twenty six brought modern equipment to the same question. Researchers
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00:28:45.319 --> 00:28:50.119
examined twenty eight people who perceived low frequency sounds that
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most others couldn't hear, along with control groups. Participants who
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00:28:56.720 --> 00:29:01.680
could match their percept selected a median frequentcy of fifty hertz,
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00:29:02.440 --> 00:29:07.359
strikingly close to the band identified in Taos decades earlier.
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The study didn't find one decisive physical marker. Only a
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00:29:13.400 --> 00:29:20.000
few participants showed unusually sensitive low frequency hearing. Researchers detected
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00:29:20.079 --> 00:29:25.559
no spontaneous autoacoustic emissions in the low frequency range, despite
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00:29:25.599 --> 00:29:30.519
equipment designed to search for them. The results made low
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00:29:30.599 --> 00:29:37.839
frequency ear generated emissions and unlikely general explanation. They argued
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00:29:37.920 --> 00:29:43.039
that subjective low frequency tenetus was often plausible when no
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00:29:43.279 --> 00:29:48.359
external source could be verified, while explicitly refusing to rule
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00:29:48.400 --> 00:29:55.160
out real external sounds in individual cases that caution is
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00:29:55.359 --> 00:29:59.839
very important. The twenty twenty six work was designed around
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00:30:00.160 --> 00:30:06.079
auditory explanations. It did not test every environmental theory ever
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00:30:06.160 --> 00:30:11.559
attached to the hum. Its sample was also small, yet
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00:30:12.039 --> 00:30:16.160
it strengthened an idea the Taus team had begun confronting
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00:30:16.240 --> 00:30:20.440
in nineteen ninety three. The mystery may not yield a
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00:30:20.519 --> 00:30:25.200
single mechanism because the people gathered under the label may
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00:30:25.240 --> 00:30:30.200
not all be experiencing the same thing. For some hearers,
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00:30:30.759 --> 00:30:36.039
that can sound like evasion. They know the perception feels external.
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00:30:36.680 --> 00:30:40.279
It may seem to occupy a room, a valley, or
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00:30:40.960 --> 00:30:45.680
the space beyond a wall, but the brain normally constructs
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00:30:45.799 --> 00:30:51.480
location from the signals it receives. A sound generated or
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00:30:51.839 --> 00:30:57.039
misprocessed within the auditory system can still be experienced as
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00:30:57.079 --> 00:31:02.640
though it exists outside the head. Calling that tenetus would
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00:31:02.720 --> 00:31:09.839
describe a physiological perception, not an imaginary one. The alternative
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00:31:10.200 --> 00:31:14.480
is no simpler. If a faint external source exists, it
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00:31:14.559 --> 00:31:20.480
may fluctuate, travel unusually through terrain and buildings, or remain
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00:31:20.640 --> 00:31:24.839
audible only to people at the sensitive edge of low
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00:31:24.960 --> 00:31:30.400
frequency hearing. To prove it, investigators must record the correct
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signal at the precise moment a hearer perceives it, then
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show that changing the signal changes the experience. Taos never
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reached that standard. The survey had shown that the hum
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was real as a reported human experience. The instruments had
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shown that no obvious local source explained it. Hearing science
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00:31:57.000 --> 00:32:02.759
offered plausible routes, but no us universal answer. The mystery
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00:32:02.839 --> 00:32:07.640
had divided in two, a sound outside the body that
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00:32:07.720 --> 00:32:14.039
no microphone could find, or a sound within perception that
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00:32:14.160 --> 00:32:27.880
felt as if it filled the world. The unresolved nature
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of taos encouraged theories. Because uncertainty rarely remains empty. It
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attracts whatever a community already fears, industrial pollution, electrical infrastructure,
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00:32:43.160 --> 00:32:51.039
military experiments, geology, or technologies too secret to name. Some
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00:32:51.160 --> 00:32:56.839
possibilities were reasonable enough to test, Others grew because no
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00:32:57.160 --> 00:33:02.519
ordinary explanation had closed the case. Industrial noise could not
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be dismissed. In principle, low frequency sound travels efficiently penetrates
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structures and can be difficult to locate by ear alone.
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A later investigation in Kokomo, Indiana, showed how complicated a
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00:33:20.720 --> 00:33:26.480
community hum could be. In two thousand and three, investigators
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00:33:26.559 --> 00:33:30.839
traced strong tones at ten and thirty six hertz to
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00:33:30.960 --> 00:33:35.960
air compressors and a cooling tower at separate plants. The
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00:33:36.000 --> 00:33:41.039
facilities installed controls, and follow up measurements showed the tones
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had been reduced until they were no longer detectable above background.
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At the same locations. Some residents reported relief, most who
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00:33:51.799 --> 00:33:57.319
had identified as affected did not. Kokomo did not prove
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their remaining experiences were un It showed that the word
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00:34:02.400 --> 00:34:08.280
hum could contain more than one problem at once. Measurable
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00:34:08.360 --> 00:34:15.679
industrial noise heightened awareness, possible tenetus, and perception that continued
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00:34:15.760 --> 00:34:22.159
after the obvious source was removed. Taos, however, never produced
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even that partial mechanical solution. The electrical grid generated a
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00:34:28.039 --> 00:34:33.559
prominent sixty hertz component close to the matched frequencies, but
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the pattern weakened In places where hearers still reported a
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00:34:38.400 --> 00:34:44.039
strong hum. No unusual acoustic tone rose from the background.
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00:34:45.199 --> 00:34:51.760
Seismic monitoring found no relevant earth movement electromagnetic measurements located
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00:34:51.840 --> 00:34:57.280
known power, radio and television signals, not an unexplained field
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00:34:57.320 --> 00:35:03.239
aligned with the reports. The secret government theory survived because
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00:35:03.280 --> 00:35:07.639
it offered a source powerful enough to be widespread and
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00:35:07.880 --> 00:35:12.920
hidden enough to evade ordinary inspection. It also fit New
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00:35:12.960 --> 00:35:20.840
Mexico's history Los Alamos nuclear testing, military ranges, and classified research.
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00:35:21.840 --> 00:35:26.239
Richardson's early suspicion of a defense related project gave the
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00:35:26.320 --> 00:35:33.679
idea political legitimacy, even as the military denied responsibility. Yet
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00:35:33.880 --> 00:35:39.039
suspicion is not evidence. The nineteen ninety three team included
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scientists from the very national laboratories some residents distrusted, but
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it was coordinated through the University of New Mexico and
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00:35:50.159 --> 00:35:55.280
structured as a public inquiry For that very reason. The
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00:35:55.360 --> 00:36:01.079
team specifically examined the frequency band associated with naval extremely
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00:36:01.159 --> 00:36:07.239
low frequency transmissions and found nothing above noise. The known
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00:36:07.320 --> 00:36:11.000
transmitters were so distant that their signals should have been
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00:36:11.199 --> 00:36:17.039
overwhelmed by local background in northern New Mexico. No released
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00:36:17.079 --> 00:36:23.079
measurement tied a classified system to the HUM. One bureaucratic
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00:36:23.199 --> 00:36:28.400
episode later added more fuel. Writer Greg Long sought a
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00:36:28.440 --> 00:36:32.559
Department of Energy document through the Freedom of Information Act.
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00:36:33.199 --> 00:36:37.760
The Albuquerque Operations Office had withheld a draft report under
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00:36:37.800 --> 00:36:43.119
an exemption protecting internal deliberation. In nineteen ninety five, the
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00:36:43.159 --> 00:36:48.280
department's appeals office found that officials had not adequately determined
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00:36:48.360 --> 00:36:52.400
which portions were truly exempt, and sent the matter back.
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00:36:53.320 --> 00:36:57.159
The record confirms that a draft existed and had never
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00:36:57.239 --> 00:37:02.280
been finalized or officially issued. It doesn't establish that the
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00:37:02.400 --> 00:37:09.679
draft identified a weapon transmitter or concealed answer. Still, for
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00:37:09.840 --> 00:37:15.840
people already worried about secrecy, the image was hard to resist.
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00:37:16.760 --> 00:37:22.679
A government HUM report sitting unfinished behind a legal exemption
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00:37:23.559 --> 00:37:30.079
bureaucratic uncertainty looked uncomfortably similar to concealment, even when the
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00:37:30.079 --> 00:37:35.199
public record did not prove a cover up. As national
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00:37:35.239 --> 00:37:39.960
coverage spread, people in other states and countries recognized their
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00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:45.360
own experiences in the Taos descriptions. Joe Mullens received reports
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00:37:45.400 --> 00:37:49.239
from across the United States, but he warned there was
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00:37:49.480 --> 00:37:53.320
no way to know whether they involved the same sound.
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00:37:54.360 --> 00:37:59.639
That warning has become more important with time. The phrase
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00:38:00.159 --> 00:38:05.119
the HUM now operates as a global category, not the
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00:38:05.239 --> 00:38:10.960
name of a demonstrated worldwide signal. This may be the
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00:38:11.000 --> 00:38:15.440
central truth of the case Taos gave the mystery a
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memorable home, but not necessarily a single birthplace. The reports
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00:38:22.519 --> 00:38:29.039
could include faint external sounds, low frequency tenetus, unusual sensitivity,
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00:38:29.400 --> 00:38:35.480
sleep related attention, and mechanisms not yet identified. The fact
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that one explanation fits one hearer does not require it
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00:38:39.920 --> 00:38:45.119
to fit the next. That plural answer can feel unsatisfying.
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A monster can be unmasked, a machine can be switched off.
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Even a government program can eventually leave records. Multiple causes
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00:38:57.079 --> 00:39:01.679
deny the story a clean ending. They also match the
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00:39:01.719 --> 00:39:06.519
evidence better than pretending the investigation solved what it didn't.
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00:39:07.719 --> 00:39:10.400
For the people who heard the hum the absence of
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00:39:10.440 --> 00:39:15.599
a source was not neutral. It meant no repair order,
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00:39:16.119 --> 00:39:20.199
no authority responsible for stopping it, and no simple way
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00:39:20.360 --> 00:39:26.119
to convince a spouse or neighbour. The Taos researchers did
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00:39:26.199 --> 00:39:31.599
something essential, even while failing to explain the phenomenon. They
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00:39:31.679 --> 00:39:36.719
treated the hearers as witnesses to an experience worth studying.
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00:39:37.639 --> 00:39:42.400
More than three decades after the field investigation, modern hearing
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00:39:42.480 --> 00:39:48.360
research has narrowed possibilities, but hasn't closed the case. Low
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00:39:48.440 --> 00:39:56.039
frequency subjective tenetus appears capable of explaining many reports. Rare sensitivity,
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00:39:56.119 --> 00:40:02.199
and ordinary environmental sources can explain others. Ear generated emissions
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00:40:02.280 --> 00:40:06.480
have not emerged as a broad solution, and no evidence
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00:40:06.519 --> 00:40:14.519
has established a single hidden transmission encircling Taos. So imagine
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the town after midnight. The day's traffic is gone. The
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00:40:19.800 --> 00:40:24.960
wind settles against the adobe walls. For most people, the
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00:40:25.079 --> 00:40:31.519
quiet is complete. For a few, something begins at the threshold,
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00:40:32.239 --> 00:40:37.559
A distant engine, a pressure, a pulse that seems to
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00:40:37.639 --> 00:40:43.880
come from everywhere and nowhere. They check the appliances, they
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00:40:43.920 --> 00:40:48.920
step outside, They listen for a truck that never approaches.
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Some leave town and hear nothing. Some leave and discover
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00:40:55.199 --> 00:41:00.440
the sound has come with them. The frightening possible ability
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00:41:00.559 --> 00:41:04.599
is not simply that an unknown machine is operating in
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the desert. It's that perception has become a locked room,
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an experience undeniable to the person inside it and inaccessible
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to everyone standing only a few feet away. In Taos,
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the instruments recorded silence, the hearers did not, and somewhere
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between those two facts, the hum continues. Terrifying and True
427
00:41:36.679 --> 00:41:40.320
is narrated by Enrique Kuto. It's executive produced by Rob
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00:41:40.400 --> 00:41:44.519
Fields and bobble Topia dot Com, and produced by Dan Wilder.
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00:41:44.639 --> 00:41:47.599
With original theme music by Ray Mattis. If you have
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a story you think we should cover on Terrifying and True,
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send us an email at Weekly Spooky at gmail dot com.
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And if you want to support us for as little
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as one dollar a month, go to Weeklyspooky dot com
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a month keeps the show going. And speaking of I
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and Craig Cohen. Thank you all so much, and thank
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you for listening. We'll see you all right here next
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