Irritating: Leeds is one of the most recent laces in the UK where the hum has been reported
- The Hum has been heard in isolated places around the world
- It can only be detected by one in fifty people in those areas
- Scientists left baffled as they can’t figure out what causes The Hum
- Those who hear it can experience headaches, nausea, dizziness, nosebleeds and sleep disturbances
It is a noise that only two per cent of people can hear, but this low droning sound would be enough to drive anyone mad.
Scientists have been left baffled because they can’t figure out what causes a phenomenon called The Hum, or why it affects so few people.
Sufferers have identified common factors: the humming is only heard indoors, it is a low, rumbling noise, it is louder at night, and is more common in more rural areas, reported The Huffington Post.
In the UK, the noise has been heard in Leeds, Bristol, and Largs, Scotland, but has been reported as far as Taos, New Mexico, and Bondi Beach in Sydney.
A 2003 study by acoustical consultant Geoff Leventhall, from Surrey, shows that one in 50 people who live in a Hum-prone place hear the noise, and that most of these people are aged between 55 and 70.
Katie Jacques, from Leeds, told the BBC: ‘It’s a kind of torture; sometimes, you just want to scream.
‘It’s hard to get off to sleep because I hear this throbbing sound in the background. You’re tossing and turning, and you get more and more agitated about it.’
Those who hear it can experience headaches, nausea, dizziness, nosebleeds and sleep disturbances, and the BBC reported at least one suicide as a result of the noise.
Often sufferers otherwise have perfectly normal hearing, and The Hum goes away when they leave a certain area.
The ‘Bristol Hum’ was one of the first reported in the world. Around 800 people said they could hear the noise in the 1970s.
It was eventually blamed on traffic and local factories.
In Taos, New Mexico, a group of researchers from Los Alamos National Laboratory, the University of New Mexico, were unable to identify the source of The Hum in the early 1990s.
One resident of Bondi beach in Sydney told the Daily Telegraph: ‘It sends people around here crazy — all you can do is put music on to block it out. Some people leave fans on.’
Some suggest that the noise is in fact tinnitus, a condition that makes the sufferer hear noise that isn’t there, but it is thought that the noise is in fact real.
Suspected sources are industrial equipment, gas lines, power lines, and wireless communication, despite few cases being linked to them.
Others suggest that it is a result of low-frequency electromagnetic radiation or seismic activity such as microseisms that are only perceptible to a select few.
Although, some experts have suggested sufferers turn to cognitive behavioural therapy to help deal with the noise.
But, it is unlikely The Hum will be solved any time soon.
Leventhall told the BBC: ‘It’s been a mystery for 40 years, so it may well remain one for a lot longer.’
Read more: Daily Mail
© anu for Royal Times of Nigeria Newspaper, 2013. |
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posted in Health by anu