July 13, 2026
Terrifying & True | The Taos Hum: New Mexico’s Unexplained Low-Frequency Noise
Key Takeaways
- The Taos Hum refers to a persistent, low-frequency sound reported by a small percentage of residents in Taos, New Mexico, that remains largely unexplained.
- Despite extensive investigations in 1993 by institutions like Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories, no external source, such as industrial machinery or military transmissions, could be definitively linked to the sound.
- The phenomenon is characterized by its elusiveness; while some people hear it as a distinct, pulsating drone similar to a distant diesel engine, sensitive instruments often record nothing but silence in the same locations.
- Researchers have struggled to categorize the hum, leading to theories that it may not be a single event but rather a collection of different sound and perception phenomena, including low-frequency tinnitus or rare biological sensitivities.
- The psychological impact of the Taos Hum—including stress, sleep disruption, and the feeling of isolation—proved to be as significant and documented as the auditory experience itself.
The Taos Hum is one of America’s strangest unexplained sound mysteries: a low-frequency noise heard by only a small percentage of people, often described as a distant diesel engine, electrical drone, vibration, or pulsing hum with no visible source.
In this episode of Terrifying & True, we investigate the mystery of the Taos Hum in northern New Mexico, where residents including Steve Walters, Bob and Catanya Saltzman, and K.C. Grams reported a persistent unexplained hum that disrupted sleep, concentration, balance, and daily life. Some heard it inside their homes. Some heard it outdoors. Some tried to escape it, only to wonder whether the sound had followed them.
As reports spread, the Taos Hum became more than a local complaint. Congressman Bill Richardson pushed for answers, and investigators from the University of New Mexico, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, the Air Force’s Phillips Laboratory, and hearing researchers studied the phenomenon with microphones, antennas, magnetometers, geophones, low-frequency detectors, and public surveys.
Was the Taos Hum caused by industrial noise, power lines, electromagnetic fields, military experiments, extremely low-frequency transmissions, secret government technology, rare hearing sensitivity, or low-frequency tinnitus? Or is the truth even stranger: that “the Hum” may not be one mystery at all, but several different sound and perception phenomena gathered under one unforgettable name?
This episode explores the 1993 Taos Hum investigation, the science of low-frequency sound, tinnitus and auditory perception, government secrecy theories, New Mexico conspiracy fears, and why some mysteries remain terrifying even when the instruments record silence.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Taos Hum?
The Taos Hum is a mysterious low-frequency noise, often compared to the idling of a distant diesel engine, that a small number of residents in and around Taos, New Mexico, have reported hearing since the early 1990s.
Was the Taos Hum ever explained?
No single definitive cause has been found. While investigations ruled out many external sources like industrial noise or secret government experiments, scientists suggest it may be a combination of environmental noise and individual factors like low-frequency tinnitus.
Can everyone hear the Taos Hum?
No, only a small percentage of the population reports hearing the hum. Even when it is reported, it is common for people standing in the same room to hear absolutely nothing.
Is the Taos Hum caused by military experiments?
There is no evidence to support this, although it was a popular theory among residents. Official investigations, including those involving military laboratories, failed to find any signal or technology consistent with the reported sounds.
WEBVTT
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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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