You will either know what I’m talking about or not. A low rumble sound at night like a truck ideling off in the distance.

I have no personal theories though I’ve read a few online. When I’m at home I hear it all the time at night, but always chalk it up to something mechanical I’m not thinking of or aware of. At home there’s a shopping mall a few miles away and I can often hear the street sweepers cleaning the parking lots. There’s a train station 5-6 miles away and I can hear the engine idling late at night. So whenever I hear “the hum” at home I figure there’s just got to be something somewhere making it and I just don’t know what.

Right now I’m in the woods in middle of nowhere. Miles away from an occupied house. Many, many miles away from anything you could call a town. And I hear it loud and clear. Oddly, like at home it’s somehow louder inside than out. It’s not tinnitus. If I cover my ears I can’t hear it (but can still hear my normal ringing)

I dunno.

Just wondering if anyone else hears it where they are?

You are not alone. People have been reporting this for years from various parts of the US. I have yet to hear an explanation for it that fully accounts for it.
I dont hear it here.

I know what you’re talking about. The only time in my life I’ve never heard it was camping way out in the middle of the Adirondacks in high school in the late 90’s, or at least, that’s when I became aware of it. Spent a week one summer out there with a friend, fishing and hiking at his hunting camp. I noticed the lack of it, absolute silence at night. Coming back towards town, it came back. I’ve wondered at times what it was, and surmised it was being so far away from power grids and such, but who knows? That pre-dated all my hearing damage and I had really fantastic hearing, so I really don’t think it is just tinnitus.

I stayed at a friend's house years ago in small town NE Oregon, and was plagued with a low-level rumble like you describe. It proved in this case, in the early light of day, to be a switch engine they had left idling on the side tracks about a 1/2 mile away.

There are other sources of obscure sounds. 60 years ago out in the desert surrounding Boise you could hear a low pitched sound. Sometimes that was louder under the high tension power lines dozens of miles from highways.

The sound was not present in Hells Canyon the summer I spent working there. I did hear it at Cuprum on the ridge line above the Canyon. No roads/houses/tracks/etc.

I have heard the same sound in various otherwise pristine locations. I don't have tinnitus.

Yes.

I stopped hearing most of it when I started on blood pressure medication and quit drinking alcohol.

We are not alone and here is the world map that shows people that hear it.

https://thehum.info/newhummap/html_docs/

I've always been convinced it's the electrical lines resonating.

Signal for a gathering

Whenever I hear a low rumbling it’s usually the Space X guys in McGregor testing rocket engines

I've been told it's easier to hear while wearing a tin foil hat.

quote:

Originally posted by fritz:
I've been told it's easier to hear while wearing a tin foil hat.

The tinfoil hat is only required when attempting to assign illogical meaning to it.

Perhaps ELF and/or SLF transmissions to nuclear subs?

Russian ELFS. Extremely low frequency stations used communicate with submarines. Our navy had ELFS, but uses VLFS now. This probably isn't the him, but provides a clue. The Navy sites were in Michigan and Wisconsin which are both far from the oceans the Navy's subs operate in. It works because sound travels faster and further through more dense matter than less dense matter.

Inside our house on Lake Huron, I sometimes hear a low rumble at night. It turns out it's coming from ships 20 miles away. Everytime I hear it, I check the Marine Traffic app on my phone and sure enough, there's a ship passing by.

I suspect some of the noise people hear comes from mining operations many mies from where the noise is heard.

Many have claimed that it may be due to the extensive classified underground tunnel boring going on across the US.

Completely drowned out by the cicadas here. I swear I must be conditioned by those 50's sci-fi movies because when the bugs are singing loud, I'm looking around for flying saucers appearing over the treetops.

Sometimes I hear the rumble from freight trains passing through town a mile or so from here. A couple times I've heard a hovering helicopter late at night, I figure that was either LE or Life Flight. But no humming. Or cicadas. Crickets sometimes, but no cicadas.

At 11:00 at night, when the motors of my Sundance Hot Tub silence after their 20 minutes, all I hear is the sounds of silence and see a zillion stars in the Heavens. I generally have seen at least 3 satellites pass over in the 20 minutes. I live in the country in NW Montana with no street lights and few cars at that time of night.

I too believe it is what I sometimes hear. A very low rumble. You are not alone. God Bless !!!

*** By the way I live in Virginia Beach which is next to the largest Naval Base in the world and we have so many different military bases here Army, Airforce, Coast Guard, etc. We even have NASA here too.

quote:

Originally posted by architect:
Completely drowned out by the cicadas here. I swear I must be conditioned by those 50's sci-fi movies because when the bugs are singing loud, I'm looking around for flying saucers appearing over the treetops.

I thought I also had good hearing and can hear background noises all the time. Until I've gotten older and came to understand my hearing isn't as good as it was. But I can hear the background noise just as well as before. I just realized I've had tinnitus all along from the navy.