The Hum is a continuous, low-frequency noise that sounds like a hum, rumble, or drone. It can be heard by many people, but not everyone, in certain areas. Reports of The Hum have been made in several countries, such as Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Sometimes, The Hum is named after the place where it has been most widely discussed, such as the "Taos Hum" in New Mexico and the "Windsor Hum" in Ontario.
The Hum is not one single problem. Experts have suggested different possible causes, such as machines or equipment near factories, as well as hearing-related conditions like tinnitus or other biological effects that affect how people hear.
Description
A 1973 report mentions a university study of fifty people who complained about hearing a "low, throbbing background noise" that others could not hear. The sound, which peaked between 30 and 40 Hz, was only heard during cool weather with a light breeze and often early in the morning. These noises were usually limited to a 10-kilometre (6 mi) wide area. For some who can hear it, the sound, called "The Hum," can be disturbing and has been linked to at least three suicides in the United Kingdom.
A study of the Taos Hum in the early 1990s in Taos, New Mexico, found that at least 2% of people could hear it. Each person heard it at a different frequency between 32 and 80 Hz, with the sound changing between 0.5 and 2 Hz. Similar results were found in an earlier British study. It seems possible for people who hear the sound to move away from it. One person who heard the Taos Hum reported that the sound could be heard up to 30 miles (48 km) away. There are similar numbers of men and women who hear the sound. Age seems to be a factor, with middle-aged people more likely to hear it.
In 2006, Tom Moir, who was at Massey University in Auckland, New Zealand, made several recordings that appeared to be the Auckland Hum. His earlier research using artificial sounds suggested the hum was about 56 hertz.
In late 2011, people in Windsor, Ontario, began reporting a low, droning vibration that was sometimes loud enough to be annoying. One evening in 2012, 22,000 reports were made to officials. The sound was thought to be coming from Zug Island, a heavily industrialized area on the north bank of the Detroit River. Canadian officials asked for help from the United States to find the source, but local authorities blocked access to the island. A steel mill owned by U.S. Steel was a possible cause, but officials said no new equipment had been added or activated around the time the noise became noticeable. When the blast furnaces were turned off in April 2020, the noise disappeared.
In 2021, hums were reported in Frankfurt and Darmstadt, Germany. A year later, multiple sources for the hum were found in Darmstadt: two broken air conditioners, a faulty heat pump, and three noise-reducing structures on energy generation plants.
In 2022, hums were reported in St. Louis County, Missouri, and surrounding areas.
In 2023, a hum was reported in Omagh, Northern Ireland.
In November 2025, people in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada, reported hearing a low, mechanical humming that one resident described as "repetitive and random." Yukon Energy, which was using diesel generators due to less hydropower than usual during that season, said it was "unlikely" that the sound of their generators could reach distant neighborhoods.
Possible explanations
Steve Kohlhase, an engineer who works in industrial facilities, spent $30,000 on legal costs and equipment to investigate a mysterious low-frequency hum. A 2019 documentary film called Doom Vibrations, made by Garret Harkawiks, followed Kohlhase’s 10-year effort to understand the cause of the noise and his ideas about it. In every case Kohlhase studied, he found that the locations were near high-pressure gas pipelines or close to them.
In 2009, David Baguley, the head of audiology at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, said that about one-third of the problems people reported with the hum could be linked to physical causes, such as industrial machinery or fans at nearby factories. However, he noted that most cases remained unexplained. Baguley explained that many people believe the hum is not real because it is so subjective—people hear something others cannot. But he said the large number of people who report hearing the hum shows that something is happening. Baguley also suggested that people’s hearing may have become overly sensitive.
Although some mechanical sources seem likely, as the hum is often described as sounding like a diesel engine, most reported hums have not been linked to a specific mechanical cause.
In Kokomo, Indiana, a city with heavy industry, the hum was thought to come from two sources: a 36 Hz tone from a cooling tower at a local factory and a 10 Hz tone from an air compressor at another plant. However, even after these devices were fixed, people continued to report hearing the hum.
Three hums have been connected to mechanical sources. The West Seattle Hum was traced to a vacuum pump used by CalPortland to unload cargo from ships. After CalPortland replaced the machine’s silencers, reports of the hum stopped. Similarly, the Wellington Hum was linked to a diesel generator on a visiting ship. A 35 Hz hum in Windsor, Ontario, was thought to come from a steelworks near Detroit. Reports of the noise stopped after the U.S. Steel plant there closed in April 2020.
In Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, a hum was suspected to originate from a power company substation nearly two miles away from a couple’s home. The substation houses the state’s largest transformer. The couple sued the power company, claiming the hum disrupted their lives. They said the noise was louder inside their home because their house vibrated in resonance with a 60 Hz hum. In the lawsuit, they reported the hum reached up to 64.1 dB inside their home.
Some researchers suggest that the hum might be caused by low-frequency or extremely low-frequency radio waves from the military’s TACAMO system, used for communication between aircraft and submarines. David Deming noted that the difficulty in finding a source might be because the hum is broadcast from moving aircraft. However, he pointed out that no hums have been reported near the U.S. Navy’s stationary broadcast stations in Cutler, Maine, and Jim Creek, Washington.
Deming believes the hum “avoids publicity,” often fading when local media covers it, and suggests this might mean the source is human-made.
Some doctors suggest tinnitus, a condition where people hear noises without an external cause, as a possible explanation for the hum. Tinnitus is created internally by the body’s hearing and nervous systems.
While some think the hum might be a type of low-frequency tinnitus, like the venous hum, others report hearing it more clearly indoors than outdoors. Some people hear it only at home, while others hear it everywhere. Some say soundproofing, such as double-glazed windows, makes the hum more noticeable by reducing other noises.
Long-term use of ibuprofen is linked to an increased risk of hearing damage, and some have suspected it might be related to the hum.
Human ears naturally produce sounds called spontaneous otoacoustic emissions (SOAE). Studies show that 38 to 60% of adults with normal hearing have these sounds, though most are unaware of them. Those who do hear them often describe faint hissing, buzzing, or ringing, especially in quiet environments. Researchers studying the Taos Hum considered SOAE as a possible cause.
In 1973, Philip Dickinson proposed that a 30- to 40-Hz hum might be caused by the jet stream moving against slower air and amplified by power line posts or rooms with matching resonant frequencies. Geoff Leventhall of the Chelsea College Acoustics Group dismissed this idea as “absolute nonsense.”
One theory about the West Seattle Hum was that it might be linked to the midshipman fish, a type of toadfish. A similar hum in Sausalito, California, was traced to the mating call of these fish, which affected people living on houseboats. However, researchers in West Seattle said it was unlikely for such a hum to travel inland from boats.
The Scottish Association for Marine Science suggested that a nocturnal hum in Hythe, Hampshire, might be caused by a similar “sonic” fish. However, the council said this was unlikely because such fish are not common in UK coastal waters. As of February 2014, the source of the Hythe hum had not been found, but the sound had been recorded.
Treatment
At a sound laboratory at the University of Salford, David Baguley studied ways to use psychology and relaxation methods to reduce stress caused by a continuous humming noise. This approach may help decrease or eliminate the noise.
Geoff Leventhall, an expert in noise and vibration, suggested that a type of therapy called cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) could help people affected by noise. He explained, "It depends on whether a person reacts to the noise with tension or remains calm. CBT was shown to be helpful by teaching people to think about the noise in a different way."
In popular culture
The Taos Hum has appeared on the TV show Unsolved Mysteries and in LiveScience's list of "Top Ten Unexplained Phenomena," where it ranked tenth. BBC Radio 4 included an investigation of the Hum in their comedy program Punt PI. In October 2022, the Norwegian state broadcaster NRK discussed the Hum in its podcast Oppdatert.
In a 1998 episode of The X-Files titled Drive, Agent Mulder suggests that extremely low frequency (ELF) radio waves "may be behind the so-called Taos Hum."
In a 2018 episode of the TV series Criminal Minds (Season 13, Episode 21), the main villain is shown committing violent acts due to mania caused by the Taos Hum. The story editors described the episode as having "an X-Files feel."
Jordan Tannahill's 2021 novel The Listeners follows a group of people troubled by a constant humming sound they can hear. The book inspired an opera with the same name, which premiered in 2022. The book was adapted into a BBC series of the same name in 2024.
In a 2022 episode of the animated series American Dad! titled Echoes, a character named Avery Bullock (voiced by Patrick Stewart) talks about a mysterious background hum that other characters also hear.
The Windsor Hum is the subject of the song "The Hum" by Canadian musician Dan Griffin and the short documentary Zug Island by Nicolas Lachapelle.
The Windsor Hum is also covered in a song by the Detroit band Protomartyr, which appears on their 2017 album Relatives in Descent.
The Hum is a theme in the 2026 album Hum of Hurt by the metalcore band Converge. The band imagines the Hum as a physical representation of human suffering. Vocalist Jacob Bannon suggests, "What if the Hum is the culmination of all the pain in the world creating an audible hum across the universe? Something noticeable to others operating on a similar frequency."