Site of the German Hum
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Hundreds of people in Germany are being driven to distraction
by a mysterious hum. A similar sound has been driving people
crazy in the U.S.?first in Taos, New Mexico in the mid 1990s
and more recently in Indiana.
Many people have been complaining of an elevated pulse rate
and fatigue, caused by insomnia. ?Often at night I feel as if
my bed were electrically charged. The pillow, the mattress
and my whole body vibrate, and the only thing you want to
do is to be able to turn off that sound,? says Carmen
Mischke.
People have been complaining about the hum to the
government for over 2 years. Now they have hired the
physicist Henriche Menges to take a closer look at ten out of
the 300 homes that have reported the phenomenon.
According to the German website www.raum-und-zeit.de the source of the mysterious
sound is the U.S. military HAARP project, based in Alaska. So
far, Menges dismisses these theories. ?We are starting off
with the likelier explanations and leaving the more speculative
ones aside,? he says. He is trying to track down the hum
using a microphone and sensors that can detect low-
frequency vibrations. He feels that such deep sounds could
come from diesel motors, aircraft, waterfalls or the
compressors used in refrigerators and air-conditioning
equipment. Wind blowing over chimneys could also act as a
giant organ pipe, he says.
The human ear can detect sounds as low as 20-40 hertz, and
the microphone Menges and his team are using can detect
sounds as low as eight hertz, while the vibration sensors are
sensitive to as low as three hertz. This is important because
human internal organs are sensitive to vibrations as low as 6
to 12 hertz, that are not detectable by the human ear.
Menges believes that the humming is due to sound waves
because of the sensitivity of people?s ears and abdomens to
them. Low-frequency sound waves can be propagated over a
distance of many miles and can even pass through thick
concrete, making identification of the source difficult. He has
ruled out electromagnetic waves emitted by cellphones
because they are not intense enough to carry great
distances.
The cause of a similar sound in Taos, New Mexico was in the
mid 1990s was never discovered. A "Working Group for
Investigation of the Buzzing Sound" says that the cause is
low-frequency sound vibrations. They say that a ?very long-
frequency electro-magnetic field? of between 0.5 to 50 hertz
has been measured in the region. Their website is
www.ohr-geraeusch.de.
To read the Asia Daily News story,
click here.
