Earth's Mysterious Hum

Is the earth trying to sing an inaudible song to us? A strange question to ask, I know. Based on recent studies and experiments, evidence shows that might be exactly what Earth is doing. Researchers have been investigating the mysterious hum being emitted from Earth for decades. Even though they have a long road to travel, what scientists have discovered thus far could potentially be groundbreaking.

Scientists covered about 1,200 square miles on the Indian Ocean floor for an eleven-month time span with seismic probes. With knowledge of the Earth’s natural vibration that fluctuates between 2.9 and 4.5 millihertz, they were able to flush out all other sounds that obstructed the data. This frequency is 10,000 times below what our hearing threshold can pick up on, which begins at 20 Hertz. This famous hum Earth makes is inaudible to humans, but seismometers make it possible to record the vibrations. Another curious discovery made was that the loudness of the hum did not change as time went on, or with the seasons. Based on the seismometer’s needle naturally swinging back and forth due to typical wave patterns, scientists concluded that when the wave spent a long time interacting with the ocean floor, the mysterious hum was recorded.

While the ocean floor wave theory is most popular and widely accepted, theories in the past speculated that either turbulence caused by storms or acoustic resonance, the result of one vibrating object causing another to vibrate in return, could be the cause of the hum. However, current studies of the ocean floor have almost proven this theory wrong with strong evidence to support the hypothesis. Some more far-fetched theories explain the hum comes from fish mating with each other, a secret tunnel built by the government, or as you may have already guessed, aliens.

Steering away from the scientific side of the Earth’s hum, people have reported actually hearing this inaudible hum. Prior to the seismometer findings, multiple people in Taos, N.M. reported hearing a hum that lasted only a few seconds. Across the globe, multiple recordings and stories of hearing the hum were documented, which leads us to yet another question. If the hum is inaudible, are we really hearing this hum or is it psychological? Are people reporting true accounts or have they been influenced by other reports, tricking themselves into thinking they heard the hum when they really did not?   

Though we may never know the precise origins of Earth’s hum, we do have proof it exists. While rumored there is a possibility that detecting this mysterious hum could lead to us predicting earthquake patterns in the future, scientists have not established that connection yet. Though this is new and developing research, it does show us that Earth essentially has a literal “vibe” to her.

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