Residents of the Scottish Isle of Lewis in the Hebrides are claiming to hear a strange humming noise. No one knows where it’s coming from—or if it’s even real. Nevertheless, some hum-hearers claim it’s severely disrupting their lives.
Lauren-Grace Kirtley, founder of The Hebridean Hum: Low frequency noise disturbance action and support group on Facebook, described it to BBC Radio’s Good Morning Scotland program as “a very low humming, droning, pulsating noise. It’s incredibly intrusive and distressing.” She said the noise is making it hard to sleep and concentrate. “I get a lot of fluttering in my ears,” she added, “It’s making me dizzy and giving me headaches,” according to the BBC.
In a Facebook post, Kirtley wrote that the group has made spectrograph recordings—graphs that show sound frequency over time—at each location where people reported hearing the strange humming sounds. They identified a “persistent, recordable 50 Hz signal of variable strength present in all locations,” indicating that the hum isn’t being produced from the center of the island. Using this approach, they ruled out all known potential on-island sources, including ports, turbines, and other infrastructure. The group is now exploring offshore origins.
The group says it has reached out to various organizations for support, but there’s still no widespread agreement on the possible cause. Kirtley, however, believes that it is of human, and not natural, origin.
Pamela Weaver Larson, a member of the 546-person Facebook group, suggested in a post that the phenomenon might be caused by otoacoustic emissions—low-intensity sounds produced in the cochlea, a part of the inner ear. In other words, hum-hearers might be hearing noises created by their own ears, rather than an external sound.
“But then why wouldn’t I hear the hum wherever I go?” Larson mused in the post, explaining that she didn’t hear the hum in Florida or upper Michigan.
The recent reports join a host of other mysterious hums that have been reported around the world for decades. There’s even the World Hum Map and Database Project, founded by hum-hearer Glen MacPherson, a former University of British Columbia lecturer, which documents and maps self-reported data on what is frequently called the “Worldwide Hum.”
According to the website, the hum is typically compared to a “car or truck engine idling outside your home or down the block,” or as “a low rumbling or droning sound. It’s often perceived louder at night than during the day, and louder indoors than outdoors.” The description also claims, however, that sufferers hear it wherever they are—which isn’t consistent with Larson’s experience.
Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, the local council on the Isle of Lewis, confirmed receiving reports from some islanders about low frequency sounds and said that the environmental health team is investigating the situation, as reported by the BBC.
That said, Kirtley, in conversation with The Times, said they’re “now pretty certain that whatever is causing this has a marine source,” and is likely impacting marine wildlife. “It makes it even more important that the source is traced and the hum is silenced for good.”
It remains to be seen whether the group will actually hone in on the source of the reported hum—and what experts will have to say about it.
