British villagers being tortured by a "Hum" noise

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Stranger hum you may have 'heard' about.

The Hum: Villagers say they're 'tortured' by mystery noise

At first glance, Holmfield looks like a quiet village. But for some residents, their lives are being made a misery by a mysterious rumbling noise in their homes. Not everyone can hear it and investigations have failed to find the source. The BBC went to investigate what locals call the Holmfield Hum.

"I love my home but some days I absolutely detest being in it. It feels like there's no happy space here any more."

Yvonne Conner hears the hum. Aside from the odd weekend when she has had to "escape", it has been the background sound in her Victorian stone terrace since 2019.

For her, the hum is a constant droning sound, like the whirring of a washing machine or an idling diesel engine. Not everyone in Holmfield experiences it, but for those that do, its impact has been severe, even costing Yvonne her health and job.

As we chat in the high-ceiling kitchen at the back of the house, Yvonne says the hum is whirring away, like it does most days and nights. I concentrate on trying to pick it up, but can't hear anything.

She explains: "As much as I can hear it I can feel it on my eardrums. It resonates and feels like a pressure against them. That's pretty much what it's like all the time."

Unlike high-pitched noises, low-frequency sounds like the hum - which range in frequency from about 10Hz to 200Hz - can't be masked and are capable of penetrating through blockers such as ear plugs and headphones. On a night when the streets and houses are silent, the noise is amplified.

"One particular night I woke about 5.30am with a start. 'For God's sake', I thought, I could hear it through my pillow. The only thing I could do was to put my headphones on, play music, lie on my back and hope somehow, I could just forget it was there.

"But it's impossible and it feels like this never-ending cycle of torture."

Yvonne is not the only one affected. In 2020, many others in and around the West Yorkshire village signed a petition prompting an investigation by Calderdale Council.

Holmfield sits at the bottom of a valley - homes dotted around a fairly large expanse of industrial and commercial premises. Villagers have previously said they believed local industrial units were to blame for the noise.

Zoe Millar has also endured years of disrupted sleep: "It leaves you feeling worn out because it's worse on a night so trying to sleep is hard. We have considered moving but why should we when it's something that's not our fault?"

Initially, the authority said it had pinpointed three possible sources, although never specified which ones. But at the end of their investigation, officers concluded they had not been able to find the cause.

The phenomenon of difficult-to-trace, low-frequency hums is not unique to Holmfield. Similar irritating noises bother people elsewhere across the country.

In Bournemouth, Chris House has been driven to despair by a constant droning. It started out slowly in 2019 but built up during lockdown to become "absolutely horrendous".

He says there was "no escape from it inside", adding: "I would go out shopping and have this abject fear about coming back home. You can't find the words to describe how it feels to live with. It's soul destroying."

Feeling like he was getting little help in solving the mysterious noise, Chris spent £3,000 trying to get answers. He paid for a private investigation by an independent sound expert which revealed the likely source was a nearby internet booster hub serving the city.

Though Chris is confident he's found the problem, pinpointing these types of noises is challenging, according to acoustic expert Peter Rogers. He says it requires a scientific approach to proving the noise exists by measuring it, but also understanding the physical and psychological factors at play.

Peter explains: "Sound is something which has been used for torture and when you can't get away from it, it becomes all consuming. Think the dripping tap idea.

"If you can't control it and have to live with it, then it's a physical stress and you start to see chronic physical symptoms."

Therefore, he says, it's not an exaggeration for these sufferers to say that their lives are being ruined by the hum. Since 2000, the World Health Organisation has recognised low-frequency noise as an environmental problem that causes various health impacts.

In Yvonne's case, she says living with it has caused shingles, anxiety and headaches. At its worst, she quit her job as a charity support worker because the stress left her unable to function properly.

The maddening reality she endures means at times she has questioned her own sanity, wondering whether the rumbling really exists.

It's not an uncommon response, says Peter. Having been involved in similar cases over his 30-years experience, he finds people like Yvonne are hearing real noises.

He explains: "Quite often they start doubting themselves and think they're going crazy. We're able to go in and prove with science that by measuring it, it's there and they're sane.

"The problem is then trying to find where it's coming from and it's a bit like searching for that elusive needle in a haystack.

"If you imagine the soundscape people are living in, there's all sorts of noises coming and going day and night so you've to effectively turn everything off to start the job of finding it."

Peter says common causes of such sounds can be something as minor as a mains hum in the home, a neighbour's hot tub, a transformer on a telegraph pole or industrial premises. Often it may be that residents are hearing different versions of the hum or the noise is coming from a mixture of sources.

"When you go in with the right equipment and approach you can get a sonic fingerprint which will then start giving you some clues as to what it could be.

"For example, if there's a 50Hz element to it, it's probably mains related so you would start looking at things likes transformers near the house."

Back in Holmfield, the council said it had "given its all to the investigation and left no stone unturned" but has now closed the case.

Councillor Jenny Lyons, cabinet member for public services and communities, said: "At this time, we are unable to take matters further. We know that this is not the outcome that the complainants were hoping for, but we have exhausted all current lines of inquiry.

"We don't doubt that some residents are experiencing noise, so we will regularly review the situation and we're happy to restart our investigations if any new evidence comes to light."

Meanwhile, it doesn't change the daily droning and misery for Yvonne and others.

She says: "We should be able to live peacefully in our homes but I'm sorry, Calderdale Council might have stopped their investigation but I'm still not living peacefully in my house."

Lots of links if you Google "holmfield hum" and that Yvonne Conner woman has gotten alot of press attention.

The international mystery of ‘the Hum’ (Feb 2022)

Similar with gangstalking & psychotronic weapons, I'm actually not against the possibility of "The Hum" (I've heard it myself in certain outdoor environments and I've never had tinnitus) as being a thing that exists, but it seems these stories keep popping up every so many years. Certain people regardless of age seem to be highly susceptible to very low frequencies. Don't know if any connection to the Havana Syndrome.


Mysterious 'hum' keeping West Seattle up at night (Sept 6, 2012)

In mainstream circles the "Hum" dates back to at least the 1980s when claims first started appearing in places like New Mexico. Some victims groups formed around it in different countries (Windsor, Ontario to Woodland, County Durham in UK and a segment about it appeared on Unsolved Mysteries in the '90s.


The World Hum Map and Database Project - And four competing theories.

Strange how this hum noise appears to be focused in the UK/EU and USA, But not the far east & Africa. Hmmm, hummm. 

[BIAD]

Stranger hum you may have 'heard' about...

...Strange how this hum noise appears to be focused in the UK/EU and USA, But not the far east & Africa.
Hmmm, hummm.

At a late hour, I too hear a low hum and at first, I believed it was due to five nearby wind turbines
that have been erected recently. However, I now know the noise is from the air-conditioning units
of an Amazon warehouse situated half-a-mile away.

It may well be that Holmfield's mysterious hum is connected to something like this -as the article
alludes to, but the BBC are struggling to ignore important issues at the moment and most of their
Journalists are heading off to their French properties for Christmas.


(Example)
From Twitter:

Matt Goodwin
@GoodwinMJ
Has the BBC even mentioned Twitter Files?
I see a nice story on the BBC homepage about Kate Winslet paying a family's energy bill
& dialogue between Ngozi Fulani & the Palace. But nothing on #twitterfiles ?
Do a large section of the media realise how biased they look right now?
10:00 pm · 4 Dec 2022

[ChiefD]

My heart goes out to these people whose lives have been so disrupted by this noise. Although not everyone hears the hum there, I believe that some people are more sensitive to certain noises and frequencies than most people. I totally believe these people are hearing some kind of noise. I wonder if medical professionals in ENT can do extensive tests on people who hear the hum, and see if they can come up with something in common among them. I noticed watching the video that they showed windmills, and high power lines. I believe both of those things can cause noises that certain people are sensitive to. 

As an example, in Wisconsin, there are many windmills there. I recall seeing something on my local news channel that interviewed people living in a rural area close to the windmills. Some people actually became quite ill, and stated the noise from the windmills was a low frequency rumble that they felt was destroying their lives. Some who lived in the area all their lives were planning to move just to get away from it. 

While I have some mild tinnitus from working near loud equipment when I was active duty Navy, it's not too much of a bother. I couldn't imagine if it were so intrusive it kept me from sleeping or living my life.

[BIAD]

... I noticed watching the video that they showed windmills, and high power lines.
I believe both of those things can cause noises that certain people are sensitive to...

That's a good point, there is a electrical sub-station right on the main road of Holmfield.

[GeauxHomeLittleD]

Had the same going on in my home town in Texas for several years. It would go on for hours then abruptly stop. There was no schedule to it, no regular pattern. Not everyone could hear it but it was very loud and disruptive for those of us that could.

Those who did hear the hum thought we were alone and going crazy until we started running into each other outside looking for the source of the hum. This might sound weird but it seemed like usually only one person per household was affected and nobody else in the household could hear it. 

We started searching in small groups for the source of the hum but nobody ever found a definite source then after about 3 yeas of torture the hum ceased as suddenly as it began. Nobody has ever figured out where the hum came from or why only certain people could hear it even though it was extremely loud.  In swamp and bayou country so no underground tunneling, no factories or large facilities, no 5G back then. It's still a mystery. 

These people are not crazy. The hum is real, and yes, it is warfare.

[Ninurta]

Some people can hear things that others cannot. Some are oriented towards hearing lower frequencies with a loss of higher frequencies, some can hear higher frequencies with a loss at lower frequencies, and still others have "gaps" where they cannot hear certain frequencies at odd points in their frequency response range.

Some sounds can be heard in some places, but not other adjacent places. For example, a few years ago there was an earthquake along the US east coast centered on Hillsville, VA at a magnitude of 5.2. It ran all up and down the east coast, transmitted through subsurface bedrock. I was asleep on the sofa in the living room, in Burlington, NC, and the missus came rushing into the room all agitated asking "what is that?". I opened one eye and said "relax. It's just an earthquake" and went back to sleep. You could hear it, feel it, and see things moving due to it inside the house, but when I asked folks about it that had been outside at the time, they experienced nothing. I personally think that structures such as houses may act as a sort of "sounding box" or "resonating chamber" as is found in some musical instruments that serves to magnify the sound inside them.

This house I live in now occasionally "jitters" - you can feel it shake slightly as if bumped by an outside force, as if a truck backed into the corner of the house and bumped it. I attribute that to the fact that a coal mine runs directly beneath it, perhaps in company with the fact that I live on an earthquake fault line. We often have tiny microquakes here that are barely perceptible.

One night years ago, I was out roaming the mountains in the dark when I encountered a specific point that I could hear a "hum" along with "clanking" noises (a rhythmic, metallic clanking like a blacksmith beating out a piece of hot iron on an anvil) that seemed to emanate from the earth itself, directly below my feet. One step forward, and it would disappear, and likewise for one step backwards from that specific spot. It could only be heard while standing in that one spot. There were no coal mines in that area, and nothing underground other than natural caverns that ran through the area making it like swiss cheese - solid limestone with random voids in it. I've never discovered the source of that noise.

The hum people are hearing may have some, or all, of those factors contributing to what they are hearing, with no locatable source... but I have no doubt that what they are hearing is real.

.

the missus came rushing into the room all agitated asking "what is that?". I opened one eye and said "relax. It's just an earthquake"

Relax?  

You know, a comment like that is really not too comforting. I think you have nerves made of steel.

[EndtheMadnessNow]

... I noticed watching the video that they showed windmills, and high power lines.
I believe both of those things can cause noises that certain people are sensitive to...

That's a good point, there is a electrical sub-station right on the main road of Holmfield.

Ah, could that be the 'source' of why these domestic terrorists been attacking sub-stations? The hum is driving them crazy and decided we're not going to take it anymore.

I grew up practically on a Air Force base and all the jet noise trauma I suffered for years eventually normalized my sensitivity and/or deafened my low frequency hearing. IDK, maybe I now live in a dead zone of silence. Seems alot of these reports point to an underground source, man-made and/or natural. Strange stuff and elusive like Bigfoot.

[DISRAELI]

If the problem is centred on industrialised areas of the world, that sugggests industry as the root cause. So the conspiratorial aspect of the question should really be the failure to hold industry to account.

To be fair to investigators, the vibrational nature of sound can make it very difficult to identify an exact point of origin. I have party walls with my neighbours on either side. I've discovered more than once that a working drill or other tool can be heard through both walls at the same time, and it's impossible to tell which neighbour is really being the handyman. (And whichever one is not the handyman is probably blaming me) When one of my neighbours is in his garden, his voice "bounces" off hedges in such a way that it seems to come from the other side.

[BIAD]

If the problem is centred on industrialised areas of the world, that suggests industry as the root cause. So the conspiratorial aspect of the question should really be the failure to hold industry to account.

To be fair to investigators, the vibrational nature of sound can make it very difficult to identify an exact point of origin. I have party walls with my neighbours on either side. I've discovered more than once that a working drill or other tool can be heard through both walls at the same time, and it's impossible to tell which neighbour is really being the handyman. (And whichever one is not the handyman is probably blaming me) When one of my neighbours is in his garden, his voice "bounces" off hedges in such a way that it seems to come from the other side.

There's a small airport a few miles away from where I live that tests engines daily, this type of 'noise pollution'
is never mentioned as a problem by newspapers because of the same reason you hinted at. As far as sounds
emanating from neighbours, I could do a whole thread on the subject!

But this type of reporting is stereotypical of the media today, there is always articles stating 'One in Five people
suffer with blah-blah-blah', but never do a piece on the positive side of the four who don't!!
Anything to do with a minority is the current trend.

[Ninurta]

the missus came rushing into the room all agitated asking "what is that?". I opened one eye and said "relax. It's just an earthquake"

Relax?  

You know, a comment like that is really not too comforting. I think you have nerves made of steel.

It was just a little earthquake, magnitude 5.2, not like anything you see in the movies destroying Los Angeles. It didn't even shake anything off the shelves, just rattled some stuff around a little bit, made the chandelier in the living room sway, and made a crack run up the drywall above the fireplace. Not a biggie or anything. It was the rumbling sound I think that really spooked her. We have them here occasionally, mostly tiny - I think the biggest one in this area was 3.2, and no one that was not indoors even noticed it. These mountains around me are 300 million years old - you'd think they would have settled down by now.

.