Serious question about an unexplained sound

[xiamiam]

This is a serious question. It is about a sound..which is unnatural, I think..and seems to be coming from deep within the earth. It is very low and humming and although I can identify it at other times, I can say definitively that it cranks up Thursday nights for the past several months with the exception of one or two weeks over the holidays. beginning around 8 thirty and on to the middle of the night I am in south santa cruz county..probably 3 or 4 miles from the coastline of the monterey bay. My house is very old so double pane windows do not block the sound BUT I can hear it extra loud where the cavities are..like the fireplace chimney and closets and the knee wall where I currently sleep in the attic space. I can hear it and I can feel it in my chest. There is not supposed to be any fracking in santa cruz county.
At first I thought it was something electrical in my house. I have unplugged or turned off every breaker to check..and the sound is still there. My housemate hears it also and says that he has heard it in santa cruz as well. He works night shift and has heard it as late as 4 am in santa cruz. There is no information anywhere about this.
I know the flight pattern was changed for sfo so there have been internet complaints which at first I thought was the answer..incoming flights to san francisco have now been directed over the monterey bay and santa cruz mountains. Unless the flight pattern is continuous on Thursday night from 8 to 4 am, that is not it. Its starts late, and when I go out into the street, I can still hear it but not at all the same as within the house. I can identify the sound, so I can pick it out when outside..but its not right. Something is going on and I do not even know where to begin. If I go into a newer house next door, with all the air tightness and tv on and general commotion to ask if they hear it, they don't.
It feels mechanical and I have no reason to say that except it seems like aa huge drill is digging a tunnel under or through the mountains...or into the center of the bay.. I just dont know. I still read du daily but stay out of the fray because..well, I've been here a long long time...personalities are of less importance to me now than accurate information.
Has anyone heard a sound like this? If I really want someone to hear it, I need to invite them over to my house on Thursday night which seems a little crazy. Its going on right now as well..Its Saturday, and I've heard it before on Saturday but not as loud as when it runs in the middle of the night.
I probably have a more quiet life than most so I'm aware of sounds that many others ignore..but I am concerned about what the hell is going on.
I am suspicious because most people that I've asked dont even hear it. It seems sneaky.
Any help appreciated. Thanks

[enlightenment]

1. Perhaps it is "the Hum".

http://www.livescience.com/38427-the-hum-mystery-taos-hum.html

[xiamiam]

7. I read about this..I think the schedule is identifiable..

I was anticipating these last 2 thursdays, and sure enough, as expected, it started...the description of the sound, however, is similar..like an idling diesel deep within the earth

[DirkGently]

22. Interesting. Seem to match the OP's

description fairly well.

Bad news is no one seem to know what it is.

[cheapdate]

2. How far away are you from any interstate highways?

18-wheel tractor-trailers hauling 40 tons at 75 miles per hour make a sound that can be heard for miles and a vibration that can be felt for a long way.

[xiamiam]

3. quiet on highway one at night..thats not it

[Jacoby365]

4. You are not alone

Unexplained Hum

[xiamiam]

12. thanks for this site..I'm filling out their questionaire now

and one of the questions is whether I have a smart meter. I do but as soon as I complete the questionaire I will check the map to see how many others are experiencing locallly

[PatrickforO]

14. Thank you for the link.

[krispos42]

5. Are there any power plants in the area?

Water pumping stations? Sewage treatment plants? Maybe a hydroelectric dam?

[snagglepuss]

6. There was a story recently that scientists believe the Hum is related to comets.

I didnt read it all but it is on line.

[Jacoby365]

8. The source of the hum solved?

...researchers claim that microseismic activity from long ocean waves impacting the sea bed is what makes our planet vibrate and produces the droning sound.

The pressure of the waves on the seafloor generates seismic waves that cause the Earth to oscillate, said Fabrice Ardhuin, a senior research scientist at Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in France.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/have-you-heard-the-hum-mystery-of-earths-low-droning-noise-could-now-be-solved-10182111.html

[NV Whino]

9. Don't you have some (mystery) caves down there?

The schedule is strange, but it could be wind moving through caves.

[hunter]

10. We've got a couple of places with big diesel backup generators within a few miles of us.

They tend to test them on a regular schedule.

Often the noise is quite noticeable, especially if something about your house resonates with it.

Hospitals and many sorts of high tech businesses (server farms, semiconductor manufacturers, etc.) will also start their generators if there's any hint of potential power outages in the weather forecast.

I used to work in a place where the backup generators made the entire building vibrate slightly, like it was a big diesel engine powered ship.

[Donkees]

11. Wind Turbines?

" The most extreme of these low-frequency (infrasonic) emissions, at frequencies under about 16 Hz, can easily penetrate homes. Some residents perceive the energy as sound, others experience it as vibration, and others are not aware of it at all. Research is beginning to show that, in addition to sleep disturbances, these emissions may have other deleterious consequences on health. It is for these reasons that wind turbines are becoming an important community health issue, especially when hosted in quiet rural communities that have no prior experience with industrial noise or urban hum."

[xiamiam]

16. i havent seen or heard of wind turbines around this area..

doesn't mean a few dont exist but certainly not like tehachapi or a large scale operation..
i

[PatrickforO]

13. Well, here's an explanation that purports to be scientific.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/have-you-heard-the-hum-mystery-of-earths-low-droning-noise-could-now-be-solved-10182111.html

Basically, their idea is that the pressure of the waves on the seafloor generates seismic waves that cause the Earth to oscillate.

I however, also believe there's a metaphysical reason. We are all connected, and all life is in the end one entity, and that entity is conscious. The Earth is conscious. Unfortunately, the capitalists are in the process of raping the earth to extract its resources, and all of us are guilty of carbon emissions that are contributing to the greenhouse gasses that are causing the atmosphere to warm. There was also an article on here that said the deep ocean has absorbed much of the new heat we're generating over the last several decades. This new heat in the depths might be causing the hum. There is no way to know how truly damaging all this stuff actually is to the Earth, or what may happen because of it.

It is easy to scoff, at least for the capitalists, but if we silence our mind and spirit, we can sense the Earth itself groaning under the weight of our systematic destruction and desecration. I can, and it is painful.

[xiamiam]

15. i can identify when it restarts and intensifies..which is thursday night

a timed weekly schedule proves to me it has nothing to do with mother nature
thanks everyone for responding..

[NRaleighLiberal]

17. Very interesting. This is my favorite "hum"

[olddots]

18. The quieter an area you live in

the more you become aware of these sounds .I have a Monday night sound that took me years to figure out = deliverys at a grocery store and trash pick up at the high school .Low frequencies travel very long distances so don't be alarmed just because alot of people can't hear/feel these sounds .

[xiamiam]

19. i followed every link and suggestion supplied here thus far

the world hum map only has 2 reports in the santa cruz area..Ive lived in this house off and on since the late 70's. I know when the riparian corriders are blocked, etc. I know when wierd things are happening around this area because I've been paying attention for 4 decades, This is now something unexplained and unnatural that most are oblivious to ..not necessarily purposefully...but because they have nothing to compare it to and their lives are filled with other distractions and background noise . Its a violation of sorts which I can't pinpoint yet. It cannot be healthy because I feel it inside my body as well.

[Donkees]

20. "Smart Meters?"

"8/2013 I’ve been doing my own research for 8 months now, and have definitely concluded that Smart Meters are causing this horrible humming noise in my home. It is ruining my life and is violating my rights as a human being. I noticed it in the rental house I was living in for 7 months. I went to my parent’s house to see if I heard it there and sure enough I did. I finally moved to the country in Sonoma County and it’s horrible here too. Each place has Smart Meters. It’s not like a normal sound from a refrigerator, etc. It’s a low frequency humming sound that actually hurts my ears. I can’t get to sleep and have had to run a fan or some noise to try to drown it out. But, since it vibrates in my ear, that is hard to do."


-------edited to add:


"Power Line communication on Smart Grid Is Cause of the Noise Pollution
by: Sandaura

Please go to www.sandaura.wordpress.com to learn more about the Noise you are hearing.

Removing a smart meter which is contributing to the cause of the noise and negative symptoms will not stop the noise if the meter is removed from your home. The Noise is radiating on the power lines; that is why it is heard inside and outside your environment. Isolated cases of the hum may have been impart due to power grid issues. the reason people are hearing it everywhere is because of the power line communication which was implemented to manage data which needs two way communication on the lines. PLC was experimented with in the past and used, but it was always one direction and not with pulsed RF signals. it is a well known fact that BPL and PLC are very challenging to control because of the noise this technology creates on the lines."

[MineralMan]

21. Oh, there's an explanation for it.

I don't know what that explanation is, though. That it happens at the same time on the same day of the week, though is probably diagnostic.

I don't know exactly where you live, but the answer is going to relate to that and some schedule in some industrial type of business not far from where you live (within 5 miles).

You hear it because your house resonates at whatever frequency this sound has as its fundamental frequency. You apparently live in an older house, so that's not surprising, really. It probably doesn't have as much insulation as more recently built homes, so its own resonances aren't damped.

Somewhere near you, something is running at that time on a regular basis. Something mechanical and something quite large. Could be a generator, some piece of heavy equipment, or whatever. That something is firmly anchored on a deep foundation. When it runs, the earth around it picks up the vibrations. Your house picks them up, too, and they happen to match some resonance in its structure.

If I had the exact coordinates of your home, I could probably find likely sources for this. Lacking that, I couldn't guess.

I doubt very much if it's anything to fear, though. Just a piece of equipment that runs at that time, for whatever reason. Your house just resonates at that frequency, which I'd guess would be 60 Hz or a division or multiple of that frequency. That's the frequency of electrical power here. Could be 30 Hz or 15 Hz or 120 Hz. Whatever it is, your house resonates at that frequency, so you hear it.

[Fumesucker]

23. If you have a microphone on your computer you can run a spectrum analyzer (freeware)

I like "Spectrum Lab" but there are any number of others out there...

http://www.qsl.net/dl4yhf/spectra1.html

Among other things I have used it to tune custom extra large wind chimes I made a few years ago.