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The Hum is a persistent and invasive low-frequency humming, rumbling, or droning noise audible to many, but not all, people in an area.

Hums have been reported in many countries, including Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. They are sometimes named according to the locality where the problem has been particularly publicized, such as the "Taos Hum" in New Mexico and the "Windsor Hum" in Ontario. The Hum does not appear to be a single phenomenon. Different causes have been attributed, including local mechanical sources, often from industrial plants, as well as manifestations of tinnitus or other biological auditory effects.

A 1973 report cites a university study of fifty cases of people complaining about a "low throbbing background noise" that others were unable to hear. For some who are capable of hearing it, The Hum can be a disturbing phenomenon, which has been linked to at least three suicides in the United Kingdom.

A study into the Taos Hum in the early 1990s in Taos, New Mexico indicated that at least two percent could hear it, each hearer at a different frequency between 32 and 80 Hz, modulated from 0.5 to 2 Hz.

Baguley said, "I think most people view the hum as a fringe belief because it's so subjective — people say they hear something that most people can't hear.

A 35 Hz hum in Windsor, Ontario, is thought to have originated from a steelworks on the industrial zone of Zug Island near Detroit, with reports of the noise ceasing after the U.S. The hum was louder inside their house than out, in part, they believed, because their house vibrated in resonance to the 60 Hz hum. Some researchers speculate that the very low frequency radio waves or extremely low frequency radio waves of the military TACAMO system, used by aircraft to communicate with submarines, might be the source for the hum. David Deming observes that the difficulty of locating a source of the hum could be attributed to its broadcast from moving aircraft in this fashion, although he notes that there have never been any reports of the Hum around the U.S.

While the Hum is hypothesized by some to be a form of low frequency tinnitus. such as the venous hum, Some report it not to be internal, being worse inside their homes than outside; however, others insist that it is equally bad indoors and outdoors. A study of 28 individuals with the condition by German and Norwegian researchers, reports that few can actually hear well in the range that the hum is supposedly in, indicating it may be low frequency tinnitus.

The Taos Hum has been featured on the TV show Unsolved Mysteries, and in LiveScience's "Top Ten Unexplained Phenomena", where it took tenth place. In a 1998 episode of The X-Files titled "Drive", Agent Mulder speculates that extremely low frequency (ELF) radio waves "may be behind the so-called Taos Hum". In a 2018 episode (Season 13 episode 21) of the police procedural series Criminal Minds, the main antagonist of the episode was made to commit violent acts as a result of mania caused by the Taos Hum. In a 2022 episode of the animated series American Dad! titled "Echoes", Avery Bullock (voiced by Patrick Stewart) muses about a mysterious background hum that several characters report hearing through the episode. The Windsor Hum is the subject of the song "The Hum" by Canadian musician Dan Griffin, and the short documentary film Zug Island by Nicolas Lachapelle. The Hum is thematized in metalcore band Converge's 2026 album Hum of Hurt, imagined as a physical manifestation of human suffering. Vocalist and lyricist Jacob Bannon suggests, "What if the Hum is the culmination of all the pain in the world creating an audible hum across the universe?

Mains hum, a low-frequency hum that is part of the normal functioning of electrical equipment

Quick Facts

• They are sometimes named according to the locality where the problem has been particularly publicized, such as the "Taos Hum" in New Mexico and the "Windsor Hum" in Ontario.
• The Hum does not appear to be a single phenomenon.
• The Windsor Hum is the subject of the song "The Hum" by Canadian musician Dan Griffin, and the short documentary film Zug Island by Nicolas Lachapelle.
• Different causes have been attributed, including local mechanical sources, often from industrial plants, as well as manifestations of tinnitus or other biological auditory effects.
• A 1973 report cites a university study of fifty cases of people complaining about a "low throbbing background noise" that others were unable to hear.

Source material: Wikipedia - "The Hum". Adapted and summarized for DiscoverScroll. Original contributors are credited through the linked Wikipedia article. Read original on Wikipedia. CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes were made from the original.