The Taos Hum

I’ve saved this story for last because it’s the quietest one in this book. No one died. No one disappeared. There’s no ghost, no killer, no missing child.

There’s only a sound.

The Sound

In the early 1990s, residents of Taos, New Mexico — an old adobe town in the high desert at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, famous for its ancient pueblo, its artists and its clear, thin mountain air — began to complain about a strange noise.

They described it as a low, steady, droning hum, like a distant diesel engine idling, or a truck running somewhere far away. Some said it throbbed or pulsed. Some said it was faint; others said it was loud enough to keep them awake at night. It seemed to be strongest indoors, and at night, when the world was quietest. It didn’t seem to come from any particular direction.

Not everyone could hear it. In fact, most people couldn’t. But those who could found it maddening. Some said it gave them headaches, nausea, dizziness, nosebleeds, trouble sleeping. Some said it made their lives miserable. A few said they had moved away from Taos to escape it, only to find that they could still hear it wherever they went.

They called it the Taos Hum.

The Investigation

By 1993, so many residents had complained that their representatives in Congress asked for help. A team of scientists and engineers from several institutions — including the University of New Mexico, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories and the Phillips Laboratory of the U.S. Air Force — came to Taos to investigate.

They surveyed residents. They interviewed people who said they could hear the hum, and they set up sensitive instruments — microphones, accelerometers, and equipment for measuring electromagnetic fields — in the homes of people who heard it, in an attempt to detect it.

According to the survey, only about two percent of residents of the Taos area reported hearing the hum. Those who heard it were typically middle-aged adults, more often women than men. Their descriptions of the sound were strikingly similar.

The scientists’ instruments, however, recorded nothing unusual. No low-frequency sound waves that matched the hum. No unusual vibrations. No abnormal electromagnetic signals.

The investigators concluded that the people who heard the hum were not imagining it — they were genuinely perceiving something. But they couldn’t determine what it was, or where it was coming from.

The Theories

Over the years, many explanations have been proposed for the Taos Hum.

Industrial or military sources. Some have suggested that the hum comes from industrial equipment — pipelines, compressors, power lines — or from secret military communications or experiments. Taos is not far from Los Alamos, where the atomic bomb was developed. The investigators found no evidence of such a source.

Natural sources. Others have suggested that the hum might be caused by natural phenomena, such as low-frequency vibrations from the Earth, ocean waves or wind, carried over long distances through the ground.

Tinnitus or a related condition. Many scientists believe the most likely explanation is internal: that people who hear the hum are experiencing a form of low-frequency tinnitus, or a heightened sensitivity to sound, or something generated by the ear or the brain itself. The fact that the hum is heard by so few people, that it can’t be recorded, and that some hear it wherever they go, supports this theory.

But many hearers reject that explanation. They say the hum sounds external, that it comes and goes in particular places, and that it began suddenly, at a particular time.

The Worldwide Hum

The Taos Hum is not unique. Over the past several decades, people in many places around the world have reported hearing similar low, droning sounds: in Bristol, England, in the 1970s; in Kokomo, Indiana, in the late 1990s; in Windsor, Ontario; in Auckland, New Zealand; and in many other places. Researchers have collected reports from thousands of people.

In a few cases, a source has been found. Investigations into some hums have turned up industrial equipment, fans or pumps producing low-frequency noise. In other cases, like Taos, no source has ever been found.

Why It Belongs Here

I’ve spent this whole book telling you stories about things people saw — ghosts, lights, creatures, figures in windows — and about things people didn’t see, the moment someone vanished, the last glimpse before they were gone.

The Taos Hum is different. It’s about something people hear, that most of us can’t. And I think it’s a fitting place to end, because it reminds us of something important: the world is stranger and harder to know than we like to think. Some of the stories in this book have been explained. Some never will be. Some of the people who told them were mistaken, and some were telling the truth about something we still can’t measure.

Maybe that low hum in the high desert of New Mexico is a machine somewhere, or a trick of the ear. Maybe it’s something else.

Either way, if you ever find yourself lying awake late at night, in the deepest silence, listening — and you hear it — you’ll know you’re not the only one.