Infrasound Pulsation in Ranchlands, Alberta

Canada: Humdinger of a Noise Keeps Neighbours Up at Night

CBC News
June 3, 2009

A mysterious noise has a handful of residents in a Calgary neighbourhood losing sleep and patience, yet no one can find the source of the aggravating sound.

Dana Negrey, who lives in the northwest community of Ranchlands, said he has been bothered by the sound for almost a year.

"It doesn't go away. It's here all the time. You can't relax. You can't sleep," he said. "It's also just the concept of driving home after work, and actually tensing up physically because you know when you walk through that door you can't relax."

Utility companies, fire crews and bylaw officers have come up empty.

Noise engineer Richard Patching detected the steady, faint tone during an interview in the neighbourhood with CBC News. He describes it as a kind of "hmmmmm."

"My machine picked it up. It's quite low, but it's definitely there," he said.

A CBC reporter heard the sound, but couldn't record it.

U of C Professor Investigating

Owen Watson and his fiancée started hearing what he calls a distant vacuum cleaner sound a few months ago.

"For a month, we lost a lot of sleep trying to find diversionary tactics to mask the noise. There's still noise," he said.

When he complained to the neighbourhood community association, Watson found out he wasn't alone. So neighbours in the northwest community contacted Patching and Marcia Epstein, an assistant professor and acoustic ecologist at the University of Calgary, for help.

Epstein is taking on the mystery hum as a research project.

"On a real basic level sleep disruption is frustrating, so it will lead to irritability, it will lead to decreased ability to withstand the everyday annoyances," she said.

Epstein said it may take years to find the source, if they ever find it.

Ranchlands Residents Hear Strange Noises

CTV News
February 7, 2009

Calgary - Some residents of Ranchlands say they have been hearing some strange noises in their community.

"It's almost like a giant refrigerator just getting louder and louder and louder," says Dana Negrey, a resident of the northwest neighbourhood. "Our neighbours on both sides have commented [on hearing the noise] and done their own pursuits to a degree...one neighbour, in fact, thought I was out at 4 a.m. with a leaf blower."

Negrey says he first heard the noise last summer. He has a sound-proof recording room in his basement and recorded the sound several times since. Negrey has gone to his alderman in hopes of solving the mystery.

"I understand Enmax came out and put measuring equipment on the lines. There were new meters installed, meters were checked, service lines were checked, furnaces were checked, heating systems were checked," says Alderman, Gord Lowe.

Negrey has also enlisted his community association to help find the source of the noise. The association's president says so far they have only been able to eliminate possibilities. "That's the process this whole thing is on right now...let's just keep looking and...if it's ruled out okay, that's fine, then let's find something else," says Terry Avramenko.

So far, nobody has been able to figure out what is causing the sound or where it is coming from.

Analysis

The persistent, low humming reported in the Ranchlands area is the result of an ultra-low frequency resonance of standing waves that converge on the location. The erratic source of these infrasound standing waves are solar flares transduced as atmospheric vibrations that are focused by the Orion pyramids of Giza, Egypt.

Ranchlands, Alberta (49.8°1N 114.14°W) is 6,541 miles from Giza, or 26.27% of the Earth's mean circumference distance of 24,892 miles. Native American traditions maintained a spiritual awareness of the heartbeat synchronization that is generated in these sacred places where humming is now ever-present.

The same effect has been noted in various other focal points around the world, most recently in Mawnan, Wales; Bridlington, England; Green bay, Wisconsin; Kimberley, Idaho; Wilmington, North Carolina; Anderson, Indiana and Sydney, Australia.

In various other cases, vibrating cellphones and shavers have spontaneously ignited by this same effect, as reported in Vallejo, California; the Berici Hills of northern Italy and in Messina, Sicily. Other infrasound focal points include Kishtwar and Ratria, India; Seattle, Washington; San Mateo and Santa Barbara, California.