Infrasound Pulsation in Ranchlands, Alberta

Canada: Mysterious Hum Baffles Experts and Annoys Ranchlands Residents

by Sean Myers for the Calgary Herald
September 29, 2011

Calgary - It's a noise that's been driving some residents in Ranchlands crazy for the past three years, but a team investigating the mysterious, low-frequency hum have still not tracked down the source.

The hum has been confirmed in at least 20 houses in the northwest community through testing with noise meters by University of Calgary sound engineers.

Residents first started noticing the noise in 2008, but at a community meeting held Wednesday volunteer investigators who've been working on the case for more than two years could only identify potential sources they'd ruled out.

"It's a lengthy process," said Terry Avramenko, president of the Ranchlands Community Association. "We're trying to find the source through trial and elimination."

Residents, including Avramenko, have complained of having trouble sleeping due to the irritating, humming noise which registers at about 40 MHz.

"You might wake up in the middle of the night and wonder what woke you up," said Avramenko. "Then you hear the hum and you can't get back to sleep."

The team next wants to work with ATCO Gas to disconnect one affected house and depressurize the gas line for the purpose of testing, as the homeowner said the noise seemed to stop while a gas meter was replaced recently.

"That's quite an aggressive thing because the logistics of it is very intensive," said Avramenko, noting it could take a month or two to work out the details.

The team also wants to take a look at the pumps at nearby water relay stations and possibly test for an electromagnetic source.

A graduate student at the U of C is looking at developing a noise cancelling system that could be installed in the homes to relieve the residents while the investigation continues.

Ald. Gord Lowe has facilitated contact between the community and Enmax, the city's water services department, and ATCO Gas.

"There's no doubt this hum exists," said Lowe. "It's been demonstrated clearly that it exists by professionals and experts in the field. It's painstaking, just brute work going from one potential source to the next to rule it in or rule it out."

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.

The Ranchlands area of Calgary, Alberta (51.12°N 114.19°W) is 6,463 miles from Giza, or 26.0% of the Earth's mean circumference distance of 24,892 miles. Other acoustic focal points have been reported by Canadian residents dealing with this growing problem in White Rock, and Nelson, British Colombia - with the most intense experiences are being witnessed in Windsor, Ontario.

Other hotspots where infrasound humming and piezoelectric fires have recently been reported are situated exactly along this same 26.0% distance from the Great Pyramid, including McCalla, Alabama and Homosassa, Florida. Native American traditions maintained a spiritual awareness of the heartbeat synchronization that is generated in these sacred places where humming is now ever-present.

Other extreme manifestations of this infrasound resonance are now simultaneously occurring in Llanidloes, Mawnan, Hull, Saffron Walden, Bridlington, Woodland, Bolton, Kiev, Malta, Goa, Klai, Auckland, Sydney, Panama, and in the US in Newport, Anderson, Greenwich Kimberley, Rochester, Menomonee Falls, Pelham, Richmond, Wilmington, Virginia Beach, Nashville, Knoxville, Mobile, northern Florida, Knob Noster, Denver, Seattle, Novato, Arroyo Grande and Atwater.

In many severe cases, these infrasound resonance effects have even generated spontaneous fires in areas such as Tenerife, Babura, Abuja, Bauchi, Jos, Omukondo, Onakaheke, Tsholotsho, Lalapansi, Goodhope, Nairobi, Mpumalanga, Mapuve, Bodibe, Bloemfontein, Hopewell, Cape Town, Landovica, Galway, Longford, Glasgow, Dublin, Coventry, Hull, Egham, Wisbech, Messina, Peschici, Berici, across northern Greece, Ratria, Kakori, Mumbai, Kolkata, Charajpura, Thiruvananthapuram, Kishtwar, Rangrik, Kota Baru, Kuala Lumpur, Santo Tomas, Darwin, Rockhampton, Adelaide, Brisbane, Eaglehawk, Sydney, Georgetown, La Pampa, Melipilla, and in the US in Seattle, Corvallis, Soudan SP, Minneapolis, New Ulm, Colorado Springs, Pueblo, Anderson, San Mateo, Vallejo, San Francisco, Hope Ranch, Santa Barbara, Clovis, Calaveras, Haverhill, Peabody, Brentwood and New York City.