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Fundamental AcousticsLaboratories / Est. 1958

Persistent Signal Catalog ยท Class III

The worldwide hum

A persistent low hum reported by a small fraction of people in scattered locations, difficult to capture on instruments. Documented for decades; not explained.

A persistent low hum reported by a small fraction of people in scattered locations, difficult to capture on instruments. Documented for decades; not explained.

Deterministic representative spectrogram with 64 time slices and 22 frequency bins. Bright horizontal bands indicate persistent narrow-band energy in this illustrative reconstruction.time slicefrequency bin
Fig. 1 Representative spectrogram -- A retained narrow-band behavior model for public review.
Source
Various (self-reported)
As of
Public catalog record
Method
Illustrative public visualization; raw station records are not reproduced.
Public packet
  • catalog abstract
  • classification rationale
  • public source links
Review controls
Coordinate source
Public location statement
Uncertainty
Location is descriptive and not a source attribution
Release state
External literature case retained for comparison

Processing notes

  • source publication review
  • coordinate normalization for Night Watch where available
  • classification against FAL behavioral taxonomy
  • retention as a public comparison case

Ordinary-source checks

  • source interpretation retained from the cited literature
  • public summary avoids unsupported origin claims
  • comparison use is behavioral rather than evidentiary

Release limits

  • interpretation remains with the cited source record
  • FAL classification is behavioral and does not replace the original literature
  • coordinates are shown only when stable public values are available