Two percent Taoseños….

In the midst of an election campaign about 30 years ago, one of New Mexico’s U.S Senators or Congressmen in search of votes appeared on TV and boldly announced:

“We found the source of the ‘Taos Hum.'”

The problem was that the source had not in fact been discovered and the hum continues today, at least according to about two percent of the population in that northern New Mexico community.

Reports of the “Taos Hum” began circulating as early as the late 1980s. The hum is described as described as a deep, diesel‑engine‑like rumble or throbbing heard from a location far away. It is said to be in the range of 30 to 80 Hz, at the very low end of human hearing. Some described the sound as a low E-flat on the musical scale, while others said it sounded like a noise that emanated from a high powered bass woofer.

But the sound is apparently heard by only about two percent of the 6,500-plus residents of Taos, and mostly by middle aged individuals, usually at night and in closed rooms. And interestingly, ear plugs do not seem to block out the sound.

In 1993, as interest in the hum intensified, four research organizations set out to identify the source of the sound. They included the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratory, the University of New Mexico and the Phillips Air Force Laboratory. After two years of investigation, they all came up blank. Acoustic mapping, seismic monitoring, and electromagnetic field measurements found no consistent source for the noise, although some Taoseños claimed they could still hear something even when in the presence of the delicate instruments that sensed nothing.

According to Wikipedia: “As of 2026, the Taos Hum remains officially unexplained. …(It) continues to be a scientifically documented perception without a confirmed external source.“

Residents who believe the sound is real said it has made them suffer insomnia, headaches, anxiety and chronic fatigue. Some researchers say those who hear the sound suffer from an inner ear abnormality. Other researchers say the sound may emanate from the slow movement of tectonic plates beneath the Sangre de Cristo mountains. And of course there are those conspiracy theorists who suspect aliens may be involved — after all, Roswell, NM, where an alien spacecraft supposedly crashed in 1947, is only about 250 miles away. And if you care to wade through the internet, you’ll find lots of other explanations that claim to be the truth about the Taos Hum.

However, reports of low-frequency hums have shown up other places around the globe. Those locations include Bristol, England; Windsor, Ontario, Canada; Largs, Scotland; Aukland, New Zealand; Kokomo, Indiana, USA; Frankfurt and Darmstadt, Germany; and West Haven, Connecticut, USA. Research at several of these locations discovered that distant industrial machinery was the cause of the sound, while sources in other locations have not been identified.

I’d keep writing about this, but I’ve suddenly started hearing a low frequency sound in my ears. Oh wait, I’ve discovered the source — my hearing aid batteries went dormant, and our dog Chester is now slowly snoring next to me. I can sense a low frequency rumbling that was not previously present.