Dr. Glen MacPherson, a Columbia University lecturer and high school physics, biology and math teacher, lives on Colombia’s sunshine coast. Perhaps at the beginning of 2012, his mind has been echoing the dull hum, buzzing sound of a diesel engine on the street. A few months after he first heard it, he realized that it was coming from his head and not the noise of cars or passing cars outside

“When I realized that it wasn’t the sound of my environment, I started to isolate myself from all possible causes,” MacPherson says. “I thought it was the electricity, and when I turned off the main switch, the hum in my head got worse. So I drove around the house looking for possible sources of sound, and gradually I found that it became particularly loud at night.”

MacPherson was very annoyed and gave up looking for sound sources and began to turn to academic reports. He compared his experience with academic literature and reports to see if anyone else was in his situation, until he saw an article by university of Oklahoma geophysicist David Deming in the Journal of Scientific Exploration, an academic Journal devoted to the Exploration of nonmainstream science. “I’m about to lose my laptop,” MacPherson says. “I’m sure I heard the Hum.

Hum refers to a mysterious sound heard by a small number of people around the world, characterized by a sustained low-frequency or buzzing sound, often accompanied by a sense of vibration. Research into the mysterious sounds dates back to the 1830s, when the British media made a lot of coverage of this phenomenon, and the 1970s in the United States and Australia.

The distribution of Hum is regional and often spreads out from a center. Examples include Windsor Hum in Ontario, Canada; Taos Hum in new Mexico; Auckland Hum in Auckland, New Zealand. In all these places, only 2 to 10 percent of the population can hear it and can’t get rid of it. Many victims reported that the noise was even more disturbing at night and indoors, especially when they couldn’t find the source to rescue themselves.

Because the population affected by this phenomenon is so uneven and irregular, some researchers have interpreted it simply as an “illusion,” but because of the trouble and pain it has caused, the “illusion” hypothesis is not convincing. MacPherson was intrigued by the Hum phenomenon, and in November 2012 he mapped the global Hum map and published a datab*ase of its victims to show its global impact.

MacPherson soon discovered that the Hum problem in the brain was causing headaches, anxiety and insomnia in hundreds of people. There are reports of several weeks of poor sleep after a Hum in Bristol caused at least three local residents to commit suicide.” “It exhausted me, caused anxiety and sleep deprivation,” one patient told the British press in 1992. “Thousands of victims from all over the world have shared their experiences with Hum, some of them like MacPherson, who has been relentlessly involved in finding the source of the Hum.

One of the Hum researchers, Auckland university of technology professor Tom Moir, only noticed the problem after massey university set up Moir’s office in 2002. Moir, a professor of control engineering, took out an advertisement in a local newspaper after receiving a visit from a Hum victim who wanted to find out the cause. Over the course of a few days, a number of responses came in from people who said they were bothered by a mysterious sound, and the symptoms matched what Deming calls a Hum. People on Auckland’s north coast said they couldn’t sleep or concentrate.” “When the sound comes up, it’s like pressing an engine between your ears, and the whole brain is vibrating,” the resident told local television in 2011. Another Oakland resident said the noise ruined his life, and he even put a chainsaw near his ear to block out the annoying sound and help him fall asleep. Many people live in a state of extreme pain, not knowing whether the sounds they hear are real or hallucinations.

“I’ve been a good sleeper my whole life,” said Brookfield resident Steve Kohlhase, 60 years old, who first heard the noise at his home in September 2009. Like many of the victims, Kohlhase, a former mechanical engineer at a chemical plant, spent his spare time looking for sound sources.” I feel like I have my finger in my ear, and some people have a different feeling: sometimes it feels like the floor of the house is vibrating or the feet are shaking. More people feel a buzzing in their ears. ”