Loud High Pitched Noise In Oregon Is A Mystery

I live in Hillsboro, Oregon just a short drive west of Portland. A few miles farther west is the small town of Forest Grove. Apparently people have been hearing a high pitched noise through the night.

The fire marshal, Dave Niemeyer, was made aware of it from a video recording a resident took:

"It's definitely a horrendous noise," Nemeyer said. "I have no idea what the noise is. [The resident] described to us that it was coming from the middle of the street. To me, it sounds like the sound of train tracks, that metal screeching sound, but there are no train tracks near her home ... so that's obviously ruled out."

I haven't noticed anything in my area so it seems to be localized to that particular neighborhood. Sounds mechanical to me. Maybe a leaky valve or something moving on a rusty hinge?

Rick Vanderkin, the city's public works superintendent, told ABC News that very few people have heard the sound, making it difficult to locate and even more difficult to make an "educated guess as to what's creating the noise." So far, officials have ruled out a water valve, a gas leak and wildlife as possible culprits.

Anyone want to take a stab at it?

Pretty strange and Loud!

I hope it's not a precursor to an earthquake. a reply to: jtrenthacker

Sounds like a pressure leak or some kind...air water gas etc....

Underground Boring through solid rock.

Sounds like a drill to me.

Total guess...

It sounds electronically generated to me as best I can tell from a you tube video. Possibly someone's home alarm that has/was altered to emit a continuous tone. Sounds man-made to me...

I would take a guess at drains. The fact that it seems to occur early evening, lots of people getting home from work and school, making dinner and washing plates etc, using the bathroom and shower etc. Could be a pressure build up escaping from a pipe seam.

It would be interesting to know if it happens early morning too, and if not could ambient temperature have a bearing on that.

Or...it could be another of those seven bloody trumpets heralding the end again.

It sounds like electronic feedback from interference like a microphone being too close to the amplifier. This feedback loop is fairly unique. I would suspect some joker doing it on purpose to create some internet BS. Or, it could be a research effort to see how easy it is for people to misidentify well known phenomenon. Sound or RF direction finding equipment should be able to nail it down in short order.

originally posted by: Jonjonj
I would take a guess at drains.

I was going to say air in the pipes.

a reply to: jtrenthacker

It's the next POTUS blowing smoke up our ass.

UPDATE: The sound is still appearing at night and nobody has come up with an explanation. Here is another news article from OregonLive. I've noticed that Drudge has even picked up the story.

Forest Grove Noise

Here is more video from KOIN:


Also featured on KATU:
Audio Expert's Take

Lot's of news but no explanation. They've pretty much ruled out a leaky pipe or valve which is what I think it sounds like. The mystery continues.

a reply to: jtrenthacker

Honestly that "audio expert" isn't going to do much good just analyzing audio from a video clip. What is needed is them to go there with a couple of devices and measure amplitude until it is at its maximum. If nothing appears at that point that's obvious, then people had better look up to the sky. And at what exactly, remains to be seen. This could be just another manifestation of the weird noises being heard all over the world- except in this case it is a high shrill pitch.

Another thing they could possibly do is analyze the exact frequency, bandwidth across that frequency, and signal polarity. Once that is known, sound cancellation techniques could be used to help either minimize or even eliminate it. It would take some doing- many cd's would need to be produced and distributed to locals to blast the counter signal outside with their stereos. Even PA rental companies could get involved to help increase effectiveness by mounting phased arrays of speakers to blast the counter signal.

If no relief is found soon, it may take resorting to these kinds of ideas. But chances are like everywhere else, it will eventually just go away on its own. Unless it's aliens. Then good luck with that.