Rumbling all day TODAY (12/28/2010) in Western Washington

i'm in texas. i hear rumbling like that about once a week. planes do fly low over my house sometimes but it's a different rumbling sound. i usually hear it when i'm inside.... i've yet to actually see any jet going over when i hear the rumbling. it's odd but i usually assume it's a jet that i just can't see from my viewpoint.

reply to post by enemoplem


I know what you mean. I was hearing it again yesterday when I was on another walk. It was a busy day for jets though and during that same walk two high altitude jets flew directly over me and there were a couple others off-shore towards the naval base.

The thing is those, I can tell the difference. It is a different sound all together. Someone who is not paying attention (99.999% of the population) would register it as a jet without even stopping to listen. But it does not have the same affect as a jet...hard to describe, but anyone who has jets fly over a lot know what I mean. There is a coming/going sound with a cresendo and echo/hollow ring to a jet. This rumbling is more similar to distant thunder....it is much 'bigger' than a jet. It takes up the whole horizon (if its possible for a sound to do that ) like thunder rolling from a REALLY big storm...and I think 'rolling' is a good descriptive word for it. Only thunder does not go on and on and on like this does, and the tone is a bit deeper. You can feel it in your body like you can thunder...but at a lower resonance.

Anyway...quite a bit of quake activity here this past 24 hrs.....but I am off to write about that in my washington state thread. I would have liked to merge the three topics I have running, because I think they are all linke, but worthy of their own threads. Perhaps I will link them in my sig line.

Thank you for your input! I need to update my map again....

reply to post by westcoast



I'm not sure if there are other threads going to keep up with this topic, but I did want to report that I started hearing a low humming sound during the night here in Memphis. It seemed to be patterned with a beginning and an end, and continuous. I searched through my house and couldn't find a source inside, but seemed to come from everywhere. I'll update if it continues again tonight and if there are any other anomolies happening in the area.

reply to post by justsaying


Thank you! I am going to do an update on the map soon...I have three or four more people to add.

The rumbling was quite loud again today.

We have had several small quakes here in washington this past week also, and the deep tremors continue!

MAP 1.3 2011/01/24 11:38:06 47.721 -120.477 0.0 20 km ( 12 mi) NE of Leavenworth, WA
MAP 2.0 2011/01/24 09:16:03 47.773 -122.462 27.5 4 km ( 2 mi) SE of Kingston, WA
MAP 1.1 2011/01/24 03:59:01 46.091 -122.506 15.7 21 km ( 13 mi) N of Amboy, WA
MAP 1.6 2011/01/22 22:08:11 46.353 -122.273 16.7 18 km ( 11 mi) NNW of Mount St. Helens Volcano, WA
MAP 1.2 2011/01/22 00:34:49 46.576 -122.407 16.3 8 km ( 5 mi) NE of Mossyrock, WA
MAP 1.1 2011/01/21 13:51:15 48.168 -121.629 11.9 10 km ( 6 mi) S of Darrington, WA
MAP 1.3 2011/01/20 10:48:43 48.206 -122.208 14.8 4 km ( 2 mi) E of Silvana, WA
MAP 2.7 2011/01/20 03:04:53 46.796 -124.288 38.4 15 km ( 9 mi) W of Grayland, WA
MAP 1.0 2011/01/19 20:44:46 47.200 -123.278 7.5 13 km ( 8 mi) W of Shelton, WA
MAP 1.3 2011/01/19 20:27:03 47.662 -120.110 7.1 3 km ( 2 mi) WNW of Waterville, WA
MAP 2.9 2011/01/19 07:10:45 48.960 -120.688 6.6 66 km ( 41 mi) NW of Winthrop, WA
MAP 1.2 2011/01/18 06:32:21 46.766 -123.965 32.2 7 km ( 4 mi) NNE of Tokeland, WA

I live about 15 miles from an Air Force base and sometimes can here the distant but steady rumble of a jet engine being ran in a test cell. Perhaps that is what you hear?

Hi Westcoast

About a month ago, when I lived near south Seattle, I told you I heard the rumbling. I moved to south Tacoma near the AFB, and 512 and I'm now accustomed to the new sounds. I just went outside to check the mail and I listened for any type of rumbling. It was very low and I could hear/feel the vibration coming from the slightly northwest. It's almost due west, but not quite.
In Kent, I sensed it from the northwest, but my husband sensed it from the southwest.
We do have a very cold fog out right now and that could be affecting sounds. My new neighborhood is much more peaceful than the last and rarely can I hear the freeway, yet 512 sounded louder than normal, so did the AFB even though they are always loud. I can hear both clearly coming from the south of me. The rumbling was faint, but coming from west northwest.
I just want to let everyone know that I was in the AF for many years and experienced the idling/takeoff/landing noises from nearly every type of plane- from a little Cessna to a heavy C-5 to a fighter to an RC. What I heard was not aircraft.

Westcoast, I'm also following your other thread regarding Glacier and the seismos.

reply to post by type0civ


I don't think it's a jet engine I've been hearing. It's more of a vibrational feeling. Like something very heavy moving in the ground. the closest thing I can place it to was a mortar in Iraq being shot on the other side of the base. Sometimes it would hit so hard and deep, we could feel it more than hear it. But those were short and clearly explosions. This is a deeper steadier rumble.
Another way to explain it is Jurassic Park. Remember when Jeff Goldblum senses the thumps, but doesn't realize a dinosaur is coming until he see ripples in a footprint puddle. It's sort of like that.

reply to post by collietta


Wish I could give you more than one star. Excellent answer. Thank you!

I think I'll be up late tonight....I'm not too worried right now, but I definately think somethings up.

I live on Vancouver Island and I've been hearing this sound on and off for maybe a year 1/2. I haven't heard it for over a month now though. It is a very strange sound, almost eerie. Very deep sounding.. like the Earth growling. It lasts from 5-10 seconds to about a minute or 2. First time I heard it I thought it was an earthquake.

One time I was at the lake behind my house when the rumbling began. The calm water began to ripple a bit. I'm not sure if it was caused from the rumbling or not.

Very strange and I would like to know what the hell is causing it!!

reply to post by CaPpedDoG


I love this kind of confirmation. I have been hearing it for about the same amount of time, and describe the same way you do. The earth growling...I like that. My first instinct the first couple of times was earthquake or Mount Baker (because she is so close) I checked the quake sites right away and nothing.

It is loud again today. I'll be curious to see what the deep tremors show for the day.

Nice to hear from you, thank you!!

I'm a little east of Seattle and I've been hearing this on and off for a little less than a year, but the last week or so it has become more and more noticeable. I usually only hear it at night after everyone's settled down in our apartment buildings (around 10pm after TVs, etc have been turned off), but today I've been hearing it all day and a couple of times it has gotten pretty loud.

My family is from this area (my son being 5th generation in the Seattle area) and grew up camping, hiking, etc. so we're pretty familiar with this area. Also, while I commute into the city, my home is out in a more secluded area and I often watch the birds and wildlife from my porch and I am sensitive to any changes around here. (On a separate note...the birds & wildlife hasn't been normal either in the last year.)

To me it almost sounds like the earth is doing a DEEP toned gregorian chant, except it's drawing out one word indefinitely. And just like when there is bass sound when listening to music, you can "feel" it inside of you. It's that type of feeling that I get from it.

I thought it must be something that only I heard, but when I mentioned in passing that I had been hearing a weird sound at night this last week, my 15-year-old son immediately said "Oh!...I know exactly what you are talking about, I hear it too...it's creepy!"

I was a little surprised to see that others heard this and so I definitely wanted to contribute to this topic to maybe help figure out what it is.

reply to post by onthelookout


Thank you for adding your personal account! I am still so amazed at how many people in this region (and other states). The fact that we are all describing the same sound/sensation and time-line for it I think should mean something too.

I also grew up in washington and have been on the West side of the mountains for over 20 years now. This IS something I had never heard before.

reply to post by onthelookout

Great post. I love hearing all the confirming reports coming from people. Very creepy noise, I heard it ten years ago....SCHUMANN RESONANCE FREQUENCY? en.wikipedia.org...

given your location, is it possible you guys are picking up after effects from the japan volcano?

Follow up: My Husband checked 2 nights ago and confirmed that its coming from the same direction I heard it - west north west but mostly west. We're near Parkland in South Tacoma. With all these posts, have you been able to triangulate the source? Is there enough south south and west sound sources (like Bremerton people)

reply to post by collietta


I just went and found a compass, and the sound for me is coming from South/Southwest. I'm located in Redmond WA. Tacoma is Southwest of me and you said it was coming from the West (maybe NW) but mostly West. I'll look back in previous posts and see where else different locations heard it. Maybe we can zero in on it.

It's so loud right now that I can hear it over my tv (working from home today). One of my cats is going bonkers. I opened the sliding glass door to let some air in and she went like a streak to the window, flipped her ears all over the place and streaked back out of the living room and was making strange howling/meow noises and her tail is doing the cheesy poof thing. Not to go into too much (boring) detail, but both of my cats have been tweaking out more and more since this fall (special vet trips and all trying to figure it out...& finding nothing).

Ok - it's not much, having trouble focusing with this weird cold/sinus/vertigo thing going on. These are from WA & OR locations that experienced it and gave a direction:

onthelookout (me) - Redmond, WA - Sound coming from: SSW
collietta - Tacoma area, WA - Sound coming from: W (maybe NW)
westcoast - 80 miles N of Seattle - Sound coming from: SSW (Puget Sound area/Off the coast)
Portlandia - Portland, OR - Sound coming from: West (Pacific)

On a map - this would could potentially be pointing in the directions of the Puget Sound & Pacific Ocean. Could anyone else give their approximate location and direction the sound is coming from for them?

Also - After days of a building intensity in sound, it suddenly quieted down at about 11:30am PST. (But I can still hear it.)

I'm in the Midwest (Illinois side of St Louis) and I've been hearing this low rumbling noise for over a year now...I'll turn everything in the house off and go outside and I can still hear it. We have a huge old military base that closed a few years ago about 3 miles away and a major air force base about 15 miles (Scott air force base). Lots of low flying jet all the time so I can tell the difference between these low rumbling sounds and jets...also low flying fighters are a daily thing here now...about once an hour you can hear them taking off and landing...this past year it has been increasing..A-10's flying low over the house in formation...lots of weird stuff in this area right now.

Also..the other day I was taking photos of eagles at the Lewis and Clark memorial site (2 miles from my house where the Missouri and mississippi river meet) and was walking along the river bank towards the locks and dam and there was a new massive 'thing' with a huge pipe coming from underground and hanging over the river that looks like used for loading and unloading...all fenced off and warnings from the dept of homeland security...tons more..

reply to post by Stovokor


You have my ears - Tons more what??? Are the pipes for docking? or are they vents of some sort???

reply to post by Stovokor


Ears open here too....what more?...