It has finally happened to us---Rumbling noise heard last night

at approx. 9:50pmCST we heard a loud noise like a train crashing in the sky. I got out of bed to ask my husband to check weather.com to see if there was a thunder storm coming..but the radar was clear. I asked if he heard it and of course he had..it shook our house. He grabbed the flip video and stepped outside and again a very low mechanical hum followed by loud rumblings continued until 10:30pmCST. I don't know what it was--

This morning he asked the people he works with and they also heard it but thought nothing of it..no one seems to know where it was coming from. The loud rumbling definitely was in the sky while the low humming or vibration was from the closer to ground somewhere.

*Just so you know we don't live next to any (major) freeways or streets. We live in a town of under 20K people and there are no construction projects or anything like that going on that late at night. Also we live close enough to a train track that we can hear the dings of the lights so we know for a fact it was NOT a train. Trains come by about every one to two hours so we definitely know the difference in sounds.

We have also called some of our neighbors and other family and most of them heard it.

Oh my, these noises have been being heard more and more frequently over the last 6 months or so..
I cannot hear it, unfortunately, i live next to a harbour, and in town, so all i hear is trains, boats, cars, buses, power station, cops, ambulances.

The other day i did hear a noise though, i think it was before i went to bed that was out of the ordinary.

I live right across from where ships are being built on the other side of the harbour, but it was this loud..almost like a foghorn... but very extended.

To the OP, where are you located? The last couple of days I've been caught off guard by low rumbling noises as well, I thought at first they were storms, but at the time the weather was clear. Sometimes they were a low booming noise, other times just a rumble, I wonder whats going on.

I live in San Diego. Yesterday morning the weather was foggy and drizzling and the news predicted thunder storms. By 10am the skies were clear and it was sunny. Also on the news was the route that Pres. Obama would take, as he was to be in San Diego that afternoon.

I had a dentist appointement at 11am, and as I getting ready to leave I heard the thunder, but the sky was clear. Hmmm. Then, at the dentist office, a rumbling was heard for at least 1 1/2 hours. (Yes, I was there for 2 hours) Everybody was asking about it, it sounded like a freight train going through the parking lot. It didn't let up. Very weird!

reply to post by bekisu


I live by the Illinois interstate 57/24 corridor - Crab orchard wildlife refuge. That being said I do live far enough away from it that the sound couldn't have possible been from the small amount of traffic that is on the highway. This sound was most definitely from the sky or in the sky not down on the ground. It did sound a bit more thundery in person. While the video sounds more metal scraping. The sound was wooshing like there should have been a big blast of air coming toward us but there never was anything but the sound. No wind, no visible signs. We stood out in the cold for at least a 1/2 hour. The sound came and went..lessening as it went away.

I heard something similar this morning at approx. 6:30 AM. It was a very low mechanical humming like the OP described, and it would fluctuate on a very regular basis. Like a steady wave of hum up and down in volume at a very slow rate of speed. It would then almost sound like it shut off, but when I went to the window to try and locate the direction, I would realize it hadn't shut off, but just got real low just to climb back up again in the rhythmic hum that first alerted me to it.

I couldn't put an accurate direction to where it was coming from, but did sound ground based. I swore it had to be an engine at first, but it was like nothing I have heard before. Strange. I am in southern Ontario BTW. It continued like that for quite some time, until I fell back asleep.

If you have a spur line for the rail co . don't they usually switch the rail cars at night ? Could be what the metal sounds are all about .

Are these noises the same that everyone has reported recently? Honestly my first thought is that it was a train. I work downtown by some tracks & when they have to load up & change tracks that is what it reminded me of. Then the train whistle at the end. But if not train then it is rather odd.

Originally posted by watchdog8110
If you have a spur line for the rail co . don't they usually switch the rail cars at night ? Could be what the metal sounds are all about .

I just posted this below yours but that is what my initial thought was too.

reply to post by HawkeyeNation


Like I said I live close enough to track to KNOW every kind of train sound there has ever been. It was not the train. It had nothing to do with the train. It was bigger and higher..and if you look at the map on google you can see the train tracks and how they run. It is a straight line Union Pacific Rail. The other rail line is about 4 miles from me and hardly gets used..the other line starts with a C but I don't know the rail company name.

Originally posted by Neopan100
reply to post by HawkeyeNation

 

Like I said I live close enough to track to KNOW every kind of train sound there has ever been. It was not the train. It had nothing to do with the train. It was bigger and higher..and if you look at the map on google you can see the train tracks and how they run. It is a straight line Union Pacific Rail. The other rail line is about 4 miles from me and hardly gets used..the other line starts with a C but I don't know the rail company name.

Very odd indeed. Good video of the sound though. I live in a bigger city so I will unlikely ever hear this noise. Or if I did I will just play it off as construction.

You said you live near rail lines. I think I hear the sound of the crossing bells in the video. That boom noise sounds like a locomotive connecting and disconnecting rail cars. When the cars bump into one another and their couplings latch, the noise is incredible-- especially if they're empty. It's like beating a drum with a locomotive.

reply to post by Infrasilent

I live by a single track. The track is the only line for miles..The train goes by like 20xs a day..I know what the train sounds like..as a matter of fact a train went by at high speed once while we were out. after the train went by we heard the noise several more times...so I don't really see how this could be connected to the train going by or tracks.

People heard this noise that live on the other side of town..how could they have felt the floor vibrate and hear a noise that far away from the track? This sound wasn't on the ground it was like thundering above our heads..the hum or vibration was on the ground or at least it felt that way..but the loud thundering swooshing sound was definitely above.

Yeah we're probably past trains now seeing as the massive response this is giving .. if people are hearing it in the states, and I'm hearing it in Holland; it's a whoole lot bigger than a train.

reply to post by mangojuice


Yes! Thank you...trust me I try to be rational...We thought of anything that could have been happening...car wreck, train crash, train derailing..we NEVER heard any police/fire rescue sirens..nothing but the low hum and then the wooshing thundering, metallic sound. I even had my husband go by and check the track the next morning to see if maybe they were unloading new rails..possibly getting ready to re-rail the tracks. There was nothing..We live in a very quiet residential neighborhood. We have no farm machinery around us..no manufacturing..the closest thing is a Hucks convenience store and a bakery. For the 45 minutes we were out only one car drove by. I mean it was at 10pm...most everything around here closes up at 6pm and there never really is much traffic, even during the day.


I did go to youtube and looked up videos on coupling trains and connecting trains and they didn't sound anything like this. This noise was just so loud you would have thought it was a train derailing and the cars sliding on the pavement...that really was our first thought...but we stayed out and listened for sirens and believe me every cop in the tricounty would have been on that scene..they have nothing else better going on..

I live in upstate New York and haven't heard any of these noises, but I'm waiting.. I look to the skys as much as I can looking for UFOs or bright lights. I definitely feel something coming, its a weird presences. I don't believe the world is going to end though, just change.

I'm in Nova Scotia and tonight I've been hearing a constant pulsing noise coming from the sky, not a rumble like most have heard.

I though at first it was a plane but were under no major flight routes and this has been happening for the last 20 minutes now.

I'm in the middle of no where so I can't find any good explanations for the sound. No trains, trucks, etc.