- A mysterious hum, similar to one reported in Taos nine
years ago, has turned up recently in Kokomo, Ind., where dozens of people
say it is making them sick.
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- Like the Taos hum, the Kokomo one has produced a cluster
of people who say they are bothered by unexplained, low-frequency vibrations.
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- People elsewhere in the United States and in other industrialized
countries have complained about similar vibrations.
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- "Yesterday, it had me completely knocked out,"
Winona Whitted of Santa Fe said on July 16. "All I could do is just
(lie) there in a microwave coma."
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- Like many other hum hearers, Whitted participates in
Internet discussions where theories about the source of such hums range
from UFOs, military-industrial plots, secret experiments, electric-power
plants and cellular telephones to natural phenomena, hysterical paranoia,
drug use, hypochondria and differences in how we perceive sound.
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- In June, the Kokomo Tribune ran a five-part series plus
an editorial based on interviews with about 40 locals who said they began
hearing or feeling "a low-pitched droning" about two years ago.
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- Steve Kozarovich, a Tribune assistant editor whose wife
wrote the series, said that since publication, others have called to say
they too hear a low-pitched sound.
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- "Almost immediately after the noise began, nearly
every resident reported having chronic and severe headaches, were awakened
several times at night and were fatigued," wrote Lisa Hurt Kozarovich,
a free-lancer. "About 30 residents said they were also nauseated and
had other symptoms - the most common being pressure or ringing in their
ears, chronic joint pain, dizziness, depression and diarrhea."
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- One of those interviewed for the article was Kathie Sickles
of Greentown, Ind., a city of 45,000 located 10 miles east of Kokomo, who
said she began feeling a low vibration in late 1999.
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- "When the paperwork (documenting the vibration)
was first brought to me and I read it, I knew immediately what had plagued
my house," she said in a recent interview. "You can feel it here.
We have bedrooms that vibrate. We have people with patios that vibrate
by the back door."
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- Sickles has formed a group called Our Environment to
investigate what she believes is an environmental condition from heavy
industrialization in north-central Indiana.
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- "Some people think they (people troubled by the
vibration) are crazy," she said.
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- The Kokomo hum, which Sickles said has been measured
at 10 to 30 hertz (or cycles per second), appears to cause maladies worse
than the sleep deprivation and irritability reported in New Mexico almost
a decade ago.
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- In the summer of 1992, a half dozen Taoseños said
a low-pitched buzz was keeping them awake at night. Bob and Catanya Saltzman,
who lived south of Taos, hired an acoustical engineer who reported a tone
of 17 hertz with a harmonic rising to 70 hertz near the area. The low range
of human hearing is 20 to 30 hertz.
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- Bill Richardson, a Democratic U.S. congressman for Northern
New Mexico at the time, stirred up speculation in early 1993 when he said
the hum could be defense related. Two months later, U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici,
R-N.M., said the Pentagon had assured him there was no defense involvement.
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- Scientists and engineers organized by the University
of New Mexico set up acoustical, seismic and electro-magnetic instruments
near the Saltzmans' home in May 1993. But the report issued that August
failed to pinpoint any source or isolate the exact vibration, which was
said to be between 30 and 80 hertz.
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- The study estimated that two percent of Taos County's
population heard the vibration.
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- The Taos hum became an instant news story, drawing such
diverse media as the Wall Street Journal and the cable-TV show Sightings.
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- Nevertheless, publicity about the hum died out, and it
became a joke around Taos. A California rock band took the name - the Taos
Hum - and the Range Cafe in Bernalillo named a dessert for the phenomenon.
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- Taos residents who first complained of a hum have left
the area or simply stopped trying to solve the mystery.
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- Bob Saltzman, an art photographer, and his wife, Catanya,
a professional dancer, moved the next year to Baja California where, they
said, they did not hear a hum.
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- Another couple, Paul Loumena and Alexandra Lorraine,
sold their Laughing Horse Inn in Taos and also moved away.
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- Taos-hum hearer Sara Allen, an engineer with KTAO radio
in Taos, says she continues to hear it but suffers no severe symptoms and
no longer tries to do anything about it.
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- "We didn't get any real satisfaction or any real
interest," Allen said. "I have my own theories about it that
I've expounded on many times, and I still believe them. I think it affects
people who don't sense it, too. They're just lucky."
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- She believes the hum is from military-communication signals.
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- Shatzie Hubbell, who lived on Canyon Road in Santa Fe,
where, she said, she was bothered by a vibration, moved to a ranch near
Fort Worth, Texas. There, she added, she no longer sensed it. Hubbell has
posted a map on a Seattle-based Web site (eskimo.com) showing the locations
of 368 hum hearers, grouped generally on the East and West Coasts, the
Rocky Mountains and upper Midwest.
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- Low-frequency sounds also have been reported in other
parts of the world, including one case in the early 1960s and again in
the late 1980s in southern England, as well as in Sweden, South Africa
and Australia.
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- That's no comfort for those who live with the sound.
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- "It's horrible. It's killing me," said Whitted,
who lives on Airport Road in Santa Fe. "I went to see my doctor about
a year ago, and I told him that I just couldn't make it any longer. I'm
just in so much pain. And he gave me a prescription for an antidepressant,
not for its antidepressant qualities, but because it helps with what they
call undefined pain and a lack of sleep."
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- David Deming, an associate professor of geology at the
University of Oklahoma, said he believes the hum is caused by ELF, or extra-low-frequency
radio signals, used for communications between submarines and aircraft.
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- The signals use antennae buried in the upper peninsula
of Michigan and in Wisconsin, though Deming said its headquarters are at
Tinker Air Force Base near Oklahoma City, about 20 miles from Norman.
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- Deming said when he began sensing the low-frequency vibrations
in 1994, he thought it was something in his neighborhood. But, after he
and his wife moved to a new house a few miles from Norman, both began hearing
it. He said it often is at its worst late at night, just before he hears
the engine sounds of an airplane overhead.
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- After the Norman Transcript published an article about
their experiences, Deming said, they heard from dozens of other people
bothered by the same thing.
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- "I'm normally not a person who is worried about
that sort of thing," he said.
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- "I live underneath power lines. I use a cell phone
all the time. But at times when it's most intense and painful, what scares
me is the ignorance. We don't know what causes it and what the effects
are."
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- But Deming said he had stopped participating in the Internet
discussion groups because "it attracts the misinformation people -
the kooks."
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