Yvonne Conner’s world turned upside down in the spring of 2020. The whole country was, of course, in a state of heightened anxiety at the time.
But Yvonne and many of her neighbours found themselves at the mercy of not just Covid, but also another epidemic, for which there is still no obvious explanation, and no cure or vaccine.
It isn’t a virus. It is a sound — a low-frequency, intrusive sound which, she says, has destroyed her life, and that of others in her hometown of Holmfield, a suburb of Halifax in West Yorkshire.
They call it the Holmfield Hum. And two years on there is no respite. ‘It feels as though my head is going to explode,’ she says.
There has been much speculation about the noise — suggestions that it is caused by factory extraction fans or a U.S. military programme. Some even believe it’s the sound of aliens beaming signals to Earth.
Yvonne Conner’s world turned upside down in the spring of 2020. The whole country was, of course, in a state of heightened anxiety at the time. But Yvonne and many of her neighbours found themselves at the mercy of not just Covid, but also another epidemic, for which there is still no obvious explanation, and no cure or vaccine
It is as though Holmfield is in the grip of some dark force that no one can explain, not even acoustic experts — and certainly not the local Labour council.
‘It’s useless,’ says Yvonne. ‘The councillor they’ve put in charge of the problem doesn’t even live here. He’s 15 miles away.’
Yvonne shudders as she describes what she has been through. ‘At least with Covid you knew where you were,’ she says. A level-headed, 50-year-old Yorkshire woman, she is not the sort who is given to overstatement. She is no conspiracy theorist, and does not believe in negative energy or little green men. She just wants to get some sleep.
Nor is she the only one suffering. A petition she organised, calling on the council to take action, has been signed by more than 500 residents. Yvonne was forced to leave the welfare job she loved, and suffers shingles — caused, she says, by the hum.
To try to escape the stress, she has become a dog walker, and she’s considering moving out of Holmfield altogether, even though it has been her home for most of her life.
‘It was around teatime, perhaps 7pm, when I first heard it,’ she says. ‘But I actually felt it before I heard it. It was like a weird wave of energy going right through my forehead. Right through my ears and into my head. A drumming sound. I know it sounds crazy.
A petition she organised, calling on the council to take action, has been signed by more than 500 residents. Yvonne was forced to leave the welfare job she loved, and suffers shingles — caused, she says, by the hum
‘But soon after that came a low-frequency hum, a vibration, a bit like an aircraft droning overhead.’ At first Yvonne thought the noise might be coming from one of her appliances — a TV on standby or an overworked washing machine.
So she switched everything off, and asked her neighbours to do the same. But still the hum persisted.
‘At first I seemed to be the only person hearing it. But gradually I talked to friends and neighbours and they were hearing it, too. Then I set up a Facebook page and I was inundated. There is no sign that it is going to go away.’
Not everyone has experienced the hum. Sam West, who runs a fish and chip shop, has never heard it but knows plenty who have.
‘I live a few miles away from here but I know that people have been bothered by it. The cause? Haven’t a clue. But people say it’s coming from the industrial estate.’
Chloe Robinson, a student nurse at Huddersfield Hospital, has been hearing the hum for at least six months. ‘It has had a real impact on our quality of life,’ she says.
Nikki Kelly, who is standing for the Conservatives in the local council elections in May, says there must be a public inquiry.
‘The hum is making many people’s lives a misery,’ she explains. ‘Once you’ve heard it, you can’t unhear it. It is having a devastating effect on the mental health of hundreds of people in this area.’
Simon Speechley, who runs a pub and wedding venue on the town’s outskirts, is frustrated by the council’s apparent refusal to take the problem seriously.
‘They are very hot on planning permission — I had to invest £100,000 in a speaker system that ensured the sound from our events wouldn’t travel too far,’ he says.
‘But they’ve done nothing about the hum. I hear it a lot at home and I get woken up at about two or three in the morning. It’s got to the stage where I am considering moving out. But why should I?’
The Holmfield Hum is not the first of its kind. Since the 1970s, scientists have been aware of unexplained noises which they have called ‘hums’. In the 1970s, the News Of The World asked Bristol readers whether they had heard a low-frequency humming sound that had been reported. Some 800 replied that they had.
In 1992, a hum cropped up in Southampton, where one person said it had nearly driven them to suicide: ‘I’ve been on tranquillisers and have lost count of the number of nights I have spent holding my head in my hands and crying.’ But ‘hums’ are not confined to Britain. The most notorious one was heard in Taos, New Mexico, in the early 1990s. Local residents reported symptoms of nausea, headaches and pain in the ears.
It was said to affect about 2 per cent of the population, and it was suggested that these people had particularly sensitive hearing and could hear low-frequency sounds — similar to those made by an industrial fan or an idling lorry engine — while others could not.
Dr Glen MacPherson, a scientist based in Vancouver, has studied the hum phenomenon for more than 20 years and has produced an online map that shows thousands of instances. It indicates that the hum is particularly prevalent in the UK. ‘That is probably because of the high population density,’ he says.
He has not yet investigated the Holmfield Hum in any detail, but suggests the obvious starting point would be to examine places such as the industrial estate.
He adds: ‘Once you’ve eliminated external sources such as ventilator systems, engine noises, police sirens and so on, you are left with the idea that the hum is generated by the human body like a medical condition, similar to tinnitus.’
Many recent outbreaks in the U.S. have been blamed on phone transmissions and interference from U.S. military communications. Other conspiracy theories have been floated: the hum is a signal of the world’s end or an imminent catastrophe, or is supernatural.
Others have blamed a weapon from the U.S. military HAARP research programme in Alaska. It is said that the high-frequency radio waves it can beam out are capable of melting an aircraft engine 250 miles away.
The Russians have demanded that the programme be stopped, citing environmental and health concerns. Might Holmfield have fallen foul of the U.S. military?
David Deming, an American geoscientist at the University of Oklahoma, published a study of what he called the worldwide hum in 2004. He suggests that radio waves transmitted by the U.S. military to stay in touch with its submarine fleet are the cause. But there is no concrete proof.
Some think there is a psychological element to this. Only those with super-sensitive hearing are affected, but the more these people focus on the sound, the more anxious they become — and their bodies respond by amplifying the sound.
Dr Geoff Leventhall, an acoustic engineer in Surrey, has been studying the hums for decades. He can’t say what is causing the Holmfield Hum, but notes: ‘If it is not coming from industry or natural sources there is the possibility that some of those hearing it are experiencing tinnitus or psychological effects.’ Some scientists even believe it could be a form of mass delusion.
The Holmfield Hum is not the first of its kind. Since the 1970s, scientists have been aware of unexplained noises which they have called ‘hums’
In history there are many examples of this spreading through populations, such as the fear of witches in the 17th century, and mass ghost-sightings — in 19th-century London, a man was even shot in the belief he was a ghost.
Laughter epidemics have taken hold of villages in Africa, and in medieval France all the nuns in a convent began mewing like cats.
Back in Holmfield, Yvonne is dismissive of most of these explanations. She has taken a hearing test and is free of tinnitus. Is it a case of mass delusion? ‘We’re not stupid and we’re not nuts,’ she retorts. ‘That noise is definitely there. It’s a form of torture. Not everyone can hear it — and it’s not there all the time.
‘There’s no question about it — it’s coming from one of the factories,’ she says.
The factory in question, she believes, is Gower Furniture, which has been operating for half a century. It is a large local employer — which is why the council refuses to close it down, says Yvonne.
The Mail drove to the industrial estate to visit the factory, which makes fitted kitchens. At the front, a pipe was connected to a biomass boiler. At close quarters a low, loud hum could be heard.
A spokeswoman for the firm said: ‘We fully sympathise with residents. But the council and an independent noise consultant concluded that the hum is nothing to do with our site.’ She added that the hum could still be heard even when the factory is shut.
Yvonne is not convinced, but can’t explain why she can still hear the hum even when the factory isn’t operating.
The council is adamant that the factory is not to blame. Cllr Jenny Lynn told the Mail: ‘Our investigation is ongoing, so we are not able to go into the details.’ She added that the council could not use its statutory powers because the noise is so hard to detect.
Whatever is behind it, Yvonne is struggling to come to terms with it. ‘Fortunately it’s been a quiet day today. I can’t always hear it,’ she said. And nor could I or the photographer as we stood in her living room.
In the kitchen at the rear of the house, however, it was a different matter — we all heard a low-pitched noise coming up from the floor.
Had I succumbed to mass delusion? I don’t think so. The hum had returned. Perhaps it never went away.
