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What’s Causing That Mysterious Noise Keeping Oregon Residents Awake?

By Coburn Palmer
Published on: 10:32 PST, Feb 25, 2016

A mysterious high-pitched noise is haunting a small Oregon town and keeping residents awake at night, and officials have no idea what’s causing it.

For the last week, residents of the Portland suburb of Forest Grove have been kept awake at night by a mysterious flute like noise that authorities have been unable to identify, and the internet has come up with amazing theories to explain it.

Residents of the rural Oregon town say the mysterious high-pitched sound has appeared decades before only to vanish before authorities could track it down.

Hear it for yourself.

The sound has been blamed on everything from ghosts and aliens, to leaking gas pipes, local wildlife, and faulty water valves; residents have also tried blaming faulty brakes and forestry or manufacturing equipment, Fire Marshall Dave Nemeyer told ABC News.

“It’s definitely a horrendous noise. I have no idea what the noise is. 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.”

The local gas company sent a tech out to check area pipelines and investigate the cause of the mysterious noise, but he wasn’t able to determine where it was coming from.

Reuters asked acoustics engineer Tobin Cooley to investigate the noise, but he also came up short on identifying the cause of the high-pitched sound keeping these Oregon residents awake.

“Higher frequencies like this tone are very directional sounds, versus low-frequency sounds which can seem to come from anywhere or everywhere at once. What surprises me is that neighbors have not been able to locate where this is coming from.”

The mysterious flute noise has only been heard at night and can last from four to 10 seconds.

The story of the mysterious noise afflicting this small Oregon town has spread internationally and social media users have posted outrageous memes and crazy theories to try and explain its existence.

Some posters claim the sound is made by ghosts in a nearby cemetery and the town of Forest Grove is actually a hotbed of paranormal activity, or possibly a hellmouth.

Other say it’s coming from an alien mother ship or it could be a message from beings on a higher plane warning residents about an impending disaster, while some believe it to be the sound of the trumpet call described in the Bible.

Still other residents claim the noise is commonly heard in the forest and has never caused any harm.

The police in Forest Grove are definitely upset over the noise and the community’s reaction to it. They’ve been forced to ask residents to stop calling 911 over the flute noise and have warned the community that anyone caught making the noise intentionally will face jail time.

Police and fire officials along with city government authorities say they strongly believe there to be a reasonable explanation for the high-pitched noise, reports KOIN 6 News.

“The police department does not believe there is a threat to our town or citizens.”

They still can’t explain it away, however, and their threats of jail time doesn’t seem to have any effect on the cause of the mysterious high-pitched flute noise.

At this point it’s any one’s guess what’s causing the high-pitched flute noise keeping Forest Grove residents awake.

[Photo by Chris Furlong/Getty Images]

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