Petra originally wrote gI'm attaching a link regarding the investigation of the Taos, New Mexico phenomena, which came to be know as the Taos Hum.h The link she attached was to one particular paper, but John, in his {that's a wild site} post criticizes the entire website. Three of his four comments do not even pertain to the specified paper.

Granted, there are unexplained contradictions between papers on that website. Itfs not even clear whether or not gthe [worldwide] Humh is the same as gthe Taos Humh.

On the causes of the latter:
[Paper written by Joe Mullins and Jim Kelly of the University of New Mexico, dated Nov 22, 1995]
gAs a result, we are left with a mystery. There are no acoustic signals that might account for the hum nor are there any seismic events that might explain it. There are no unusual lines at suspect frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum recorded near Taos.h

On the cause of the former:
gObservations and measurements made during the past year [this update is dated Nov 16, 2004] have shown a conclusive relationship between a pulsed electrical signal and the Humc@Understanding now what to look for, the detection of these pulses is a simple matter and well within the capacity of a radio Ham or second year physics student.h

Thatfs a lot of progress in nine years; too bad itfs not documented.

One of the red flags on the website that flapped in my face was:
gFor those researching the Hum, please read the original papers [of] Nikola Tesla on using the Earth as an electrical conductor.h Fraser-Smith used a whole peninsula as an antenna – so what? On the Internet Tesla is often portrayed as representing some secret kind of physics that has been suppressed. So this is a sign that ordinary physics will not be enough to explain something.

Still, the 1995 paper cited did not make any reference to any other hum outside of Taos, except in speculating gthe source of the hum must be widespread since hearers perceive it throughout the Taos area and we have received letters from all over the country describing a similar phenomenon.h Later in the paper, though, they write g[Taos] hearers agreed almost universally that the perceived sound was unusually intense at a very remote site near Tres Piedrasch which would indicate that though sources may be widespread, they are probably not ubiquitous and equivalent. If they had wanted to pursue the matter of comparing worldwide Hum with Taos Hum, they could have brought in some people from England and Indiana, and arranged to find out whether their perceived hums changed in characteristic, or whether they experienced the same intensity at that particular Taos location. But their project as written up in that paper was solely to investigate the Taos Hum.

On the other hand, Petra then posted, gHere's an article [By MINDY SINK] from the New York Times regarding the Taos Hum published in 2003. g True, Petrafs purpose was only to show that tinnitus was not involved. However, reading this article, it is clear that the subject is not gthe Taos Humh, but rather gthe worldwide Humh. Albuquerque , Kokomo, Ind., and Taos are all mentioned, before it is stated gThere have been reports of hums in England, Scotland, Australia and other places in the United States for decades.h

Ifd like to comment only on the particular paper Petra cited,

The authors wrote, gThe electromagnetic data were collected from 20 Hz to 18 Ghz using an assortment of antennas and receiversch

It looks like they selected the lower bound of that range for three reasons:

1) gSince the US Navy ELF stations in the Michigan peninsular and in Wisconsin were widely suspected to be the source of the hum, we looked carefully at the 65 to 75 Hz region of the electromagnetic spectrumch
2) gHearers who are musicians identify the hum as a modulated tone near Eb (41 Hz) and those with some technical background identify it as an amplitude modulated sound with a carrier frequency ranging from 30 to 80 Hz.h
3) gThe results of these tests were both intriguing and puzzling. The carrier frequencies selected by the hearers ranged from 32 Hz to 80 Hz. The modulating frequencies they chose ranged from ½ to 2 Hz.h

I noted one possible flaw in the conclusion of this 1995 paper by Mullins and Kelly. They write, gThere are no unusual lines at suspect frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum recorded near Taos.h They did not consider frequencies under 20 Hz as gsuspecth; that is, they did not consider the possibility that, say, a 13Hz signal might by transduction produce a 39Hz sound. Since little is known of the transduction mechanism, their assumption that EM frequencies are literally transducted into the same sound frequencies (as is the case with objects) might be wrong.

Anyway, I think everyone should first agree whether the subject under discussion is a particular study concerning a particular place, or if it is a biological enigma, or a worldwide phenomena.

Then eventually maybe we could get around to what this has to do with ear tones.

On Charlotte King:
John wrote, gWhere is the fact that Charlotte King hearsc ultra-low frequencyc? Are you arguing the ear tones arise from acoustic or electromagnetic waves, or that new physics yet to be discovered is required to explain them?h

If the gfoghornh sound that King describes on her website arises from electrophonic transduction, her ability to hear low-frequency sounds might be relevant, but is possibly not essential, since the mechanism is unknown. If the transduction involved vibrations picked up by the ear, it is relevant; if transduction is something more directly affecting nerve cells, hearing ability might be irrelevant, or less relevant. (She also claims on her website to have been tested for EM sensitivity, with positive results).

EM waves are the most likely source of the sounds, I think.

King has described that sound as constant and continuous, with her all the time. So in that sense it resembles the Hum. Yet she states that it fluctuates, and it is these fluctuations that she recognizes as being related to earthquakes. So are these fluctuations in some sense similar to ear tones?

John wrote, gIt is heading to the realm of the psychics. Not sounds nor EM waves when they check it outch

As I noted above, EM frequencies below 20Hz were not included in the Taos study. So I would say that it is heading into the realm of naturally occurring low frequency EM radiation and its biological effects.