Maybe an answer to the strange noises heard in a cave

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Re: Maybe an answer to the strange noises heard in a cave

Postby LukeM » Mar 18, 2013 8:19 am

I've never heard "things" in a fossil passage or otherwise inactive part of a cave so I don't think the idea of sensory deprivation leading to hallucinations has ever come into play for me. It's certainly possible to experience that though. People have been using isolation/float tanks for years for research and recreation and hallucinations are widely reported. I've definitely heard things when near running water though!
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Re: Maybe an answer to the strange noises heard in a cave

Postby Wayne Harrison » May 28, 2013 6:51 pm

This topic really grabbed my interest because I heard what sounded like "rocks" moving (a single rock move, not a sustained rock move) while alone in a Colorado cave while waiting for the rest of the group to return from a 2 or 3 hour trip further in than I wanted to go that day.

I sat in a large room (at one end) that led into other areas and heard 3 or 4 distinct rock moves over a 2-hour period. I thought of it as a "living" cave that still has things move, for whatever reason. I wondered why I never heard it before but then I realized I'd never been sitting quietly in a cave for that length of time.

I wonder if anyone has looked into cave sounds over an extended period of silence -- maybe recording so the sounds could be played back?
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Re: Maybe an answer to the strange noises heard in a cave

Postby Myrna Attaway » May 28, 2013 7:49 pm

I was with two other people in the dry passages in War Eagle. It was so quite we started hearing the hum caused by the little cilia in you ears can make when there is no soud. This propmted a conversation about what caused the hum. That when one of them made a statement I will never forget. ?....Thats why blind people can hear better than deaf people can see.

It made sense at the time.
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Re: Maybe an answer to the strange noises heard in a cave

Postby NSS8921 » Jun 5, 2013 11:27 am

The strangest thing I've heard in a cave was a very faint cacaphony - not voices - that became louder with time. I was in a breakdown-strewn passage waiting for friends to catch up. The sound was completely unidentifiable until it got close enough to resolve into two guys carrying extension ladders and constantly banging them off the breakdown.

I've heard the voices in water, too, usually in my bathroom sink. If you yell at them long enough, they always go away.
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Re: Maybe an answer to the strange noises heard in a cave

Postby nathanroser » Jun 9, 2013 7:04 pm

I was hearing what sounded like a watch alarm on two different occasions on a camp this weekend. Waiting at the bottom of a drop into big passage Friday night going in I heard it, coming out Sunday I heard it again approaching the same spot. It's probably just water dripping but it sounded like an alarm clock.
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Re: Maybe an answer to the strange noises heard in a cave

Postby The Seeker » Aug 1, 2013 10:47 pm

Fascinating stuff! I haven't been in a water cave by myself for long enough yet to have heard "the voices." What words have you guys/girls heard?
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