FOREST GROVE, Ore. -- A high-pitched “mystery noise” in Forest Grove is getting national attention after word spread from the neighborhood, to the state and now beyond.
Bill Bullock's been hearing from family members across the country who read the story in places like the Washington Post.
“They’re just calling and asking what the noise is, and what was happening here, because news is getting out evidentially everywhere,” he told KGW.
Bullock finds himself explaining the situation again and again, even though he’s never actually heard the odd sound himself.
“I take these guys out for walks 5 to 6 times a day and the last one around 10:30, and the only sound I hear is coyotes,” he said, pointing to his dogs.
Bullock's neighbor, Paula Lynch, said she's heard the awful sound three times. She recorded the high-pitched hum on her cell phone around 11 p.m. on Feb. 12th and posted the video on Facebook.
It was the third time that week she’d heard the noise, noting a similar shrill sound six days and two days prior.
“My first instinct was that it was a gas line issue and there might be an explosion,” said Lynch, who called police to report the sound.
“There would be a city ordinance violation if somebody was creating a noise like this, that late at night on purpose to annoy people,” said Forest Grove Police Captain Mike Herbs. “At this point, we don’t have information that would lead us to believe that’s the case.”
The Forest Grove Fire Department ruled out the possibility that the noise was a commercial fire or smoke alarm and said that despite the mystery, they didn’t believe the sound was a hazard to the public.
(Mobile users- Jimmy Fallon had some fun with the noise too.)
Forest Grove mystery solved!Jimmy Fallon says he's found the source of the mystery Forest Grove noise!(Background story: on.kgw.com/FGnoise)
Posted by KGW-TV on Thursday, February 25, 2016
Staff from the nearby Department of Forestry said crews tested equipment on Tuesday to see if the sound came from their property, but concluded it hadn’t.
Both Northwest Natural and Forest Grove Public Works denied responsibility for the sound.
“It sounds to me like some kind of release valve or some kind of pipe that's under pressure,” said Herbs, adding that others around town have formed their own theories of what’s causing the noise.
"It's an alien mother ship or a warning sign of something to come,” Herbs joked. “We feel there's a logical explanation for it.”
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