A piercing noise that plagued the city of Forest Grove in Oregon in 2016 has been hypothesized to be everything from a defective water valve to aliens. The sound, akin to a bad one-note violin solo broadcast over a microphone with nonstop feedback, began seemingly out of nowhere. Residents of the Portland suburb reported that the sound would usually occur after dark and last up to a few minutes. Initially considered just an annoyance, the sound became something of a local celebrity as the story went national, and determining the origin of the notorious noise quickly became a pastime for residents of the city of about 22,000. Andrew Dawes, a physics professor at nearby Pacific University, created a crowd-sourced map and encouraged people to drop a pin where they heard the noise and note the date and time in hopes of collecting enough data to conclude where it was coming from. More than a dozen people reported on the map that they heard the noise in various areas of Forest Grove, but the map didn’t provide an explanation, and speculation took off. The Oregonian published an extensive list of hypotheses, which came from around the country and even overseas. One reader suggested that the sound might be somehow related to fallout from a standoff between anti-government protesters and authorities at an Oregon wildlife refuge. He may not have realized that the drama unfolded more than 300 miles south of Forest Grove. Another reader from New York proposed the sound could be coming from street lamps, explaining that they often make an unusual noise when the bulbs are about to burn out. Some of the best theories were the mating Sasquatch, an alien mother ship attempting contact, and mating drum fish. Shortly thereafter, the noise apparently came to a screeching halt. The police department didn’t receive any more reports about it, and the last pin was dropped on Dawes’ map on Feb. 27, 2016. The abrupt cessation led authorities to believe that the ear-splitting sound probably stemmed from a prank, but to this day there has never been any confirmation of that.
