VOA标准英语2010年-Do You Hear a Low, Rumbling Hum?

Some in New Mexico do and are mystified and annoyed

Ted¹ Landphair | Washington, DC 17 February 2010

No one has yet figured out why, or whether, pleasant, somewhat remote Taos, New Mexico, is visited by a strange hum, audible to only a few.

"...scientists, including hearing specialists from the University of New Mexico, suspect something is going on."

Imagine that you're at home, and it's quiet as a mouse. But outside, a big diesel² truck is parked with its motor idling. The sound is barely audible, but once you notice it, it's distracting. If the truck were to stay there for days and weeks on end, the sound would spoil your concentration, even wake you up at night.

It could literally³ drive you crazy.

In the mountains of New Mexico, around the artists' colony in the little town of Taos, a few people report hearing just such a sound - all night, all day, every day. 

Enough people that the sound has been given a name, "the Taos hum."

The American Southwest is famous for sightings of unidentified flying objects, outer-space creatures that have landed and conspiracy⁴ stories about top-secret government research. One wild theory blames the Taos hum on signals sent to submarines. Curious, since the closest deep water to Taos is more than 1,200 kilometers [770 miles] away.

Scientists in New Mexico are trying to find the source of a possible hum that only some people can apparently⁵ hear.

So skeptics have dismissed the Taos hum as the product of vivid imaginations. After all, the vast majority of people in town don't hear a thing.

But scientists, including hearing specialists from the University of New Mexico, suspect something is going on. Perhaps what people are hearing is the common ringing sensation, called tinnitus, in their own ears. But tinnitus produces high-frequency sounds, and those who hear the Taos hum say it's low, down around the lowest C on a piano keyboard.

So the scientists planted listening devices around Taos that are thousands of times more sensitive than the human ear. But the needles haven't moved a hair.

So now the thinking is that hum hearers may not be picking up a single sound at all, but somehow accumulating traces of all the low, everyday sounds that surround us.  This, of course, is little comfort to them.

 

1 ted   

vt.翻晒，撒，撒开

参考例句：

• The invaders gut ted the village.侵略者把村中财物洗劫一空。
• She often teds the corn when it's sunny.天好的时候她就翻晒玉米。

2 diesel   

n.柴油发动机，内燃机

参考例句：

• We experimented with diesel engines to drive the pumps.我们试着用柴油机来带动水泵。
• My tractor operates on diesel oil.我的那台拖拉机用柴油开动。

3 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

4 conspiracy   

n.阴谋，密谋，共谋

参考例句：

• The men were found guilty of conspiracy to murder.这些人被裁决犯有阴谋杀人罪。
• He claimed that it was all a conspiracy against him.他声称这一切都是一场针对他的阴谋。

5 apparently   

adv.显然地；表面上，似乎

参考例句：

• An apparently blind alley leads suddenly into an open space.山穷水尽，豁然开朗。
• He was apparently much surprised at the news.他对那个消息显然感到十分惊异。