#but again i couldn't comment without setting up a yt channel and i don't really wanna do that so ...

[yuureimajo]

i've been catching up on some YouTube content and just watched the "Sky Trumpets" episode of Mystery Files and i was like !!! because i've actually experienced this mystery! … along with dozens and dozens of other people … but yeah! i actually, personally have heard this crazy sound that i personally think sounds kinda like a gigantic chair scraping across a gigantic floor. have to say though, i'm normally in agreement with Shane about unexplained things probably having at least logical if not mundane answers, but not in this case. 'cause like … i agree, the sounds do also sound kinda like trains. i live in a city (that is approx. a 12 hour drive from Terrace, which was one of the cities where someone took a video that was shown in the episode) with train tracks that go right through the center of town, and the sound and rumble of the trains is basically omnipresent. and sometimes when they brake, the screech of the wheels on the tracks is insanely loud. after a while living here, especially if you live close to the tracks … well i wouldn't say you get used to it, but you just kind of accept it as part of daily life. so, back in 2008 (possibly early 2009), when i heard this ear-splittingly loud metallic scraping and rumbling noise, that was in fact my first thought: a train stopped suddenly - like very suddenly, the way it might because there's a person on the tracks - and we must be hearing the wheels shrieking along the tracks and the momentum slamming back through each of the boxcars. except there wasn't a train. from our street there was a clear view of the train tracks straight across the river and for quite a distance in both directions since they run quite straight, and there was no train in sight. i've seen other people comment on ~the sound~ saying that they heard it in a place with no trains at all, which makes it all the stranger that it sounds like one. but let me tell you, the experience of living with train sounds and thinking you're hearing the aftermath of a particularly big one slamming on its brakes, only to take a look at the tracks and see nothing there, is plenty strange in itself. now because i'm a skeptic myself, i already know the arguments people would probably make about this. like:

"maybe the train was farther away." maybe, but if that was the case then it wouldn't sound so loud - we know what the trains sound like when they're traveling, when they brake and when they whistle far enough down the tracks that you can't see them yet. this sound was so loud, it was like we were standing next to the train as it braked - louder than it ever normally was from across the river. "maybe the train was farther away and air currents or some other natural force carried the sound toward you so it sounded close by." maybe! so then i'd ask why we never heard it before or since. it was just that one time, back in 2008, and while it's happened to other people before that and since then, i've actually never seen anyone saying they heard it more than once. (admittedly, i obviously haven't seen statements from every single person who's ever experienced this, though.) "maybe you imagined it." i can at least definitively say that it was not an auditory hallucination. i didn't get it on camera, but i was of perfectly sound mind that day, and what's more, i was with other people who heard it too - some of whom were neighbors i didn't even know and had no reason to pretend to be hearing something they weren't. we were all out on the street listening to this deafening noise carry on for probably close to 10 minutes. (that brings me to another point - cameras truly don't pick up how loud this noise is. even describing it is hard because, while it is kinda like the train sounds, it's almost like ... they're in slow mo, or pitched down? when you watch a video of it, it sounds like, you know, a loud noise, kinda weird. but hearing it in person … it's indescribably loud. louder than trains, as i said above. louder than thunder. we could barely hear each other talk over it.) i also have to disagree with some of the theories from other people that Ryan presented in the video. i sincerely doubt it has anything to do with tsunamis, sea methane, or fish mating noises, considering the city i live in is well inland. i also don't really buy into the whole "spy planes" thing. seems farfetched. however, as for earthquakes … this one's a possibility. we do get earthquakes here, typically very small - not even enough to cause any shaking. but that doesn't mean they couldn't cause some kind of noise. and i think the theory of it being related to the auroras is potentially plausible. again, i don't really understand why most people would only hear it once in that case, but i'm willing to say the auroras (both borealis and australis) are a possible source. i feel like this is one of those phenomena that unless you experience it yourself, you probably aren't going to take it very seriously. it's going to either seem like a cool, weird mystery, or like just some loud sound that people are overreacting to, or even like it's just a viral hoax. and while i know it's real, i certainly don't think it's something wacky like aliens or ~the rapture~. but having heard it myself, and not having heard a possible answer that fully explains what the hell this noise was ... it's definitely still on my mental list of "weird and illogical things that have happened to me that keep me from being a complete non-believer in the supernatural." aka: my "wtf" list. ("supernatural" in this case doesn't automatically mean "spooky scary", just unexplained - so far - by science.) this long post brought to you by the fact that i don't have a youtube channel and thus could not comment on the video itself and yet i wanted to talk about this so i came to tumblr.