The Titanic sank about 2:20 a.m. April 15, 1912, according to the records. I saw it slide down into the ocean to its horrible finish. The moment it sank left a memory of something that haunts me till this day. It was the eerie sound of the people groaning and screaming frantically for help, as they were hurtled into the icy water. Almost all died from the cold water. The sounds lasted for about 45 minutes and then faded away. Louis Garrett, Titanic survivor, cited Awake! magazine October 1981
You hear in the distance quite a mild pop as the gun fired five miles away, and then a humming sound as it approached you through the air growing louder and louder until it was like the roar of an aeroplane coming in to land on the tarmac. I Was There: The Great War Interviews, Charles Carrington, Yesterday 2015
The faint sounds heard only accentuated the silence. The rising and falling of the sea, far away along the coast, was the most important. A minor sound was the scurr of a distant night-hawk. Among the minutest where all were minute were the light settlement of gossamer fragments floating in the air, a toad humbly labouring along through the grass near the entrance, the crackle of a dead leaf which a worm was endeavouring to pull into the earth, a waft of air, getting nearer and nearer, and expiring at his feet under the burden of a winged seed. Thomas Hardy, A Pair of Blue Eyes
Imagine a world without the ability to capture or transmit sound … So how did we conquer sound? How We Got to Now with Steven Johnson s1e5: Sound, BBC 2014
‘The phonautograph was ahead of its time … [Edouard-Leon] Scott’s singular contribution to the science of acoustics …’ ibid. David Giovannono, audio historian
The human voice could be sent along a telegraph wire: Alexander Graham Bell had just invented the telephone. ibid.
After a while the sound of complete silence becomes rather disturbing. ibid.
January 2017, Louisburg, North Carolina: A loud noise … insistent blaring sound piercing the suburban quiet. The Proof is Out There s1e2, History 2021
1991 when a deepwater hydrophone like this first detected a sound emanating from 5,000 miles away, some place in the Pacific Ocean roughly halfway between Australia and South America. The Proof is Out There s1e3
A worldwide ongoing mystery: People in entire communities say they are being tormented by a strange incessant humming sound. The Proof is Out There s1e8
They believe they are victims of covert attacks … In late 2016 several diplomats and other employees stationed at the US embassy in Havana, Cuba, report feeling ill after hearing a strange high-pitched noise … Similar attacks are later reported by US officials in China, Austria and Russia. The Proof is Out There s2e3
Skyquakes as they are most commonly known in America are reports of unidentified loud booms. The Proof is Out There s2e14
Blended together in one great symphony is the music of Britain at war: the evening hymn of the lark, the roar of Spitfires, the dancers in the great ballroom at Blackpool, the clank of machinery, and shunting trains … Listen to Britain, short 1942
Then Ben wailed again, hopeless and prolonged. It was nothing. Just sound. It might have been all time and injustice and sorrow become vocal for an instant by a conjunction of planets. William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury