Ghostly music keeps residents awake at night

The best efforts of police and fire fighters to pinpoint its source have not been successful, officials said. Adding to the mystery is the fact that the noise, a steady, whistle-like note resembling a flute, has only been reported after dark in Forest Grove, a rustic community of 22,500 located about 25 miles west of Oregon’s largest city. 

Former residents say they remember a similar sound echoing through the night air several decades ago, according to reports filed with Forest Grove Fire and Rescue, an agency spokeswoman said. The tone is unusual for its combination of high pitch and ambiguous point of origin, said audio engineer Tobin Cooley, president of the company Listen Acoustics, who agreed to informally assess the phenomenon for Reuters on Monday. 

“What surprises me is that neighbours have not been able to locate where this is coming from,” he said. Cooley speculated that the sound could be coming from a release of compressed air or natural gas, but officials with the local gas company said they had ruled out any of the utility’s equipment or pipelines as a source. “We sent a tech out, and he spent the whole day investigating,” said Melissa Moore, spokeswoman for Northwest Natural Gas. She added that a gas leak would also produce an odour, which has not been reported. 

Although the Forest Grove fire department is collecting information about the sound, fire fighters do not know what to do about it, a spokeswoman for the agency said. “We aren’t waiting for it to make a noise. We are going about our duties,” she said.