Portland drivers report eerie ‘sonic illusion’ coming from car radios. What could it be?
This all has started, when a freaked out Portland’s driver asked this on the web:
I’m looking for someone to investigate a strange radio broadcast that I’ve been hearing while driving in my car around Southeast and Southwest Portland. I accidentally landed on FM 91.1 while attempting to dial in to FM 91.5. The station sounded like a normal static station, but I also noticed a very strange sound effect looping continuously in the background of the static. I later identified it as a sonic illusion known as a Shepard Tone. After listening to the FM 91.1 a few times the past three days, I have experienced increasingly odd broadcasts that cannot be adequately described by text, but sound uncannily intelligent. I’ve had my wife and several witnesses join me to listen and I’ve recorded the sounds. As far I know they can be experienced first-hand by anybody with a radio set to FM 91.1. The sounds are mixed with static but the signal has seemed the strongest to me around Southeast Belmont Street and 60th Avenue. Thank you for your consideration.
Then, Joseph Rose went on investigation to determine the source of these spacey noise loops and Morse code that played for weeks on 91.1 FM near Mt. Tabor. So, on Saturday, March 14 2014, he and his wife (witness) had a great ride around the city to find the source of this noise riding as witness in the passenger seat, we took the Volvo wagon for a twilight drive around the city with the radio tuned to 91.1 FM. This movie delivers what he thinks to be the right answer!
HAHA! Apparently, the sounds they heard were from the last test pattern of XRay.fm, a new alternative music radio station from Portland. And to make it sound funnier, the radio decided to play a two-hour loop of old-timey songs, strange sounds, numbers patterns, Morse code, voices from the past…This is alternative! Get more info here.
I remember hearing this strange sound that spooked me so much that I almost lost control of the road when I was driving, when this signal happened. Granted, this happened a while ago, but I still remember the sound that I heard from the test broadcast. Does every new radio station go this route when testing out sound? Jesus!