Home › Forums › Open Discussion › West Seattle Hum
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January 12, 2026 at 1:11 pm #1139554
Kaibo101ParticipantHas anyone else been hearing a low frequency hum in the Alaskan Junction area? I made a post on Reddit but didn’t get too many responses. However, I did feel validated that I am not the only one hearing something. Someone mentioned that it is the ‘West Seattle Hum’. I am relatively new to the area. Can someone please explain to me what that is and who I can potentially contact? It keeps waking up me and my infant son at all sorts of weird hours in the night and it just keeps going into the day. You can feel the vibration.
January 12, 2026 at 8:27 pm #1139604
WSBKeymasterHi! Thanks for asking. Years ago, we covered a neighborhood group solving the mystery of what at least at the time was the source of a hum – you should be able to find many stories searching our archives (or search Google on the term “west seattle hum” and “westseattleblog.com”). At the time, it was traced to the vacuum systems used to unload dry-cargo ships on the Duwamish. In the years since, every time we got a note asking about a “hum,” I would check a ship tracker and sure enough, there’d be a dry-cargo ship in on the Duwamish. When I first read your note earlier today, I looked at vesselfinder.com and noted two dry-cargo ships on the river. Without further investigation, of course, we can’t say for sure that’s what you’re hearing, but it’s certainly been a past culprit. Hard to do with a baby, I’d imagine, but next time you feel it’s really loud, you might even consider driving down to West Marginal and seeing if you hear it from a particular plant – TR
January 13, 2026 at 5:22 am #1139641
CarDriverParticipantWill add that it must be localized. I live on Alki near the Homestead and have never heard the hum.
February 4, 2026 at 1:28 pm #1141319
duncandickersonParticipantHi there! I’m a local filmmaker who has been doing research on the HUM for a few years now, and I am currently in the process of developing a documentary about it. If any of you are interested in speaking more about this and sharing your experiences I would love to hear! Send me an email at duncandickerson@gmail.com
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