The following brings together various effects of the Hum.

(Includes my Observations from 1990 ‐ 2008)

The Hum is usually experienced by keeping the person awake at night because their mind keeps ticking over, and rest cannot be achieved due to many unimportant thoughts surfing through their mind. Most people have had difficulty falling asleep due to stress, so it is easy for them to think of the unconscious or subconscious mind, and initially misdiagnose the problem. Initially this will take them away from a more accurate explanation as they probably haven't even heard the sound yet, as they are not listening, as it is only internal to them. After many nights of disturbed sleep they start wondering, and then listening, and this is their first discovery. The Hum is a disruptive sound of unknown origin heard or even felt by them in their homes in bed. Then the search begins, but why doesn't their partner or other family members have a problem? Do they stay quiet about it, due to societal stigma, or speak out? Eventually, the noise is too much, as it is seen to be related to their house and so they quietly leave their home's, if possible, to escape it. This is the problem for the new Hum hearer ,and thus, discussing this phenomenon in a logical format may help them.

There appears to be a variation in people's hearing level and the level at which discomfort is felt. In the USA in the town of Taos they experienced this Hum, which through scientific research, from questionnaires, revealed that approximately 2% of the population could be classified as hearers. From my own research, about 1-20% of those hearers experience a vibration associated with it. Hence, is it like the canary in the miner's cage, and something to be concerned about and investigated when the source is so hidden. The inability to hear any sound may be due to being tuned differently, or possibly the Hum is not loud enough for them, or they have not consciously tried to listen for it. Not hearing it does not mean it is not real, nor does it mean that non-hearers are unaffected. According to New Zealand media, sleep is a significant issue today, suggesting that something is disrupting people's sleep, which cannot be resolved by simply going to bed earlier. My observations in the central Auckland area, early in my research, led us to believe that up to 50% of the population physically suffers from the Hum's effects but do not hear it. Complaints remain unheard, and this causes a lack of consultation resulting in a lack of knowledge, and so others continue to suffer silently. The effects of lack of sleep become increasingly dangerous the longer a person suffers, as rest is essential for proper functioning, when you consider the sound may go on for many months. Therefore, health issues will likely arise, and it is understandable sufferers will search for a cause.

People who are new to the Hum appear to be quite normal and come from a typical cross-section of society. You may wonder about the person complaining about a personal and silent sound, but the more we learnt, the more it has been realised that the phenomenon was unrelated to the person. Thus, when a new sufferer searches for the source they soon blame the suspicious and powerful government establishment, and for those living in the USA, this is the armed forces who are testing new technology on them. This is quite natural when they finally realise the swimming pool next door or the electrical transformer at the end of the street can't be blamed. For us in New Zealand to blame our armed forces would be rather absurd, considering our country's resources and expenditure levels. The USA would currently be unlikely to lend us new high-tech sonic technology, due to our ban on nuclear technology in the country, and their resistance to work with us. For New Zealand, that could leave the Australians, but why would they focus currently on Auckland and not any other city? Although Auckland is presently experiencing the Hum, it can also be heard in other areas of New Zealand by myself, but others are not aware of it. To further discredit the idea of foreign powers, as part of the Auckland-based research team alongside Dr Tom Moir, we had an engineer who had worked with the British forces in the appropriate high-tech areas, but he knew nothing to explain it. Therefore, from that and the other following observations, it is concluded that blaming the armed forces anywhere in the World is grasping at straws, as is blaming the dangerous Russians or the Chinese, depending on who is not the flavour of the decade. Therefore, we must discount all armed forces anywhere in the World.

Hearers of the Hum appear to be more sensitive to low-hertz-level sounds even at lower volume levels than the recognised average limits of hearing. Normally hearing typically begins to decline at around 20 to 40Hz, but hearers of the Hum have even lower hearing levels than those considered normal by hearing tests. A small test carried out on me without prior warning by Dr Tom Moir and his colleague occurred when visiting him at the University. They had set up a speaker in his office playing a low-hertz frequency that could be heard quite easily at a voice level as I walked down the corridor towards them. Neither scientists could hear the sound and were quite surprised I could, and proved to us all that we had serious differences.

Doctors view tinnitus as a ringing sound heard by an individual and explain it as an issue with the ear's mechanism rather than any environmental factor. Therefore, when armed with this sort of classification, it is easy for them to categorise the person accordingly and send them away without a remedy. Those who have not experienced the Hum will do the same since it so well publicised. However, the sufferer will say the sound is very intense when inside the house, but when they step outside, the sound reduces considerably. When they travel to another city or even within another part of the city, the sound is gone. Therefore, tinnitus can not be the cause as it must accompany the person and does not stay with the house.

For a small segment of the Hum hearers experience the Hum also as a vibration. My experience with the vibration was primarily related to a local, small volcanic cone called Mt. Hobson. At this location, it exhibited classic infrasound characteristics, as observed in scientific studies of infrasound. We suggest the reading of: "Infrasound and Low Frequency Vibration, edited by W Tempest, Academic Press Inc London, 1976", especially (Physiological & Psychological effects of infrasound at moderate intensities; Effects of intense infrasound on man; and Subjective effects of vibration". These tests on people suggest that the Hum is an infrasound phenomenon, particularly with the vibrations we experienced. At a different location but still in central Auckland, the vibration has been felt as bubbles. This experience has occurred only once, but it may have happened to others as well. The sensation was as if, when lying in bed, there were many small hits or explosions on the body. The impacts were not intense but noticeable, feeling like lying on an open fizzy bottle as the bubbles surged up to hit the body. Infrasounds are below normal hearing levels and start to explain why people don't hear them, but could feel them.

An easy explanation for the cause of the Hum is that it is caused by modern electrical technology and appliances. Everyone is aware of transformers humming on the street as the alternating current flows through them and think that is it. However, if this were the cause, you would expect when the power goes off, the Hum would stop, but this has been shown not to occur, especially when the whole city's power goes off. Some people have suggested that 400kV transmission lines are the cause, especially in Britain, but this is disputed in New Zealand, where there are only 240kV transmission lines and they are many kilometres from the suffering hearers. The Hum has also been reported in several locations on the Earth's surface at places far from a city nor close to power lines. Therefore, modern electrical technology is again not the obvious cause.

Likewise, if the Hum originated from radio transmitters, cell phone towers, or high-voltage power lines, you would expect those living right under them to complain the most. People have had up to 80 years to establish a connection to power lines and radio transmitters, but they have not. To check this possibility we used a Faraday tent that blocked or greatly reduced frequencies above 1 MHz, which are related to manmade devices, but the Hum was not removed or diminished from the house.

Magnetic radiation from computers and phones is a real phenomenon that affects some people, possibly the same individuals who experience the Hum. These can contribute to the experience of tiredness, and unless the sufferer is exposed to high levels 24/7, it is not typically considered the cause of sleep loss or the Hum. My own experiences have shown that magnetic radiation is not as intense as the Hum, where magnetic radiation is somewhere between 1 and 10% of a bad Hum. We have also found that magnetic radiation resembles a circular cloud surrounding the transmitter, making it easier to evade. However, when you become sensitised and suffer from the Hum, you have a lower threshold for other intrusions, making these and other sources more debilitating.

Some other manmade sounds may have similar frequencies to the Hum, but they are not considered the source. For example, if an underground water pump were operating at 1500 rpm, it would have a frequency of 25 Hz, which is within the Hum's frequency range. However, for it to affect a person many kilometres away, it would need a lot more energy than a typical pump. For a long time, we had thought this was the cause for myself, but we could not find times that correlated with my experiences. Although we do see a manmade frequency at this level, could contribute to the noise effects of the Hum, especially when it passes through the ground but is not considered energetic enough to be the cause. And because we could never correlate any starting and stopping times of the known pumps within a 5 km distance, this was discounted as our source.

The Hum is also not new and has been heard and felt in the past so it is not just a modern phenomenon. We attended a theatrical show first performed in 1905, where one character experienced loud flapping sounds that others didn't hear and felt very hot on a cold day. This is a perfect example of the Hum! Other reports from the more distant past mention buzzing bees, but today, we talk of engines; however, all this relates to a comparable noise experience. The Hum was reported in the 1940s and 50s in Britain, just as it is today, so whatever it is, it is not modern technology. Going further back, the renowned astronomer Johannes Kepler (1571 to 1630) discovered that the planets revolved around the Sun in an elliptical orbit, also subscribed to the ancient Greek belief in the music of the spheres. That sound is an ethereal sound the planets reportedly made as they passed through the heavens. Since they moved slowly and stayed overhead for long periods at night it is understandable some saw this as a cause. Kepler was not socially affected as a great astronomer by his belief, as mere mortals could not hear this music and they were only audible to the soul. This a very telling ancient reference, which we can all take solace in, that we are not alone!

At this point in our observations we come to some less known effects. The Hum has been observed to produce temperature changes. While exploring I was at the house of a couple where the woman complained of this intense noise, and this visit turned out to be enlightening. Her partner heard nothing but felt the floor was cold, as she did. We were sitting in the lounge of their brand-new house, discussing her experiences, when the Hum suddenly 'clicked' on. I turned to her and said, "It has just started." "Yes," she said, nodding in agreement. I had not experienced this clicking-on method and said It must be the fridge. So I went to check, but it was not operating, nor was there any other appliance running. This summer's day was very hot, at about 28 degrees C, so I wore shorts and a T-shirt, with no shoes on. All of a sudden, I said, my feet had just gone cold, and I then felt it progress up to my knees while seated on the couch. I had never experienced such a thing, but they both said they would often walk around with thick socks to keep warm. I have no health issues related to sudden circulation changes, and the couple were very normal, so we had to attribute the experience solely to the actions of the Hum starting. Even outside I cold hear it going, and it was worse than at my own house. To me, it was a particularly chilly event, similar to putting my legs into a fridge. Though uncomfortable, one could cope for a short while but then would have to resolve it with clothing.

At my house the only temperature changes I experienced were feeling hot in bed. This would occur at any time during the night when the Hum was active, causing me to throw the bed covers off, even on a cool night when room temperatures were between 8-15 degrees C. Eventually, the high temperature would subside, maybe after an hour, and I could pull the covers back and return to sleep. We know of no physiological cause, so the source must only be from the Hum, and of note was this was an irregular event, not nightly. There could be intervals of weeks or months between experiences, and non-hearers are equally affected, maybe on the same or another night, but of course, they cannot deduce the Hum.

A similarly related observation has been the restlessness one experiences in bed when the Hum is active. It would affect our legs making us to shake a leg when trying to go to sleep. Though tired and wanting to sleep, the legs felt tight, and then, almost involuntarily, we would need to shake a leg to relieve the pressure that had built up. Eventually, the twitching would subside, but that could be an hour or more after going to bed, resulting in reduced sleep time. On other nights, my wife would have the experience, yet I didn't, so we were both kept awake as a result of her inability to sleep and her kicking. This is often referred to as jumping limb syndrome and is well-known. A person need not be a hearer of the Hum to experience this effect, but they are unable to build a connection to the environment they are in. When considering this phenomenon along with temperature change, we can conclude that a large part of the population could complain of these effects but have no way of explaining them.

A common misconception is that the Hum has a constant frequency and sound level. It has been our experience, as we have shifted around Auckland, that various locations have different frequencies and noise levels, even when they are less than a kilometre apart. This also makes it difficult for someone to blame modern technology within a city, as technology such as electricity is evenly spread throughout built-up areas. My observations have shown the Hum to range from 4 Hz to 51 Hz. The Hum sound, at higher frequency levels, differs from those at lower levels and is experienced differently, even though they are still within the infrasound range. For example, one person in a house experiences sleep loss, yet others sleep through, even though the Hum is active that night. On other nights, the roles may be reversed, and the remaining family members are affected but not the first. We attribute this to different frequencies or groups of frequencies prevailing, to which some individuals, including those of the opposite gender, are more susceptible.

The Hum is often heard to occur at regular times during the day, and it is sometimes worse on Friday and Saturday nights. Some people see 9:00 pm and 3:30 am, or 1 hour later during daylight saving periods, as common starting points. However, some state it is operating 24/7, but with lighter periods throughout the day. Others can hear it clearly during the day, even when in a stationary car with the engine off. From experience, the Hum appears to be erratic in its occurrence over time, as it fluctuates in intensity over both a month and over several years. Most people are unaware of it for nearly a lifetime until one day, it all happens, and they suffer terribly.

When the Hum enters a house, it has been associated with the walls, or as some people suggest, it emanates from the lines of force from the heavy structure above. While this seems obvious, as sounds from the ground must be transmitted more easily through walls, this turns out to be an important point, as some people associate the phenomenon with gravity. The Hum does occur outside of buildings, but at a lower volume levels, because the sound originates from only one surface, the ground, rather than from the six emitting surfaces present in a room.

The Hum was recorded for the first time inside several houses in Auckland by Dr. Tom Moir and this sound was verified by several hearers. Recordings were limited to above 20 Hz and importantly proved that it was a sound. We have found that listening below this level has been very beneficial, but this requires a more technical understanding and specialised equipment.

The Hum has been seen to exhibit characteristics similar to those of electricity. It has a main force, similar to the electrical current, and a lesser force that radiates, much like magnetic radiation or the field around a wire. John Dawes, a Hum sufferer living in the UK, who we found on the internet, firmly believed that the walls and eaves of houses are electrified by the Hum and had built his own equipment to measure it. From our own tests, it is not a regular sine wave but something quite different, as seen in (Figure1). These graphs will await a scientific review as they will form the basis of developing further technology. One University investigator in the USA also identified a similar wave, which lends more weight to our findings.

The following graphs represent images found on an oscilloscope when using a microphone capable of measuring from 0 Hz. These sounds are not associated with electricity within a house, as that is a sine wave at around 50 or 60 Hz, depending on where you live.

Figure 1. Waves we observed when the Hum was active.

My experiments in trying to exclude the Hum have shown success, and with the correct arrangement of materials, we reduced the vibration portion by 95%. This equipment is to my own specific design and is not available commercially. This vibration is believed to be between about 15-25Hz with a high decibel level. We reduced the vibration by installing a baffle that stopped the vibration from exerting any force on me. The arrangement was placed under the legs of the bed and, as such, could only stop vibrations coming through the floor. This was a key finding for me, as the Hum vibration came from the ground, not the air. The vibration effects were noticeable in my solarplex area just below my ribs, and to a lesser degree, over my whole body when in bed, and were much more debilitating than the noisy Hum sound. The Hum noise appears to come through the walls and is probably at 50.9 Hz and is not as intense as the vibration. This sound value is important, as normal mains power is 50Hz +/- 0.1, showing this Hum noise is not coming from a manmade electrical source.

It is often reported by sufferers in Auckland, New Zealand, that the Hum sound comes from one direction, usually approximately West, though this is probably not the case for all who experience it. Each country or geographical area where it is experienced will show different arrival directions. For example, when in Melbourne, Australia, we thought it came from the East. The most important observation we have made is that the Hum is not stationary or fixed in one location. Through combined observations made by another sufferer, we tracked the movement of a Hum wave over Auckland, such that the start and finish points of the sound wave were 18 km apart. The starting point of this wave was felt in the first location, and over the next few days, it was observed to stop. Then, in the second location, the Hum wave was felt to start and then stop exactly after the same number of days. The weeks before and after were quiet with no Hum noise. This result was achieved by using two houses, 33 km apart, the first in Kumeu and the second in Mt. Wellington, which gave them a West-to-East direction (bearing direction 300.7 degrees from North). Through calculation, the Hum travelled at approximately 6m/min between the two points. The exciting point about this observation is that the Hum acted as if it were one large body moving toward the second house. Knowing the Hum is from a ground source, this pointed to an underground movement or a wave motion, accompanied by sound. This finding becomes the most crucial piece of evidence presented, building the case for further research, and surpassing any previous report to the public.

Storms Under Our Feet!

"It literally feels like the Orks of a massive underground murderous industrialised military complex feverishly at work under our city gearing up for war". Mr Padma lived in Nelson, British Columbia, Canada 2000-2009, a mountain town hundreds of kilometres from a recognised city.

Three key observations have helped our understanding: firstly, it was identified as originating from the ground. Secondly, it had a bubble sensation; and thirdly, it has movement. Upon examining this evidence and comparing it with current knowledge of the Earth, the Hum is likely related to the movement of magma below the Earth's crust. We know that the planet is composed of a solid iron core, an outer liquid iron core, a mantle, an upper mantle, and then a crust, upon which we live. Apart from the core and crust, convection currents must be active in all areas of the Earth due to the intense heat generated within. The crust, or land, is relatively thin compared to the Earth's diameter. For New Zealand, it is up to 25 km thick, and on the continents, excluding high mountains, it ranges from 35 to 45 km. Any sound it generates would easily be transmitted through the crustal rock.

The city of Auckland is built on a unique and active geological hot spot with many volcanoes, all of basaltic origin. Basalt is derived from the mantle and is high in iron. The temperature at which it erupts is more than 1100 degrees C, and it flows freely when on the surface. When the crust pressure is released, it starts to bubble, much like when opening a bottle of Soda. Normally, this bubbling reaction occurs with an eruption, but as we surmise, if the crust should crack sufficiently but not through to the surface, it could cause a sudden release of pressure, triggering the bubble experience.

Magma flow would also explain the movement of the Hum and points to its apparent size and effect on those living on the surface. We propose that when magma flows parallel to the crust's surface, they are likely to be long, ranging from tens to hundreds of kilometres in length, but relatively narrow. Try and imagine a rushing river of magma pushing its way through quieter magma under the crust, it is likely to rub and bang against cooler magma and rock, setting off vibrations and noise. In contrast to current thinking about the crust, it is not apparent that the underside of the crust is regular and smooth; instead, we see reasons for it to have depressions, valleys, and holes, some of which have been there for many centuries or eons. The crust is composed of lighter elements compared to those below, and they were likely deposited in an uneven manner. Over the eons, plate tectonics then stretched and pushed it downwards, making it very unlikely to be regular and smooth.

If the magma flow below the surface was 25km long with a diameter of a few hundred metres, you could expect interesting effects on the surface. Firstly, you would expect there to be some sound or noise and vibrations from its movement, just as river water makes noise as it flows. Sound will travel through solids very well but is deflected or refracted at boundary conditions; in this case, the air will change it. However, a building will also transmit it to varying degrees, depending on its mass and the materials used. The amount of noise will depend on the depth, speed and volume of the magma, none of which is likely to be constant, which may explain why the Hum has a variety of frequencies and volume levels.

For those who have visited geothermal areas, would have been impressed with how a geyser erupts daily. Some of them have been named "old faithful" because they erupt at the same time every day. It is understood that water from the surface migrates downwards at a constant speed, causing regularity in eruptions; however, this regularity varies depending on the regularity of rainfall amounts. While the Hum has regularity this does not answer why people observe regular times for the Hum's starting and stopping, as it has nothing to do with rain and must be due to other reasons. Currently we don't have any answers to this, unless it pulsates.

We surmise from the above evidence, the Hum has remained unexplained because it is so well hidden and beyond man's present experiences. It is only in the past 30-plus years that volcanology, geology and plate tectonics have started to unravel what is happening below our feet. We recommend reading "In search of ancient New Zealand" by Hamish Campbell & Gerard Hutching, Penguin 2007 Pg 1-56 for more background on New Zealand geology, but not for anything about the Hum, since geological knowledge is useful, as is any other well-reasoned knowledge. Unfortunately, our current detailed geological understanding is limited to the surface and a few hundred metres down, gleaned from drilling or mining, as well as sound waves and vibrations from earthquakes. We can only speculate about what lies beneath the crust, and therefore, no one can fully comprehend why someone would feel vibrations or hear sounds coming from the ground. Consequently, it is understandable, that no one knows how to help sufferers when they report noises and vibrations inside their houses.

What we are proposing, is quite different from the current understanding of magma flows, that break through a cracked surface to form a volcano. Rather, we see magma continuously flowimg under the crust, much like a braided river with its many branches, which appear to mix and then spread apart as they move down the river. There may be several flows in a geographic area; some may even be close to each other as they twist and turn to fall back into the interior. Each flow will have differing characteristics, as well as variability in mass and speed, and thus, the effects on the surface are variable. Human contact with magma flows are possible only when you are in a quieter environment, or lying down using a larger body surface to listen with. That is not usually the case when walking around unless the magmatic Hum is loud.

When we start to use these concepts, new ways of looking at the World start to emerge. The Hum mechanism may be a significant part of the earthquake and land-building process that is occurring, especially in New Zealand's case. What we mean by this is magma may be an active internal force that raises land directly ahead of it, just as the wind pushes a sailboat forward. For example, suppose the flow of magma under the crust hits a barrier such as a rock wall formed by tectonic plates being pushed down into the Earth's interior. There is likely to be an increase in pressure on the magma side as it pushes upwards in response to the erection of a wall in its path as the magma gets trapped. In the case of the North Island of New Zealand, the plate boundary is eastward of the North Island land mass, and the Hum sound (magma) comes from the West. Therefore, upward pressures could occur against the crust wall of the North Island, which could last for centuries. While there are admittedly little to no supporting writings on this topic that we are aware of, there is still well-proven physics to support the idea of where flowing forces occur. Current geological knowledge correctly promotes the concept that the North Island is being raised by the scraping off of material as the plate is subducted; however, the idea does not account for the action of magma also lifting it, as there is no understanding of an active magmatic mantle.

In support of this idea, read the following report from a local New Zealand newspaper.

July 17, 2009: "The sound came first like a large bus parked right outside her hotel room with its diesel engine running. As we were staying in the Luxmore Hotel, one of Te Anau's largest,we assumed that's what it was. We wanted to open the window and scream out, turn that bloody engine off, its after nine o'clock and we can't hear the TV. Then, the sound morphed into the deep rumbling roar of an approaching train. We looked down, and the bed was moving, then we realized it was an earthquake." The 7.8 magnitude earthquake in Fiordland, New Zealand.

The Hum is commonly described as a diesel sound, and intriguingly, this person described the initial portion of the earthquake in these terms. She may have been, unwittingly, one of those few who hear the Hum, but the comment makes it very insightful. To hear the Hum noise precede an earthquake suggests that magma was flowing rapidly and may have caused the quake, or, due to a change in the crust's structure, the flow was suddenly modified. Either way, there is a connection between the manifestation of the Hum sound or noise and the movement of the Earth's crust during that earthquake.

At this point, the Hum sufferer might start to question why they need to read any more; even though it is interesting, it seems to be taking them away from solving their problem. If the Hum is generated from the movement of magma, what hope do they have of getting a break from this noise? They will also question, when the noise is intermittent and widespread across the country, where should they go to find relief. However, this website has several objectives to fulfil. 1. To start the discussion; 2. To learn more from the sufferer; 3. To enhance and promote the noise reduction methodologies we have; 4. To obtain specialised assistance to gain a deeper understanding of the frequencies involved; 5. To explore the Hum as far as possible, as the work at present leads to a second website that aims to help mitigate the Global Warming catastrophe we are contributing to through the use of oil. This research is groundbreaking, and there is much that needs to be filled out, which will lead to new types of assistance for all of us.

Now that this concept of magma flows under the crust has been adequately described, it leads us to earthquakes and plate tectonics. Firstly, let's put an element of size into our view of the Earth. What does an ant think when standing on the bonnet of a revving car engine? Is this fear they feel when their legs and body shake from the rhythmical noise generated by unseen explosions and the whirring of tappets and timing chains? Is the hot bonnet's surface about to change or collapse because of the vibration and heat and those unseen forces? The ant will never know without using an array of microphones and motion sensors to analyse any theories they may have. It is likewise proposed planet Earth will be much easier to understand when we start to listen more intently to it.

7.1 Magnitude Earthquake Hits Christchurch New Zealand
(4th September 2010).

The Christchurch earthquake happened six days ago at the time of writing, causing widespread damage. It occurred on a previously unidentified fault line unrelated to the Southern Alps fault that runs the length of the South Island. It has been stated that there were two earthquakes seconds apart, which makes it sound much worse and means it was unusual. The reason this quake attracted my attention was that it struck at 4:36 am on a Saturday, as this is a very common start to the Hum in New Zealand. Secondly, the fault line was described by one geologist as extending from West to East with a variable width of up to 3 km. We have two possible components to the Hum's magma flow theory, one of time and the other from a westerly direction. We realise that time and direction prove little, as quakes can occur anytime and anywhere. However, for the time being, we want to tease out this concept and consider it in terms of a magma flow.

A sudden, powerful uprising of magma, with two heads, could be expected to place pressure on the crust as it thrusts upwards, resulting in impact damage to the crust, which we see as a fault line. If correct, the resulting scar over 30+ km in length is large, which from the ant's position is a major change, but from the greater New Zealand or Australasian perspective, it is very small indeed. Therefore, the surface damage observed could also be related to magma flow, as it is also quite discreet rather than the larger movement of the crust typically identified by plate tectonics. Christchurch was considered a relatively inactive earthquake zone before this event; however, evidence has since been found of a previous quake in 1830, before major European settlement in the area.

Its unusualness is further added when, for example, one report received at the time of the quake was not related to simple tearing and dislocation of the crust, similar to tearing a piece of paper.

"Hi I am 65 years old. I have been driving for 50 years.

I was driving into Christchurch on the morning of the quake. I was placed on the motorway at the point where the road divides into two, and I southbound, towards Christchurch. Speed exactly 100kms. One car behind me by about 500 metres, and a large truck about 1 mile behind. No one else around.

I observe silly things, for example, on the way out of town, I observed a vehicle heading west along the north shore of the Waimak, below the bridge, the vehicle had its hazard lights flashing. Time 4.21 am.

4.35am. The sky lit up with an incredible lighting display. I knew it was an aurora. I know what causes an aurora. Radiation interacting with the magnetic field of the planet.

To my left, east, the flashing dark green to light green as it moved away from me. To my right, west, light blues to dark blue. The display was 'sheeting'. I have seen auroras on TV, and that is what it was. This was not lightning.

My car clock clicked over 4.36am, just seconds into the aurora, and the car lurched and tipped and shuddered. The force was enough to have tipped my car over, but due to experience I managed to steer into the shudders. The lights of the motorway were still on. 'Rivulets', or riggles, were flashing towards me from the southwest, like a giant spider web, or 'radials', and the motorway was drifting from side to side. I would guess that the centre of the spider web would have been around Springfield. Two 'rivulets' flashed passed me on either side, straight into Kaiapoi which was on my immediate left, east. The lighting display suddenly became incredibly intense, and was not 'in the distance', it was all around me. Then with the violent shuddering of the car, there was a HUGE flash of brilliant white light, and the display vanished, and the whole city sank into blackness. It was gone. No light anywhere. The driver behind me must have stopped because I didn't notice him again.

My first impression was that there had been an atomic explosion. I believe that the aurora was caused by intense radiation, hence my instinctive belief that the city had been subject to some kind of atomic explosion.

I was careful to check each bridge for telltale cracks, but they seemed at a rapid glance to be OK. When I drove over the Chaney's Overbridge it was not damaged. The lane under the bridge was not in the range of my headlights. But the motorway on both sides of the overbridge was dead flat at that time. The damage to the area must have occurred AFTER the initial shock.

The first lights I saw were at Countdown in Northlands, and it occurred to me they would have a generation backup system. Lights on the west side of Papanui Road flickered here and there, but Merivale was in darkness. I usually stop at Paul's coffee shop, we paused there to check he was OK, but his blind was down, so I assumed he was not at work yet.

And further (recapitulation): The light display appeared first, then maybe a second later I felt the car jolt. My car was kicked to my left, as if the front right wheel had been hit, then the next bump was the other way. The lighting moved away from me, or appeared to move away, to the southwest. As the colours changed they moved away, or, as they moved away the colours changed. Greens on my left, east, blues on my right, west. The brilliant white light was directly over the city. The range of the light extended right out to sea, east, into the whole distance I could see. I was 'inside' the light. [and it was hugging the ground, about car height]. I am not initiated to say, but I suspect we might eventually find that the greatest shock of the earthquake was actually out to sea. Is it possible to check for huge cracks in the seabed?

The spider web effect was the movement of the earth itself. If you could imagine a flat concertina. The radials [= rivulets, earlier] advanced across the road in front of me, from southwest to northeast, and they moved as fast as I could take in the spectacle. The radials were not uniform in that I saw some which appeared to be behind/ahead of others. Each radial, and I am trying to be helpful, was each, ker-bump, and a ker-bump, with me travelling south at 100kms per hour. On each side of each radial, the road moved in opposite directions, like a push-pull effect. As I passed over each radial, the car lurched the other way. Each radial looked strangely like the pictures of gophers burrowing along, where they leave a little upraised trail. But there were no open cracks as appeared later. I would guess that the motorway was swaying inside a channel of about one metre overall in the distance I could see. The lights of the motorway were still on until the last tremor. The lights of the city vanished basically simultaneously with the aurora. If the earthquake was somewhat 'selective' in its destruction,I am guessing that anything directly over each radial got a hell of a hiding, but in between the radials, much less destructive." Neil Whitehead report ( Research Papers).

This determined driver's experience is insightful for several reasons. The time it took for him to travel, the 18 seconds, was 500m, which was the duration of the quake, and it took him directly through Kaiapoi, which is located directly to his left. The aurora was visible first, before any forces were felt, indicating that radiation was emanating from the ground up and high into the night air. The expected ground motion occurred next and was sufficient to cause him concern while driving. It must have been awkward to drive over moving humps of the ground as the waves went out. It is possible that he experienced amplitude modification from two impact waves from the two quakes, which caused the apparent waves to occur before and some after. The city he was referring to is Christchurch, and other reports from different vantage points showed that Christchurch was also brilliantly white as though an atomic bomb had hit it. Chaney's bridge is approximately 5.5 km after the first aurora was seen and is still not within Christchurch City. He incorrectly states the centre of the quake was in Springfield rather than Darfield, but this may have been more accurate for the aurora. Of interest was his concern for the seabed as the aurora went further than the land.

These described lighting effects are not generally associated with earthquakes. Normally, a quake is viewed as a neat break in the crust, just like tearing a piece of paper apart. There may be some electrical effects from rocks rubbing against each other as they slide past one another, but the described effects were before ground movements and were very large, suggesting quite different actions. A magma flow high in iron could be such a force that is large enough and possess electrical or magnetic actions caused by its movement. Imagine a river of magma like a fist shooting upwards to hit the crust under Darfield and then heading off towards Kaiapoi and out to sea. Currently, we have no evidence to indicate that the Hum sound was active at the time of the quake. The second and more damaging earthquake, which occurred weeks later destroyed the city, and produced a considerable uplift force. It was measured at M6.3 and was the largest vertical impact force ever measured in a built-up area.

The following is another man's account of his experience in Christchurch.

"I live in the Heathcote Valley suburb of Christchurch, New Zealand ‐, which is close to the epicentre of many of the larger earthquakes of 2011. In the past couple of months, I have been hearing what is sometimes popularly referred to as an infrasound Hum. I have some existing tinnitus, but the 'hum' is nothing like the somewhat high-pitched (internal) background noise of the inner ear phenomena that I have long ago adapted to having as part of my sonic life. The Hum is as much felt (bodily) as heard....and is, as reported in other geographical locations, more audible indoors than out. Due, I suspect, to the lower amounts of ambient (masking) sounds indoors.

The perception of the 'idling diesel-like' sub-sonic sound is fairly consistent ‐ night and day ‐ with very occasional cessation. The idling diesel sound raises and lowers in intensity ‐ in a steady predictable rhythm. The noise, as I've stated, is more apparent indoors than out. Earplugs are ineffective as blockers of the sound ‐ as the subsonic frequency is as much felt as heard.

Heathcote Valley has a fairly robust concentration of background, manmade, noise. Consisting of (depending on time of day) motorway truck traffic, coal trains, commuter buses on surface road and a near distant industrial estate. But, even in this smorgasbord of manmade noise the so-called 'Hum' manages to insinuate and distinguish itself above its fellow sounds.

After extensive investigation and travel (on foot, bicycle and car) and a number of false attributions (cooling tower, compressed air pump for power washer, and diesel braking on motorway), the definite source of the Heathcote Hum cannot be fixed (at least by me) to any single source.

At the onset of the sound phenomenon, I considered that it might be particular to me ‐ something internally (physically/psychologically) generated and confined to my own particular perception. However, I mentioned it one morning to a neighbour (who had not heard the sound) and he indicated that his visiting son had commented that someone was playing amplified/recorded music, and that he was hearing the bass lines from the music.

I think it may yet be possible that what I'm hearing has a 'natural' source, with one likely suspect being waves booming on the somewhat distant Brighton Beach isthmus with only the subsonic portion of their noise being carried (and or amplified) as a decayed (with the bass frequency being the sound's 'remains) tone. A second natural suspect would be rumbling from underground geographic movement connected to fractured hard rock sub-strata. When we have an aftershock, the rumbling that precedes the earth's movement has a similar sonic signature. My home is built on a concrete slab and is thus (unlike homes built on wooden piles) atop a resonant manmade 'plate' in direct contact with the ground. The third ‐ but I think least likely ‐ possible generator are the metal corrugations of my home's cladding...creating a sort of low-key Aeolian harp effect when wind blows through the (possibly) resonant cavities of the corrugated steel.

Further ruling out any idea that what I hear is tinnitus-like in its generation and/or psychological/imaginary is the fact that when I am away from this geographical location, I do not hear the 'Hum' at all.

I will have to admit to not having tried to hear the sound in nearby homes and structures for fear of being taken for a nuisance or a weirdo. I can, at times, hear the sound outside the rooms of my home when there is little to no ambient noise outside at night.

Sunday mornings when there is little or no motorway traffic, little to no activity in the industrial park and little to no traffic on the surface road at my driveway's edge still do not affect (positively or negatively) the presence or absence of the hum.

On very rare occasions, the Hum stops altogether. Once for a 2-3 day period, before resuming to steady levels again. The sound's volume level, when present, is steady but does seem to have a sort of oscillation-like characteristic."

This man had built a house and lived in it for approximately six months before the first earthquake but had no experience of this unpleasant sound before the quake, or indeed, at any other time while living in Christchurch. This noise then arrived sometime after the earthquake and, as you have read, became concerning and debilitating enough for him to consider moving, and as a result to talk and write honestly to me.

As of 2017, the current observations indicate that the Christchurch quakes were quite different from the subsequent Marlborough-Wellington quakes. These quakes were tectonic plate boundary earthquakes, as the aftershocks diminished very quickly, whereas the Christchurch aftershocks continued for years. Additionally, speaking with locals who have a keen sense of timing, they reported that the large aftershocks in Christchurch occurred in a regular pattern, just after lunch and just after 10 pm. This points to pulsating flows, which also could indicate magma flows, in the case of this cities' earthquakes.

Knock Knock..... Who's There?

To lend more weight to the idea that magma flows are connected to earthquakes in New Zealand and elsewhere, the following map (Figure 2) was presented at an Earthquake Engineering Conference. The map was the latest developed in Australia to update their building code. What caught my attention was the way earthquakes were more localised in Australia than in New Zealand. The Australian tectonic plate is much greater in area than the actual land mass, where the exposed land area is less than one-eighth of it. The plate is surrounded on one side by the Ring of Fire, caused by the Pacific and Eurasian plates impacting against it, and on the other side, it is situated against the African and Antarctic plates. New Zealand sits directly on the plate boundary of the Ring of Fire. There are many earthquakes in Australia, but their force is much less than that felt in New Zealand. So, when examining their other maps, there is a wide scattering of very small quakes over a reasonable portion of the land area. However, there are several so-called 'hot spots', which is an Australian term, where there are more frequent quakes even up to magnitude M6.5, but mostly around M4.0 as seen on this map. These hotspots tend to be transient, and their locations change over time; that is, they move around the land, unlike earthquakes in New Zealand. What caught our attention was the irregular spacings and the big red spot just above the centre of the landmass in the Northern Territories. This spot is far from the Ring of Fire. Being in the middle of the landmass should mean there are other causes aside from boundary impacts or plate sliding movements. By using this map, we contend that with an up-welling of magma hitting the crust from a boiling mantle, you would expect to see localised quake damage on the land and, as seen by the Christchurch's quake sequence example. Therefore, magma movements are an active phenomenon that affects the crust, as our theory aligns with this long-term study by Australian scientists. However, scientists prefer to exclude connections between any set of earthquakes, providing no reason for any purported pattern that may be seen. Unable to see deep below or within the Earth's crust, they cannot make connections and, therefore, report only the quake occurrences that are felt. For us, it is easy to make connections, and hence, we can offer a cause for earthquake hotspots, much like a boiling pot of water lifting the lid.

Figure 2: The 500 year return period Hotspot zone PGA (0.0 s RSA period) hazard map with a 60 km Gaussian spatial filter.

(The 2012 Australian Earthquake Hazard Map. GEOSCIENCE AUSTRALIA RECORD 2012/71, D. R. Burbidge (ed.) (g)-Represents the peak ground accelerations.)

The following map (Figure 3) can be compared with the Australian map, where New Zealand is East of Australia and extends from Latitude -34 to -46 degrees. Definite lines can be seen, which indicate the edge of the Australian and Pacific plates boundary on the Ring of Fire.

Figure 3: New Zealand Earthquake Maps.

The deep earthquakes >40km colour grading goes from orange, yellow, green, blue, then purple, where purple is the deepest. Peak Ground Accelerations (g) are not shown but are much higher than in Australia.