At around 0350 this (Sunday) morning I half awoke to a very strange sound. It was loud and sounded to be coming from out on the street. I looked at the clock and misread it as 3150, so assumed I was having a lucid dream. Louisa woke too and I mentioned the dream noise, and she told me she heard it too, so I decided that I was definitely awake. At this point, the sound repeated itself. It was an metallicy almost alien noise. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything like it. It was ungodly. It sounded perhaps like 5 road sweepers with metal brushes driving close to a row of parked cars. Or the Terminator having rough sex with a robotic pig. It repeated a few times, sounding very much like the source of it was moving around the estate, away from us.
It was so freakishly bizzarre, I decided to get up and try find out what was causing it. I went downstairs in my dressing gown and sat out on the door step and listened. There was a longer delay this time but then it sounded again, quite clearly, from around the corner at the end of the street. Again, the noise unlike anything I could relate to. It repeated a few times, getting quieter. I just couldn’t let this go, so I got dressed and walked to the end of the road. The noise had stopped. I got in my car and drove around the estate, stopping and cutting the engine to listen. Eventually it reoccurred and I decided it was coming from somewhere in, or beyond the woods that surround our estate. I had no desire to wander around in the pitch black park on my own, so I drove around behind the park where there is an industrial estate, which, to be honest, is almost as scary.
It was at this point that Lousia called me on my mobile phone and told me she was worried and scared, so I had to go back. We shut the bedroom window and the curtains and went back to sleep.
What the source of this weird noise was has been bothering me all day. We’ve decided it was something to do with the train tracks that run through the bottom of the park. Perhaps a damaged and very heavy slow moving freight train. Though it would have to have taken almost 30 minutes to travel out of range, and there surely must have been more than one train to explain the reocurring sound. I still can’t forget about it though. Did anybody else hear it?
John Leach is a human being living in Leeds, UK.
August 15th, 2005 at 00:52
Years ago I used to hear a metallic noise, sounding like someone dropping a pipe onto a metallic surface, a sort of “bong, ga-lang, ga-lang” noise. It came from the direction of both a railway and a pipeline running adjacent to each other. Perhaps you and I were hearing the noise of railway workers hitting stuff into the tracks?
August 15th, 2005 at 00:52
Sorry, just to clarify, I don’t live anywhere near you :)
September 25th, 2005 at 23:27
[...] Realising when it went dark, it would be REALLY dark, we headed back to the hotel before it got too late, and read in our room until nothing could be seen out of the window apart from blackness and stars. The bed was big and comfortable but I didn’t sleep too well: my brain, now accustomed to screeching tires, car alarms, unwarranted shouting and FREAKY noises, obviously found the silence too suspicious to relax. [...]
July 23rd, 2006 at 03:07
Reading this is really strange, because a few years ago I heard a similar unexplained, almost weird and ungodly (as you put it!) metallic noise on the other side of the Pennines in Ashton-u-Lyne. This noise was the strangest thing I’ve ever heard. It was almost that it was pervading everywhere, like it had no source that I could make out. It really chilled me.
I forgot about it after a while, and then a few weeks later there was a personal advert in the local paper asking if anyone had heard strange noises around the Tameside area late at night.
January 26th, 2007 at 10:39
Last night I heard a noise very similar to what you describe (I have read this article before and decided to locate it again after my experience). I live in a town called Sawley in between Derby and Nottingham. My apartment is situated on the edge of the town and overlooks miles of fields. There is a freight train line about 300 meters away but I’m almost certain this was no train and sounded much closer.
Firstly I’d just gone to bed around midnight (this may be of no relevance to the noise but I though I’d mention it) and I was awoken by flashing blue lights outside. I had a look through my blinds and there was a police car and also what I believe was an unmarked police car both stationary across the road as if they were looking into the fields. After a couple of seconds they both pulled off fairly quickly in opposite directions.
At 02:30 I was awoken again – this time by, the best I can describe it; as a noise like a steam roller driving over broken glass and metal. It was very loud and seemed to pass right by the road outside my apartment. As it faded into the distance I heard two shot gun like noised (again in the distance) then pretty much silence. I was so unnerved by the whole situation I got up, open the blinds and made a cup of tea staring out of the window for about an hour but I saw or heard nothing. Very bizarre!
Tim Wainwright
May 1st, 2008 at 23:05
After reading your blog i feel i have to reply.
This happened to me tonight aprox 9.40, i was walking home on my own across a lane, i was out in the light and next to a hill when i heard this metalic/alien noise (as you described it) the best way i can explain it is that it sounded like a cross between a metal dectector and when a walky talky is changing the frequency. The noises followed me all the way to the bottom of my street but it stayed on the lane (my esate is surrounded by lanes and hills) this freaked me out so much and i’ve been googling this noise ever since!
May 27th, 2009 at 16:57
This happened last night in Kirkstall. it was around half 2 maybe and this freaky sound like the chimes on a ice-cream van going backwards, it seemed like it was moving around the area. Then it changed into this epic and terrifying metallic alien roaring which seemed to be coming from down in the valley where the river is, possibly near the abbey.
I really want to know what it was.
June 1st, 2009 at 09:13
J.D: I heard the same thing the next night (last Thursday) up in Armley! Just like ice-cream van chimes playing backwards, yes, perfect description!
Then the metallic roaring. It sounded to be coming from down from the canal or the train tracks. It wasn’t as loud as the first time I heard it back in 2005 and it didn’t seem to be be moving around, but basically the same sound.
I’m assuming this is some kind of machine works down there, but as to why they only seem to work in the middle of the night…
June 1st, 2009 at 09:28
I think I can shed some light on what was causing the noise.
There is a device that network rail use to remove trackside trees that makes an incredible din, it’s basically a huge set of metal teeth attached to a swing arm using a chain, they attach it to the top of a tree trunk and it eats it way down to ground level, reducing the tree to shreds.
They were using one near me last year and it made the same noises you were describing.
June 1st, 2009 at 10:05
Thanks Steve, I’m seeing if I can find any more details.