Within Folklore
Why UFOs So Often Hum and Buzz
Hums and buzzes became the default UFO sound because they suggest advanced machinery without sounding completely unfamiliar.
On this page
- Why hums feel familiar but strange
- Electrical and industrial metaphors in reports
- How repeated wording became folklore
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Introduction
UFO reports often describe a sound that is neither fully familiar nor completely alien: a low hum, a vibrating drone, an electrical buzz, or a pulsing mechanical tone. These noises became some of the most recognisable parts of UFO folklore because they suggest technology without tying the object to any known machine. A witness can describe a humming craft and immediately communicate that it felt engineered, powerful and artificial, even if its exact source remains mysterious.
The persistence of these sounds is less about acoustics alone and more about how people interpret unusual experiences. Across decades of sightings, films, books and television dramas, humming and buzzing came to function as shorthand for advanced machinery. The result is a cultural soundscape in which UFOs are imagined not as magical objects but as technologies operating just beyond current human understanding. [Routledge]routledge.comRoutledgeFlying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the SkyWritten in the late 1950s at the height of popular fascination with UFO's…
Why Hums Feel Familiar but Strange
A humming sound occupies an unusual psychological middle ground. Most people know what a transformer station, electric motor, fluorescent light ballast, generator or distant industrial machine sounds like. A hum therefore signals that something mechanical is happening.
At the same time, a hum is often difficult to identify precisely. Unlike a car engine, propeller aircraft or helicopter rotor, it lacks an obvious source. That ambiguity makes it ideal for UFO narratives. The sound feels technological enough to imply machinery, but unfamiliar enough to imply machinery of an unknown kind.
Many witness descriptions rely on comparisons rather than exact identifications. Reports frequently describe sounds as being “like electricity”, “like a generator” or “like high-voltage equipment”. These comparisons reveal how people reach for existing technological references when confronted with something unusual. The sound does not have to be truly electrical. It only needs to evoke the sensory category of advanced equipment.
This differs from older supernatural folklore. Traditional stories about ghosts, spirits or divine apparitions often emphasised silence, voices, bells or natural sounds. UFO folklore emerged in an age dominated by engineering, aviation, radio and electronics. As a result, strange experiences were increasingly interpreted through the language of machines rather than the language of religion or mythology. [Routledge]routledge.comRoutledgeFlying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the SkyWritten in the late 1950s at the height of popular fascination with UFO's… [Waterstones]waterstones.comFlying Saucers by C.G. JungIn this wonderful and enlightening book Jung sees UFO's as 'visionary rumours', the centre of a quasi-religiou…
Electrical and Industrial Metaphors in Reports
The vocabulary of UFO sound developed during the twentieth century, when electrical infrastructure became part of everyday life. Power lines hummed. Radar stations emitted mysterious tones. Factories generated constant mechanical vibrations. Jet engines introduced entirely new categories of noise into public experience.
Witnesses naturally borrowed these references.
Instead of describing a UFO as sounding supernatural, reports often framed it as sounding:
- Electrical.
- Magnetic.
- Vibrational.
- Mechanical.
- Metallic.
- Engine-like but not quite an engine.
These descriptions allowed people to express a sense of technological sophistication. A low-frequency hum suggested immense power. A buzzing vibration suggested energy transmission. A pulsing drone implied a machine operating according to rules that observers could not fully understand.
The language also reflected Cold War culture. During the decades when flying saucer reports exploded, many people were surrounded by stories about secret aircraft, experimental propulsion systems, nuclear technology and classified military research. Unknown sounds were therefore easy to interpret as evidence of hidden machinery. Even when witnesses believed they had encountered extraterrestrial craft, they often described those craft using industrial metaphors drawn from earthly technology.
This is one reason UFO accounts rarely describe sounds that seem biologically generated. The objects are generally imagined as vehicles. Once a sighting is interpreted as a vehicle, listeners expect mechanical audio cues. A hum or buzz satisfies that expectation while preserving mystery. [ResearchGate]researchgate.netResearch Gate(PDF) Drone cultures: encounters with everyday militarismsResearchGate(PDF) Drone cultures: encounters with everyday militarismsNovember 2, 2020 — Militarized perception is always leaking into pu… [JSTOR]jstor.orgSupernatural Kidnap. Narrative Returns in…Read more…
The Sound of Advanced Technology
Another reason humming became dominant is that genuinely advanced technology often sounds quieter and more abstract than older machinery.
A steam locomotive announces itself with churning pistons and explosive exhaust. A modern electric motor may produce only a smooth whine. Computer servers emit fan noise rather than obvious mechanical rhythms. High-voltage systems often create humming or buzzing rather than the clatter associated with nineteenth-century machines.
Popular culture repeatedly linked futuristic technology to these smoother sounds. By the 1950s and 1960s, science-fiction films were already using oscillating electronic tones, sustained drones and synthetic vibrations to represent alien devices and spacecraft. Audiences learned to associate continuous humming with sophistication.
This created an intuitive hierarchy:
- Loud combustion sounds felt old-fashioned.
- Smooth electrical sounds felt modern.
- Near-silent operation felt impossibly advanced.
UFO folklore often moved between the second and third categories. Craft either emitted an uncanny hum or operated in total silence. Both possibilities implied technology beyond ordinary aircraft.
The hum therefore became a narrative signal. It suggested that witnesses were not encountering a conventional plane or helicopter but something operating according to a different technological logic.
How Repeated Wording Became Folklore
Once certain descriptions appeared frequently in books, newspapers and television programmes, they became self-reinforcing.
Folklore researchers have long noted that people describe unusual experiences using familiar cultural templates. UFO narratives gradually accumulated a shared vocabulary that included shapes, movements, lights and sounds. A witness trying to explain an odd aerial event might reach for terms already associated with UFOs because those terms seemed appropriate and understandable.
The process does not necessarily require deliberate invention. Human memory works through categories and comparisons. If UFO stories commonly involve humming craft, later observers may find that “humming” becomes the easiest available label for an unusual noise.
The result is a feedback loop:
- Early reports describe humming or buzzing objects.
- Media coverage repeats those descriptions.
- Fiction adopts the same sounds.
- Audiences learn what advanced alien technology is supposed to sound like.
- Future witnesses draw on that shared vocabulary.
Cultural historians studying UFO belief have argued that flying saucer narratives developed many of the features of modern folklore and modern myth. Recurring sound descriptions became part of that package, functioning almost like traditional motifs in older legends. UNM Digital Repository [Routledge]routledge.comRoutledgeFlying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the SkyWritten in the late 1950s at the height of popular fascination with UFO's…
Why Completely Unknown Sounds Rarely Survive
One revealing feature of UFO reports is how rarely witnesses claim a sound was entirely indescribable.
An account that says “it made a humming electrical noise” can be understood immediately. An account that says “it sounded like nothing that exists on Earth” is harder to communicate and harder for listeners to imagine. People generally interpret new sensory experiences through existing categories.
This makes hums and buzzes unusually effective storytelling tools. They preserve the technological character of the object while remaining accessible to ordinary language. The sound feels close enough to known machinery to be believable and distant enough from known machinery to be mysterious.
That balance helps explain why humming and buzzing became the default UFO soundtrack across both witness testimony and popular culture. The noises communicate exactly what UFO folklore needs them to communicate: not magic, not nature, but technology that seems one step beyond the familiar world. [Routledge]routledge.comRoutledgeFlying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the SkyWritten in the late 1950s at the height of popular fascination with UFO's… [Open Culture]openculture.comcarl jungs 1957 letter on the fascinating modern myth of ufosCarl Jung's Fascinating 1957 Letter on UFOsMay 31, 2013 — Psychotherapist and onetime Freud protégé Carl Gustav Jung treated UFOs this wa…
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Endnotes
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Source: routledge.com
Link: https://www.routledge.com/Flying-Saucers-A-Modern-Myth-of-Things-Seen-in-the-Sky/Jung/p/book/9780415278379Source snippet
RoutledgeFlying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the SkyWritten in the late 1950s at the height of popular fascination with UFO's...
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Source: waterstones.com
Link: https://www.waterstones.com/book/flying-saucers/c-g-jung/9780415278379Source snippet
Flying Saucers by C.G. JungIn this wonderful and enlightening book Jung sees UFO's as 'visionary rumours', the centre of a quasi-religiou...
-
Source: researchgate.net
Title: Research Gate(PDF) Drone cultures: encounters with everyday militarisms
Link: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/346593864_Drone_cultures_encounters_with_everyday_militarismsSource snippet
ResearchGate(PDF) Drone cultures: encounters with everyday militarismsNovember 2, 2020 — Militarized perception is always leaking into pu...
Published: November 2, 2020
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Source: jstor.org
Link: https://www.jstor.org/content/pdf/oa_book_monograph/j.ctt1gk08msSource snippet
Supernatural Kidnap. Narrative Returns in...Read more...
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Source: digitalrepository.unm.edu
Link: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1009&context=amst_etdsSource snippet
UNM Digital RepositoryOccam's Beard: Belief, Disbelief, and Contested Meanings...by WJ Dewan · 2011 · Cited by 4 — sighting in the moder...
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Source: researchgate.net
Link: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341443875_Aliens_and_Unidentified_Aerial_PhenomenaSource snippet
(PDF) Aliens and Unidentified Aerial PhenomenaThe key similarities between UFO sightings and their long and continuous history recorded b...
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Source: jstor.org
Title: Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky
Link: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvzxx9sfSource snippet
"--C. G. Jung, in Flying Saucers Jung's primary concern in Flying Saucers is not with the reality or unreality of UFOs but with their psy...
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Source: openculture.com
Title: carl jungs 1957 letter on the fascinating modern myth of ufos
Link: https://www.openculture.com/2013/05/carl_jungs_1957_letter_on_the_fascinating_modern_myth_of_ufos.htmlSource snippet
Carl Jung's Fascinating 1957 Letter on UFOsMay 31, 2013 — Psychotherapist and onetime Freud protégé Carl Gustav Jung treated UFOs this wa...
Published: May 31, 2013
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Source: handprint.com
Link: https://www.handprint.com/UFO/UFO.htmlSource snippet
as wildlifeAs a corrective to the contentious fixation on "extraterrestrial aliens" as the only available explanation for UFO, I argue th...
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Source: reddit.com
Title: Carl Jung
Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/Jung/comments/kp20of/carl_jung_flying_saucers_a_modern_myth_of_things/Source snippet
Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in...Rumors of round objects that flash through the troposphere and stratosphere and go by...
Additional References
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Source: goodreads.com
Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/71255.Flying_SaucersSource snippet
Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the SkiesHe aims to explain the phenomena of UFO sightings (also dreams about UFOs and ar...
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Source: Wikipedia
Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_saucerSource snippet
Flying saucerA flying saucer, or flying disc, is a purported type of disc-shaped unidentified flying object (UFO). The term was coined...
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Source: reddit.com
Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/Jung/comments/te6xwr/jung_believed_ufos_to_be_real/Source snippet
Jung believed UFOs to be realI'd say that he believed UFOs (in the psychological context) were the projections of the Self, wholeness, ma...
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Source: facebook.com
Link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/799987083411428/posts/2946945925382189/Source snippet
UFO sightings: Real or mass hysteria?Myth: Mainstream scientists refuse to believe in UFOs because they are close-minded about the possib...
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Source: medium.com
Link: https://medium.com/%40nahudini/ufos-as-mirrors-of-the-inner-cosmos-4b833017fbc7Source snippet
UFOs as Mirrors of the Inner Cosmos: | by NahulanhamCarl Jung, in Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky, proposed a dar...
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Source: facebook.com
Title: the isle of mans first ufo sightingon this day in 1902 the manx newspapers repor
Link: https://www.facebook.com/culturevannin/posts/the-isle-of-mans-first-ufo-sightingon-this-day-in-1902-the-manx-newspapers-repor/2185042781628205/Source snippet
The Isle of Man's first UFO sighting? On this day in 1902...Fairies Across the Mersey: UFOs and the Isle of Man | UFO Files | Strange Da...
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Source: digitalcommons.pittstate.edu
Link: https://digitalcommons.pittstate.edu/ertman/33/Source snippet
Jung brilliantly probes the relationship between UFOs and mankind's troubled unconscious. He explores and...Read more...
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Source: brightlightsfilm.com
Title: salvation from the skies carl jung watches the day the earth stood still
Link: https://brightlightsfilm.com/salvation-from-the-skies-carl-jung-watches-the-day-the-earth-stood-still/Source snippet
Salvation from the Skies: Carl Jung Watches The Day...30 Apr 2025 — “Technological angel” is an apt term to describe Klaatu, who descend...
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Source: amazon.co.uk
Link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Flying-Saucers-C-G-Jung/dp/1567311210 -
Source: facebook.com
Title: the declassified ufo files mention reports from the 1960s claiming witnesses saw
Link: https://www.facebook.com/theinfomance/posts/the-declassified-ufo-files-mention-reports-from-the-1960s-claiming-witnesses-saw/954561600539778/Source snippet
Hundreds of pictures and videos of UFOs are taken every year and enthusiasts believe many of them...Read more...
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