Thursday, August 13, 2009

Strange noises in the night?

We received an interesting email from a reader about strange noises in Ballard last night. Devin was wondering if anyone else living around 15th was sleepless. It sort of sounds like a small remote control plane to us. What do you think? Here's what he says:

I live at 15th and Ballard and couldn’t sleep last night, and started to fall asleep at around 2:15am. As I was trying to fall asleep I heard to me what sounded like a very loud leaf blower, turning on at full force, and then relaxing. Went on for about 40 minutes and bugged the hell out of me.

A buddy I work with lives in Greenwood actually heard the same noise. He claims it sounded like a plane overheard, and reported the same intervals of coming on strong and then relaxing.

Have you heard anything else from peeps in Ballard about what the hell this was?

We looked at the 911 dispatch list for last night and didn't see anything around 2 a.m. that would make a bunch of noise. Very curious! Maybe they're spraying for moths in the dark of night again. We, unfortunately, have been suffering from insomnia lately and have earplugs and a fan to help us sleep so we didn't hear a thing. That we remember anyway.

5 comments:

Kyle Steuck said...

Sounds similar to the garbage trucks that come by near Market.

peck said...

Heard it near the PCC in Green Lake. I thought it was a helicopter noise too; definitely not a regular garbage truck sound.

Unknown said...

Way-out suggestion:
It's almost an helicopter--An experimental drone observation probe w/night vision,ir,radar,built to use in wars abroad;S.P.D. are secretly testing it over Ballard,trying to zero in on (politicly in-correct) homeless people whom are driveing "sidewalk cadillacs"(i.e.,shopping carts)through Ballard in the middle of the night,terroriseing the feint-of-heart...
E-M:[blue_eyed_devil_01@rediff.com]

peck said...

PhinneyWood blog has the answer!
http://www.phinneywood.com/2009/08/28/anyone-hear-loud-noise-last-night/

They point to the wsdotblog, and say it's pavement grinding:
http://wsdotblog.blogspot.com/2009/08/whats-that-noise.html

Anonymous said...

i witnessed a helicopter doing circles above the east end of green lake for about 20 minutes tonight. that's from about 11:40pm thursday september 10, until midnight. it has moved away but i think i can still hear it doing circles somewhere else.

i've lived here for a year, and this is the oddest aircraft behavior i've ever seen. it has two bright red lights, and maybe another red light, and a big blue light, and a white light in the front. i didn't notice a spotlight. seems police oriented to me, but that's a guess.

it just did circles in the diameter of about a few blocks, no stops or anything else.

it doesn't really bother me. but it does make me curious. it's bizarre, and it seems like something is wrong.

Rufus_Squill_II_Esq. may be right, but Rufus, where did you get that information? how do you know so much? care to provide sources?

let that other web page be for i-5 repair and garbage trucks- this is definitely peculiar helicopter activity.