Bay Ridge Hummer May Be Toadfish

A new theory emerges in the continuing mystery of the Bay Ridge Hum — a spawning fish may cause it, the New York Sun reports:

HMMMM. This mysterious sound in the waters off Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, has baffled residents for months. A low pitched vibration known simply as the “Bay Ridge Hum” heard near the shore next to the Verrazano Bridge has left some locals not only scratching their heads in frustration but deprived of sleep, too.

While several hypotheses as to the cause — passing trains, treatment plants, even UFOs — have been floated, so to speak, one new hunch is that fish may cause it.

. . .

. . . In the early 1980s a mysterious humming noise kept residents of Sausalito, Calif., near the Golden Gate Bridge, hiding their heads under their pillows for sleepless nights during the summer.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, a scientific investigation was begun, resulting in a search assisted by an acoustics consulting company. Hydrophonic recordings were taken and spectrum analysis eliminated machinery as the source of the humming.

Finally, in August 1985, fish biologists concluded the sound was coming from noisy humming male toadfish.

Could the toadfish also be humming in Bay Ridge? “It is possible that it could be this fish,” said a professor of neurobiology and behavior at Cornell University, Andrew Bass. He said believes the sound could be coming from an east coast version of the underwater melody-maker called “Opsanus Tau,” the oyster toadfish.

The oyster toadfish has been described as “homely” for its large protruding eyes, broad mouth, and flesh-like whiskers surrounding a short snout. To attract a mate, it produces a vocalization — some call it a “foghorn” sound — to attract females during spawning.

Sausalito, Calif., and Bay Ridge are also both located near large bridges that some residents believe may further amplify the noise.

The toadfish’s spawning season extends from April to October, which corresponds to the time when residents in Bay Ridge have reported hearing the mysterious noise. The male locates a private nesting area often using old tin cans or decayed wood lying on the bay bottom and then calls out in his low, mournful “foghorn” to spawning females. A female swims into the nest and lays large, adhesive eggs upside-down in the nest, then swims away.

A few who have heard the so-called “Bay Ridge Hum” listened to a recording of the Oyster Toadfish prepared by Mr. Bass and said they believed it was the same noise.

Ms. [Concetta] Butera said, “Yes, I would say that this was the noise. I am hearing those fish. I am hearing thousands of them.”

Ms. [Anissa] Malloy listened to the recording and concurred, “I think the fish are making the noise.”

Ms. [Josephine] Beckmann said she also plans on notifying the DEP about the new theory. In the near future Mr. Bass plans on recording the sound himself and testing it for authenticity.