‘Hello? Hello? Is this thing on? If you can hear this, I’ve found the source. Or I’m dead. But probably the source. It wasn’t just an irritation, you see. Not just a random oscillation in our ear, not saturation feedback. It’s a signal. They’re calling to us and we have to answer. The key is the person. Find the list. Find them all. Follow my signal. Find me. This is Montana Parker, signing off. Hello? Hello…?’
The message kept going, always accompanied by that tinny whine. Always on the edge of hearing, screeching for notice like a child tugging at a sleeve.A needle being inserted slowly to your ear canal. Aggravating and insistent. Hannigan remembered the first time he’d heard the sound. Eight years old, watching the screens when it had started, prodding and poking him to get his attention. He’d called to his mother, who was busy strolling amongst the perfume stands, far too busy to pay attention to her son.
The noise had never gone away. He’d spoken to doctors, shamans, even random people on the corner of the street preaching hellfire and damnation, but nobody had been able to help. The doctors had considered tinnitus, prescribing counselling and cognitive behavioural therapy. None of that worked.
The shamans talked about trepanning, releasing the spirits that were plaguing him. Drilling into his skull, if you can believe it. He let them, but it didn’t help.
The preachers were a last resort and were about as much use as you could imagine.
But then he heard Montana Parker’s first message. His call to arms, to all those who felt the noise.
He wasn’t alone any more.
So I, quite often, hear a high pitched whining or whistling noise, usually around technology. Anybody else experience this?
The Idiot in Tin Foil
The Idiot In Tin Foil 
I don’t think I’ve ever had that experience. It doesn’t sound comfortable, but I like the story it inspired!
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Nice story! I can always hear older tvs when they are on and no “sound” is coming out of them. It drives me crazy and I have to ether put something on or turn it off!
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I’m with Dillon on the older television, or computer monitors even. Anything that can be degaussed, which I believe has to do with magnetism (which is basically magic in my opinion). I can remember being bored in computer technology classes (back in the day) and repeatedly degaussing my monitor over and over again. Watching the colors on the screen do that weird thing they would do.
I also think about all the wavelengths of information being passed through, and around, our bodies all of the time. Cell phones, wi-fi, and various other wavelengths of light and energy.
When I was earning my degree in Homeland Security, I had to take a number of classes on remote sensing. Remote sensing is basically utilizing wavelengths of energy being bounced off of the earths surface by orbiting satellites. The data from these satellites is sent back to the earth and the file sizes are beyond comprehension. Using software like ArcGIS (and other super secret squirrel stuff) allows you to separate all the different wavelengths of light, view them independently, and observe the planet’s surface in different ways. Once you understand that all objects reflect energy in different ways, it really let’s you observe things in a new and powerful way (you can likely see why Homeland Security would be interested in such a thing).
One thing that really bothered me is that these satellites all have different capabilities in how they collect information. For instance, some orbit the planet and some orbit with the planet (hover of the same location). While this is happening the satellite may be collecting energy that is being bounced off of the planet by the sun, but it also may be beaming energy at the planet, and collecting it as it reflects back. That specifically bothered me. It’s scary to think a satellite in space is able to blast the planet with energy of this magnitude. So when my ears ring or I get a strange headache, I often look to the sky and wave a middle finger at it. My hope is that some pale, government remote sensing analyst sees this and gets a chuckle.
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This sounds like me announcing to empty rooms that ‘i know you’re listening’. Worst case scenario, I look crazy to myself. Best case, an analyst panics because he thinks I’m onto him.
My degree was in astrophysics, so waves and signals played their part. I never thought properly about the security side of things though.
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I always saw in military and spy movies where they show the satellite imagery and was like, “Right, like THAT exists.” Then I started my studies in homeland security and intelligence studies and was like, “Dang, I should have closed the blinds more often and coated my roof in tin foil.”
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I hear good things about tin foil…
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I know some idiots who wear it…
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That’s cool! I almost went to get my masters in Archeological GIS and we would have used some of the same programs! Interesting stuff!
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For the basic GIS classes most of them were full of budding archaeologists. I made a mental note (which is sounding off in my brain right now) that about half of them dressed in some sort of Indiana Jones type apparel….
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That’s the dream!
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Aliens!
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Maybe…
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