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Bad Astronomy
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Cosmically creepy chords

When I was a kid it was popular for people to have records playing (yes, LPs) of weird sounds out their windows. Screams, moans, creaky doors, all those cheesy sounds. One house had whale songs playing, which I thought was cool and not at all scary.

I was thinking about this today, and suddenly remembered a post I put up last July about extremely creepy sounds from Saturn and the Earth’s aurora. Wanna scare the kiddies on Halloween? Download those and loop ‘em. You’ll probably scare them enough to have lots of leftover candy.

Here’s the link to the Earth sounds, and here are the very creepy Saturn sounds.

Oh, and the picture above? That’s just a little Halloween gift from the Chandra space observatory.

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October 30th, 2006 9:14 PM by Phil Plait in Cool stuff, Science, Time Sink | 16 comments | RSS feed | Trackback >

16 Responses to “Cosmically creepy chords”

  1. 1.   Merovingian Says:
    October 30th, 2006 at 11:03 pm

    Wow, that’d be a nice pumpkin carving design.

  2. 2.   skeptigirl Says:
    October 31st, 2006 at 2:21 am

    Those are great! The image resembles Bill the Cat.

  3. 3.   skeptigirl Says:
    October 31st, 2006 at 2:23 am

    http://einstein.library.emory.edu/images/bill_the_cat.jpg
    Bill the Cat – the post just left the link out. Not sure if it’s my not knowing the blog code or the currently haunted blog software.

  4. 4.   PK Says:
    October 31st, 2006 at 3:48 am

    Saturn sounds fantastic!

  5. 5.   rich (richmanwisco) Says:
    October 31st, 2006 at 6:01 am

    Wow….I wonder what Hoagland thinks about that pic!

  6. 6.   Melusine Says:
    October 31st, 2006 at 6:03 am

    I finally joined the 21st Century and got DSL…nice and fast! Anyway, the Saturn sounds are definitely eerie. Reminds me of how Astroworld (now-closed amusement park in Houston) used to play music like that over all the speakers in the park. At night it was great atmosphere while you were waiting in line to ride rollercoasters. How cool it would be to tell kids what these sounds are really about. Nature can sound genuinely ghoulish at times.

  7. 7.   Dan Says:
    October 31st, 2006 at 7:04 am

    Hmmm… After hearing those Earth sounds, some people will really think that there are extra-terrestrial spaceships out there, watching us…

  8. 8.   Jeff Says:
    October 31st, 2006 at 7:30 am

    Saturn reminds me of the music from the film ‘Forbidden Planet’. Were they listening to Saturn in the ’50′s?

  9. 9.   The Bad Astronomer Says:
    October 31st, 2006 at 8:27 am

    Jeff, the first link in this post goes to the post from July 2005 where I made that very point. :)

  10. 10.   Gary Ansorge Says:
    October 31st, 2006 at 9:23 am

    Someday, someone will surf the rings of Saturn and there will ensue a hugh discussion over the disruption of the natural errie sounds of the rings. Wish I could be there, writing in your Blog,,,

    GAry 7

  11. 11.   Confuddled Says:
    October 31st, 2006 at 9:23 am

    Thanks for the Saturn sound!

    I burned it on a disk and I’m going to have it repeat on my porch so the Trick-or-treaters get to hear it!

  12. 12.   Gary Ansorge Says:
    October 31st, 2006 at 9:35 am

    I hadn’t listened to the Saturn sounds befor I posted. Did it just now. Wow! I do believe I heard these sounds at the last Dead show I attended in ’94, during the Drum/Space jam. Guess the gray aliens liked the show so much they took it home with them,,,heh,heh,,,

    gary 7

  13. 13.   SpikeNut Says:
    October 31st, 2006 at 8:52 pm

    Somewhere I read that Dr. Mark Whittle has the sounds of the Cosmic Background Radiation. Probably on his webpage. If I remember tomorrow I will check. Those are probably not scary enough to scare anybody, but it is kind of cool.

  14. 14.   Melusine Says:
    November 2nd, 2006 at 2:46 am

    A fun site for spacesounds can be found here. Click on all the silver buttons. The four buttons below the circle lead to whalesounds, etc. I like the pulsar sounds:
    http://spacesounds.com/home/index.html

  15. 15.   Nanette Says:
    November 6th, 2006 at 6:35 pm

    It may be a cool site for sure but I ordered a whale cd October 10. Haven’t received a thing, heard a thing or can I find anywhere on the website that provides customer service.

    The charge of course quickly showed up on my credit card? Has anyone ever ordered anything from them?

    Peace, Nanette

  16. 16.   dartigen Says:
    October 27th, 2011 at 9:03 am

    Oh wow.

    I always though The Bloop and The Slowdown were creepy as.

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