What is the most terryifying siren noise?

TheBananaKing@lemmy.world to Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world – 83 points –

There's an emergency at the Facility down the road, and everyone in a six-mile radius is very likely fucked.

What is the sound that announces your fate?

  • oooooOOOOOOOIPP, oooooOOOOOOOOIPP

  • WAAAARK ..... WAAAARK ..... WAAAARK

  • dyOOT! ... dyOOT! ... dyOOT!

  • Something else? (please spell)

52

Definitely the Downtown Chicago Tornado Warning Siren

Lol the youtube comment:

this siren isnt meant to warn the public its meant to scare away the tornado

It does kind of sound like a police car that drove into a duckpond and is sadly shorting out...

I didn't realize that was Chicago's tornado siren, but it's 100% the one that popped into my head. It just sounds viscerally wrong.

Literally as I read the title "if Chicago tornado warning sirens ain't the top post..."

It haunts me and I've only heard it on videos. Not refreshing my memory thanks

It haunts me and I've only heard it on videos. Not refreshing my memory thanks

Probably the real one that I heard when russians attacked us on the first day of the war

We (my parents) bought a plot of land a long time ago. We built a house there, it took over a year. We finally finished it up and moved in. A few weeks later, we were in the living room. rrrrRRRRRRRwwwwooooaaahaaaaaaAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRWWWWWAAAAAAAaaaaaaawwwwwwwwAAAAAAAAAAWWWRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRWWWWwwwwaaaaaawwwwwWWWWWAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAWWWWWWWwwwwwwwwwwooooaaahaaaaaaAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRWWWWWAAAAAAAaaaaaaawwwwwwwwAAAAAAAAAAWWWRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRWWWWwwwwaaaaaawwwwwWWWWWAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAWWWWWWWwwwwwwwwwwooooaaahaaaaaaAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRWWWWWAAAAAAAaaaaaaawwwwwwwwAAAAAAAAAAWWWRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRWWWWwwwwaaaaaawwwwwWWWWWAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAWWWWWWWwwwwwwaaawwwwrrrrrrrrr r r r r r r r r r r rr

The windows were rattling, which was neat because they were new and tightly sealed. The doors were rattling, the dishes were rattling

Down in the tree line, half hidden in a grove of trees along a boarder road one property over (maybe 800ft), there was a pretty damned big siren. I'm still somewhat shocked we never noticed it during the construction. No idea what it was, no indication what it was. Just a loud AF air raid style siren. Nothing on the news, no internet or cell phones back then.

After asking the neighbors, it was apparently the test siren for the local nuclear power plant (40 miles away), We had never been there on the first Tuesday of the month at 1pm, so we had never heard it being tested.

More recently, I moved into a new house about 2 years ago. (several moves later) and I was outside on a brisk day. All of a sudden, there was a tonal version of a klaxon, (think LOST) ERRRRRTTTTTT ERRRRRTTTT ERRRRRRRTTTTT ERRRRRTTTTT (3 second pause) ERRRRRTTTTTT ERRRRRTTTT ERRRRRRRTTTTT ERRRRRTTTTT (3 second pause) ERRRRRTTTTTT ERRRRRTTTT ERRRRRRRTTTTT ERRRRRTTTTT (10 second pause) (indistinguishable human speech) WAH ME FNDL WA NAW MAW WAH NENELE FAH WA NA. EFF WANAWA, ME FEDLE ME NO, ME NO MO NO FANALWE FWK THO

We live somewhat near a small airport with a National Guard base attached. In the summer, it's kinda quiet and far off as it's a couple miles away. When the air is very cold and the wind blows the right way, it sounds like they're doing it in my back yard with the exception that the speech is still absolutely unintelligible.

I grew up near a nuclear plant as well! We even got mailed the potassium iodide pill in case of emergency. I'm awful at onomatopoei, but it sounds like ours were different. Mine scaled up to a high, monotonous whine.

Mine was an old mechanical one and it rotated 360. The sound would change characteristics as it angled away then back at the house

libera te tutemet ex inferis

Imagine hearing that shit 😬...

I've done a lot of work near/for/at chemical companies. They all have the regular slow-woop siren telling you to leave, preferably into the wind. And that's not a fun thing to hear, because they really don't like to push that button for any old thing.

But there's also the far worse "shelter in place" siren. When you hear it, it means shit is so fucked you can't even run away. And most places aren't exactly suited for riding out a chemical disaster.

Not necessarily an alarm in the literal sense, but the USA's EAS sound can send a shiver down my spine. Especially if you weren't expecting it

I love EAS messages. The first part is actually three bursts of machine-readable data encoded as audio, and it's completely incidental that it's such a freaky sound.

There have been incidents of EAS-equipped devices triggering an alarm because an otherwise benign broadcast transmitted a valid EAS message without the short end-of-message bursts.

I don't think the sound itself is freaky (i.e. I don't think it'd be perceived as freaky by people not familiar with it or similar messages at all).

It's the implication. At least I (as a non-American) associate the sound not with "generic public safety message" but firmly with "the president will now say goodbye to the nation and tell everyone to hug their loved ones one last time before the 3000 nukes/an asteroid/hostile aliens wipe out all life on Earth".

I think some movies also used the sound for submarine Emergency Action Messages (aka the thing that makes those 3000 nukes fly).

A bunch of people screaming in terror would probably be pretty terrifying: What's that? The gates of hell opening up to consume us all? No! It's just an emergency vehicle.

Classic air raid siren.

WwwwwwooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Always sends shivers down my back

Silence, no help is coming and your robbed of the faint hope of social services discovering our ass before it's too late

Probably one that draws you toward it almost mystically.

Terror? Carbon monoxide alarm. Less for the sound, and more for the mental strife after what you are 99% sure it is a false alarm... as that 1% doubt (that might kill you in your sleep) keeps you from sleeping.

The Danish Air raid sirenes allways gives me the creeps, I think it's the clear sound that gets me. Unlike other sirenes that has a harsha tone, the Danish ones have a almost sterile tone, convaying the feeling of "this sound is vary important, stop now and go Inside. Like a scary Teacher"

Starts at 0:15 and later has a "all clear" tone later on on youtubes

Then again it might just be because I had to listen to it as a kid, and I was a weird ass kid

Whatever siren alerts you to the fact that nuclear missiles are inbound would be the most terrifying in my book.

Everyone's phones going off at once then? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Hawaii_false_missile_alert

I wasn't in Hawai'i when that happened but I knew and worked remotely with a bunch of people who were and what blew my mind was that everyone just went back to their day after that.

I mean, fucking hell. I would need a hot minute to recover from coming to terms with my imminent death and the death of everyone I knew and loved who lived on Hawai'i. I feel like that would be traumatizing af.

Anything that wakes you up at 3am during a moment of political strife, I think.

The multilingual emergency messages with the high pitched beeps on cruise ships.

I've never been on a cruise but I've seen a few videos and documentaries and always find this terrifying. You have nowhere to run to but a muster station. Like, you may drown while hearing a foreign language that you can't understand but is somehow telling you to GFTO.

Nothing followed by the sound of a lot of cars leaving the Facility very fast.

Where I live there are tries every this date, so when it really comes to your mind that its sounding awfully strong and long time than usually... It sure kicks you into another mood.

Man down alarm for the freezer at the distribution centre I work at. If that goes off in the office is ear splitting.