by XjerseymamasX
Deep in the night, one night not too long ago, there was a sound echoing briefly, yet ever so potently, in my room. My roommate and I are quite the sound sleepers. It typically takes the entire Apple ringtone discography worth of alarms to wake us in the morning. You can imagine my great surprise when on this fateful night, we were both awakened at the same time. The noise happened and we both sprung up in our beds. I muttered, “what the fuck was that?” and my roommate said, “I don’t know, it’s fine” You may ask, what could’ve woken up these sound sleepers? That is a great question– A question I aim to discover the answer to in this article. I will not sleep (lie) until I get to the bottom of this case.
According to conwed.com, the four categories of sound are: continuous noise, intermittent noise, impulsive noise, or low-frequency noise. I would certainly classify this noise as an impulsive noise, justified by the following criteria, “not regularly scheduled or recognized. Instead, it is a surprising burst or sound that causes people to look up to see what’s going on.” I further researched this type of noise and compiled a list of possible examples in the form of onomatopoeias. The impulsive-sound-onomatopoeias that bear the most audible resemblance to the infamous sound we heard that night are as follows: BANG!, BOOM!, CLANG!, CLASH!, CLATTER!, CRASH!, SLAP!, THUD!, THUMP!, etc. I feel the most accurate representations are BANG!, CLANG! and THUD! The sound asserted the dominance of the hard “d” consonant sound at the end of “thud”, but “thud” struggles to encapsulate the high-pitched, grading sound produced at the scene of the crime like the “a” vowel can in “bang,” and “clang”.
User, aurelionsmol on hinative.com explains that a bang is a violent sound, or a very loud collision, such as a bang on the door or gunfire. Thud is used in regard to a heavy object falling, such as a textbook; however, this could also be used to describe something gentle like blankets falling onto the floor in a large pile. Armed with these facts, I began to weigh my options. The sound was most likely something falling, which is solid evidence to support the fact that it was a thud; however, the characteristic of violence in a bang is critical in this case, as the sound was an attack on our restful slumber. In conclusion, this sound was a “BANG!”.
Now that we have established the sound was a BANG!, I can hypothesize what the sound could’ve been. Please note these are merely educated guesses, as science isn’t advanced enough yet to confirm or deny that I am correct in my research. This is my refined working list of what the sound could’ve been:
The ceiling collapsing
A bird hitting the window
A magic 8-ball (dropped)
A disgruntled Davis Center pool player throwing a regular 8-ball at our windows or walls
The Titanic hitting the iceberg
Chris Christie falling out of his chair (sustained reverb)
Catbus crash and explosion
Shattered toilet bowl x1
Suresh Garimella’s personal fracking machine
A cartoon character bouncing on a jackhammer
5 little monkeys jumping on the bed
Williams Hall exterior door shutting
Bass-Blasted Pinball Machine
Really loud fart
Krakatoa volcanic eruption
If you have any information or tips you are obligated to please contact local scientists and political representatives.