Mystery Sounds from the natural world

Hi friends, you might have heard that Bark, Sandin and I are on the road this spring with brains on live. We've been to several cities so far and it has been so much fun. Our next two stops are Atlanta and Fort Lauderdale. That's at the end of March. Then we just announced that we added Lawrence, Kansas in May and Columbus, Ohio in June. We're also heading to Chattanooga, Durham, Milwaukee, Portland, Buffalo and Ann Arbor, Michigan. We hope you'll be able to join us at one of those shows. We can't wait to see you to get tickets and get more information. You can head to brainson.org slash events. That's brainson.org slash events. You're listening to the brains on universe. You're listening to brains on where we're serious about being curious. Holy macaroni, do we have a big episode for you today? You know it. You love it. It's the... Booooosh mystery sound. Oh yeah, we're going to hear a bunch of intriguing, curious and downright mysterious sounds. Your job will be to guess what they are. This mystery sound extravaganza is going to take us all over the world thanks to our super special guest, Thomas Rex Beverly. I had a grizzly bear in Alaska come up and try to eat one of my microphones for a while. Oh my God. You hear him sniffing and licking it and playing around with it for about 30 minutes, which was kind of fun. I hope your ears are ready because they're about to get a workout. Hello, elevator. Do the studio, please. Which one? Since you've gone independent and moved into the new brains on universe headquarters, every floor has a studio and you keep building more. Always good to be prepared. Sandin said he's been fixing up the Smarty Pass floor. Let's check that out. Smarty Pass floor going up. Elevator, you were one of our founding Smarty Pass members, right? That is correct, Molly. Ad-free episodes, discounts on merch and live shows. And my favorite, Hangouts with You, Mark and Sandin. But you hang out with us all the time, like right now. This is work, Molly. It's different. Anyhow, it's easier than ever to become a member. Go to brainson.org to get the ad-free feed and all sorts of cool bonus stuff. Smarty Pass Studio. Molly, great timing. What do you think of the new Bubblegum themed Smarty Pass floor? It's pretty pink and sticky. I know, right? Bubblegum on the floors, walls and ceilings. You're always just a couple of chops away to your next bubble. Oh, OK. But I don't think all that gum is going to be good for the studio equipment. Fair point. I'll clean it up with my mouth. Elevator, let's just go to the main studio. Thank you. You're listening to brains on, part of the brains on universe. I'm your host, Molly Bloom, and I'm here with Raheema from Dallas, Texas. Hi, Raheema. Hello. I'm so excited to be here. Oh, my gosh, we are so excited to be here because I got to meet you not too long ago in person when we had a live show in Dallas. So without giving too much away, what was your favorite part of the show? That's an unfair question. But I think over the my favorite part of the show was probably when there were scientists from the past falling from the ceiling. Don't ask. But my favorite part of the entire experience was definitely being able to meet you and Mark and Sandin, which that was a lot of fun. Honestly, that was my highlight too, meeting you. It was so fun. So today's a mystery sound episode, mystery sound extravaganza. So how are you when it comes to guessing the mystery sound? I like to consider myself really good at guessing the mystery sound, but I only really get it right, like 60 percent of the time. So not the best of the best. I think that's pretty good. I find mystery sounds very hard myself. I almost never get them right. So today we're putting an outdoor spin on today's mystery sound extravaganza. Everything you're going to hear comes from the natural world. And joining us with sounds from all over the world is Thomas Rex Beverly. He is an adventure field recordist. He travels the globe to find some of the most interesting sounds in nature. His trips also involve some tough physical activities, too, like he might have to scuba dive or backpack or ski just to track down sounds that he's never heard before. Hi, Tom. Welcome. Hi. Glad to be here. Before we get into the sounds, can you tell us a little bit about what you do? It sounds really exciting. Yes, I record nature sounds. It's kind of like being a nature photographer. So if you are a geofotographer that went out and photographed elephants or other animals, but I go out with microphones and I record their sounds. So that might be large animals, elephants, wolves, whales. Sometimes it might be glaciers. Sometimes it might be weather, big storms, thunder, that sort of thing. Well, here at Brains on, we appreciate you, Tom, and we appreciate a finely tuned ear. And it sounds like we have the best here today. So Rahima, it's time for the first. So, Tom, you recorded what we're about to hear without giving too much away. Would you mind telling us where in the world it's from? So this was recorded in Texas in November, but it's not really supposed to be in Texas. So it's not the best hit. And you and Rahima are both in Texas right now. So see if that helps at all. He's a great photographer. He's a great photographer. He's a great photographer. Yeah. See if that helps at all. Here is the sound. Hmm. I think that it's some kind of bird. At the beginning, it was like so at first I thought that it would be like a small bird, but then it started getting kind of like groaning like. And I feel like only a bigger bird would be able to make a sound like that. So I think that it might be some kind of bigger bird. I think it's a bird too. I think you're totally right. Tom, what is it? Are we right? So it is not a bird. It is an animal, though. It is actually a deer called a seek a deer. So they make these bird like bugling sorts of sounds. The one thing you might have heard in the U.S. is an elk. They make these trumpeting, bugling sort of sounds. And this one basically sounds like a baby elk. And it makes these sounds in the fall when it's it's usually a male deer that's trying to find a mate. And it makes all these spooky sounds. Wow. A deer. Oh, my gosh. Seek a deer actually from Asia. They're not supposed to be in Texas, but people brought them over and had them had them on the ranches and they escaped. And so now you can hear these spooky sounds, especially around Halloween out in the hill country around San Antonio. They're quite beautiful. They echo through the hills. Wow. I would have never guessed a deer for that sound. Seriously, that's amazing. OK, that was a tough one. But Tom, we're going to ask you to join Rahemma as a guesser on this next one. So here is a sound. Are you ready for one that our listeners sent to us? I'm ready. So ready. OK, here it is. OK, what are you hearing? Now, what are you cluing in on? Let's start with Tom. What do you think? Yeah, it's tricky. I would say maybe a little bit of a kind of wet sort of motor sound in the distance, maybe something dragging. Not sure. Rahemma, what do you think? I agree with Tom that it's something spinning in water. So I think it might be like a boat motor, maybe, but I also heard flapping. So it could have been somebody who is recording like a flock of waterfowl on a boat. So we're hearing both like the flapping and the rotor spinning. So that's my guess. Some very keen listening happening here today. So we're going to have the answer right after a quick break. Hear you later. You're listening to Brains On. I'm Rahemma. I'm Molly. And I'm Tom. And Tom has brought us some of the absolute coolest mystery sounds from his expeditions around the world. But before we can hear his next selection, let's see how good he and Raheema were at guessing a mystery sound from a brains-on listener. So, you guys heard some flapping. You heard maybe some motor. You heard something wet. You heard something dragging. We're not sure what it is. Do you want to stick with those guesses? I think I'm gonna stick with my guess. What do you think, Tom? Yeah, I'll stick with mine. All right, here is the answer. Hello, I'm Dylan. I live in Victor, Idaho. The sound you just heard is the spasmodic geyser, near Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park. I knew I heard water. Wow, that was a tricky one. Tom, have you been there before? Did you know that? Like, have you seen that geyser before? I have not seen that geyser. I've been pretty close to there, but never recorded in Yellowstone. Mmm. All right, so we're going to hear another sound from Tom. Here it is. Well, that is a cool sound. Okay, Tom, before we guess. Wow. Without giving it away, where did you record that? So that is up in the far north in the Arctic. It would be your hint for that one, but it's kind of tricky too. Okay, so Rahima, what do you think? Okay, he said up north and at first I heard something crumbling, so I think it might be ice. I think it sounds kind of weird, but I think it might be ice, like a glacier crumbling me. I love that guess. So smart. I don't think I can do better than that. So let's hear Tom. What is the answer? So it is a glacier. You nailed it with that. Oh my gosh. So imagine you're in Iceland in the winter. You have a big glacier and at the bottom of the glacier, there's a lake, but the top of the lake is frozen. And so I went out on the frozen lake and then used these big drills to drill holes in the ice. And you put an underwater microphone called a hydrophone through the ice. And then what you're actually hearing is the cracking and breaking and moving of the glacier. And sometimes they're like, sometimes they're cracking, making all these cracking sounds. If you're above the ice, you don't actually hear much at all. But then if you put the hydrophones under the ice, you hear all of this fabulous ice sound. So it's a fun way to listen to the glaciers. Yes! Incredible work. So amazing. What's one thing you never forget to pack on your expeditions? I think I bring a lot of tape with me, like duct tape and electrical tape. Because sometimes an animal will destroy my microphones or the weather breaks something. So you can fix a lot of things with some duct tape. Do animals ever get upset that there's a bunch of microphones and equipment in their habitats? Sometimes a lot of what I do is leave microphones out by themselves for 24 hours. So I'll go set them up. I'll let that record for a long period of time by itself so that I get the animals behaving naturally because they wouldn't act normal if I was sitting there with the microphone. And so oftentimes they'll come up very close and investigate the microphones. I had a grizzly bear in Alaska come up and try to eat one of my microphones for a while. You hear him sniffing and licking it and playing around with it for about 30 minutes, which was kind of fun. Generally I tend to like going places where there's less wildlife trying to mess with your sounds. Well we're going to have another sound from your travels in just a bit. So stick around. Hey friends, we've got an episode coming up all about skunks. They're famous for their strong smell. And that stink is a defense mechanism. It's a way for skunks to scare away animals that might hurt them. That's a pretty clever way to scare off your enemies. Totally. So if you could design a unique way to scare off animal enemies, what would it be? What about you Raheemah? What would your odd animal defense be? Well I think I would start off with like a really big suit because in the animal world dominance is everything. So if I appeared to be in a higher social class than the animal, then fighting would be out of the question. Smart. Throw in some symbols, a slime gun, and maybe a nose plug and I think I'm covered. Wow that is very well thought out. I can't wait to see your suits. It's just going to be amazing. So listeners please share your ideas for wild animal defense mechanisms, record a voice memo, and then go to brainson.org to send it to us. And while you're there, you can also send us your drawings and questions. And keep listening. We're back with our mystery sound extravaganza. Our pal Thomas Rex Beverly has come with a treasure trove of mystery sounds from his sound adventure trips and our co-host Raheemah has flexed her listening skills to the max. So you all are both from Texas. What are some of your favorite sounds in the area? Raheemah why don't you start? Well I remember that there was one time when my family went to a Japanese garden. It's basically a giant walk through meadow that has like flower trees and a bunch of koi ponds and there were butterflies everywhere and the sounds of the birds was so relaxing. And I think that in one of them that we went to there was also music playing. So that plus the sounds of the birds and the water and the rustling leaves and the wind was so relaxing. That sounds amazing. And Tom what about you? Do you do much recording of sounds close to home? Yeah I've done a bunch of recording out in West Texas near kind of Big Bend National Park out there. Yeah I love listening to the summer thunderstorms, the big booming echoing thunder and then sometimes you'll get hail storms. My parents had a house out there with a metal roof so you get these, the hail kind of pinging off the roof and the big echoing thunder that's bouncing around in the mountain valley. So I've always loved storms and been a little bit of a storm chaser so I like their sounds. Wow so Tom where is our audio journey going to go next? We're going to head out to California to a special thing that only grows in California and Oregon. Putting the mystery in mystery sound but that's a helpful clue. Okay Rahama are you ready? So ready! All right let's hear it. Wow! I don't know what do you think? So the sounds at the end give you a little hint thing at the beginning is what you're trying to guess. Okay what do you think Rahama? I have two guesses so my first guess is, first I hear a storm and then with that weird sound at the end I'm thinking that it's either like a storm alarm like one of those tornado alarms but either that or I think it might be some kind of frog. Yes I was thinking frog too there's so many like bizarre frog sounds. Wait Tom said it was something that grows so didn't he say that's something that only grows in Oregon in California? So is it like a plant? Is it a plant talking to me personally? I don't think so. I don't think a plant can talk. Maybe that what we thought was a storm at the beginning was like rustling of leaves or something. Or maybe but I did hear some kind of like booming in the background so and it seemed too big to be wind. Yeah I think you're right. Anyway that's a thought. We have a lot of thoughts we're not sure. Tom please help us. What was that? Yeah so the sounds at the end are animals the thing that you thought was maybe some sort of alarm or maybe a frog that's actually a raven going like these croaking sort of sounds so that's big big black bird called a raven super smart birds. And was that first part a storm? It sounds a lot like a storm but it is something that grows so one of the things I managed to record is this big booming sound in a forest so that was the sound of a gigantic redwood tree falling in the distance and going boom. Oh wow. So that's a tree that's like about at least as tall as a if you've seen a football field so imagine the length of a football field standing up so 300 to 400 feet and they're pretty gigantic trees that have been growing for over a thousand years sometimes and yeah sometimes they fall in a windstorm or sometimes they just fall over and they make a gigantic booming sound kind of like thunder so it's not something you would hear very often. Booming trees and ranting ravens spooky. All right so do you have any tips Tom and how to like tune into the sounds of nature in a place like this? So I usually do a little exercise where I start by trying to listen to a sound that's like in your body so that would be maybe holding your breath sometimes you can hear your stomach gurgling or the sound of your own heartbeat if you hold your breath then moving out a little bit maybe that's a few feet away maybe that's the sound of your foot on the ground moving some leaves maybe it's the sound of something really close to you then you jump out a little further maybe 50 feet then you start to hear those ravens or those birds or a little bit of wind then you jump out 500 feet then you can hear everything in your environment maybe that's the car driving by your street in the city and then you can jump back even further so trying to listen out a few miles so that's sometimes like the airplane that's flying over really high that you can actually hear if you focus on it it's a distant train it's the distant redwood tree booming so just trying to focus on those different levels because you can actually hear very far away it can be kind of fun to do that because a lot of people don't even notice the sounds that are going on around them well we've got one more sound from tom but first let's see what's new in our mailbag we love getting your mail whether it's a letter with a stamp or an email with a whatever emails are sent with drop us a drawing ask us for life advice or send us your idea for a new room at our headquarters just go to brainson.org now let's see what this one is oh it's a message from a teacher let's hear it hi my name is carla moran i'm a third grade teacher in canton michigan i love to use the brains on podcast with my science classes i match up episodes with science units like life cycles and traits for the traits unit one of my favorite episodes is meet sandy the left-handed mutant snail it's something that kids can relate to being right or left-handed as a science teacher i like that it features school kids as scientists my students love the voices of the snail and the sound effects and the fact that it also talks about mutants as a science teacher i love all the questions that brains on ask and it gets kids to think about science and be interested in science aww a plus to you for sharing us with your class we're sending you a free subscription to smarty pass of course if you're a teacher tell us how you use brains on go to brainson.org to get in touch okay later mailag you you know you can hear all our shows brains on smash boom best and forever go with zero ad breaks it's easy join smarty pass and you get that plus hangouts with our crew bonus content and more plus you're supporting smart stuff for smart people a real mitzvah go to brains on.org to join smarty pass today thank you so much. So Tom you have taken Raheema and me on a real journey the arctic california texas so do you have one more sound to share? yes okay let's hear it oh that was noisy okay Tom before we guess where did you record that? so that was in Hawaii. Okay Raheema what do you think? all right so when i first heard the sound i was thinking either seals or whales but if there's anywhere that seals do not live it's Hawaii so i'm going to guess that those were whale sounds. I like that idea a lot it sounded i guess it's like a whale party there sounded like so many of them okay Tom are we close so what was it? yeah it's definitely a whale party there's a whole bunch of humpback whales that go there in what is their winter so these humpbacks they live in Alaska part of the year and they go up and they eat krill and salmon up there and then when it gets cold in Alaska they swim all the way to Hawaii and that's where they do their singing and they give birth to their babies and yeah that's probably anywhere from 20 to 50 whales in this one bay and they all just hang out and sing to each other and make lots of fun sounds so they they make one sound that's especially fun it's kind of like hello my name is Tom and whale they go boop they make these little boop little whoop sounds and so that's kind of like them some of the researchers think that that is kind of like them saying their name so you if sometimes when you're listening you can hear one off to the left and you go boop and the other one off the right will go boop that's so cool a little bit different sound they're like oh that's my name i love that so you can hear them talking to each other so yeah it's quite amazing to hear well Tom these sounds have been so cool and listeners we have a very special treat after today's credits and honor roll we are going to play Tom's whale recording in full so if you want to relax and pretend you're floating in the ocean stick around until the end so Tom before we go we have one more sound for you to guess you ready yep okay here it is okay Tom what do you think sounds maybe like someone typing really fast on the keyboard or a cat kind of jumping around on some sort of keys or maybe pine cones kind of getting scraped around the little petals kind of plucking yeah something like that oh i'm not sure maybe like somebody like sanding or like breaking water or something i don't know or i think that it also could be a pine cone that also kind of sounds like pine cones okay excellent guesses here is the answer hi i'm Vera and i lived in herndon virginia my mystery sound is me cracking ice on a pathway so a little different than that glacier we heard earlier but still ice very cool very cool ice makes really cool sounds thanks so much for your time Tom yeah thank you Tom we really appreciate it yeah thank you this is a lot of fun bye mystery sounds are truly everywhere sometimes all you have to do is sit quietly for a minute and there they are i don't know about you Rahima but i can always use a little more quiet time to help me relax for sure that's it for this episode of brains on this episode was written and produced by mark sanchez mark also wrote our theme song and sound design the episode it was edited by sanden tawton we had engineering help from michael's valla and special thanks to thomas mungi and jokie koria if you want to find out more about thomas rex beverly's sound adventures check out his website thomasrexbeverly.com we'll have a link in the show notes too our website was built by ken taborsky at code of the north.com brains on is an independent podcast our show depends on your support help the show grow by going to brains on dot org and signing up for some ready pass that's our ad free feed where you get discounts on merch and live events plus hangs with sand and mark and me subscriptions start at just six dollars per month or 60 dollars for the whole year 60 dollars that's like the price of one pizza exactly sign up today at brains on dot org now it's time for the brains honor roll these are the kids who keep the show going with their questions ideas mystery sounds drawings and high fives amelia from new mexico clara from mark montario mary and elizabeth from philadelphia aryan and leon from oakland california alias and emma from taft california zoe and sammy from amber pennsylvania cooper from birmingham alabama mina from south orange new jersey alana from houston quinn from colonna british columbia kiers from ottawa amelia from franklin tennessee marlo and beatrix from portland oregon morgan from jacksonville florida dustin from sardar woolly washington madu from new delhi india tilly and oscar from austin texas adeline from curksville missouri patent from columbus ohio kingsley and landers from carbondale colorado evlyn from mcquinnago wisconsin noa from sincennadine noa from los angeles sylas from laurel mississippi elowen and maya from los angeles san tiago from greensboro north carolina marco from kengston new york violet and gracey from burbank california clara from redmond washington james from little rock arkansas ebbon from singapore logan from sincennadine louis from hasteens new zealand scarlet from chattanooga tennessee aria from victoria jamison from redding pennsylvania eddie from irie colorado naisha from moomba india adan and asha from orlando florida titus from alexandre louisiana aria from los angeles melcom and quinton from englewood california jaja from shan jen china claire from estoria new york claire from boxborough messachusetts anabella from lisbon portugal adi from guelph ontario lila and adan from north redding messachusetts borna from tehran iran hugh from portland oregon collin from north canton ohio eevee from lingley british colombia tessie from menasquen new jersey margo from winona minnesota sudar from miami florida sumi from champaign illinois louis and suki from janesville wisconsin jj from perkyo menville sarah and simier from chapel hill north carolina next week's episode is all about how cds and records get made tune in and you'll get to hear this i don't understand human foods like potatoes or tomatoes or pinky toes thanks for listening as promised here come those whale sounds so Zam Zam Oh Oh Oh Oh