The Mystery Of The Menacing Chimes In Northern Virginia

[mahatmakanejeeves]

I heard them too, and I couldn't figure out where they were coming from. They sounded like the BBC - Big Ben chimes every quarter-hour, but they weren't sounding on the quarter-hour. It was a digital chime, something a radio or clock or greeting card would make. I didn't think them menacing, but I couldn't think of any device I had that a) I had left on, and b) would make that chime in the first place. My hearing isn't so great anymore, but I definitely heard something.

Hat tip, Arlington Now

Notes:
🛎️More on that weird chime sound
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Link to tweet

arlnow.com
Morning Notes
More on the Weird Chime Sound -- "Janae Bixby first heard the sound near Pentagon City, where I-395 and Glebe Road intersect, as she picked up her kid

APR 21, 4:51 PM

The Mystery Of The Menacing Chimes In NoVa
Rachel Kurzius | https://twitter.com/Curious_Kurz

Janae Bixby first heard the sound near Pentagon City, where I-395 and Glebe Road intersect, as she picked up her kid from daycare on Monday evening around 5. ... She described it as “some sort of clock or doorbell chime that you would hear — very digital.” She assumed the noise was coming from the building and started heading home.

But then, in her car ride home to the southern edge of the Del Ray neighborhood in Alexandria, she kept hearing it, again and again. At first, she figured maybe it was music she had unwittingly put on in her car, but opening her windows made it apparent that the noise was coming from outside. ... When she got back home, turns out her husband had been hearing it, too.

Over in Arlington Ridge, right outside of Crystal City, John Bergin was in his backyard when he heard a sound “not loud and oppressive, but very clearly and distinctly and repeatedly, and always the exact same set of tones, like a bad techno doorbell.” His wife heard it from inside too, he says, describing it as “a church that went to digital bells but bought the really cheap recording.”

Across Alexandria and Arlington, residents hopped on social media to see if they were alone in hearing these repeated tones. On NextDoor, some suggested it was a recording of the soundtrack from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, or a military alert system, or a particularly loud ice cream truck, among other ideas.

{snip}

[2naSalit]

2. Yes.

“We were actually testing our Giant Voice System on Monday evening,” says Anastazia Clouting, a spokesperson for Anacostia-Bolling.

Turns out, the military installation issued a warning on its Facebook page: “Please be advised, there will be maintenance on the Giant Voice System this afternoon which may cause it to go off. At present, there are no real-world emergencies.” (Presumably, if folks could hear the Giant Voice System from across the river, people closer by were also treated to the sound.)

Clouting confirms that the Giant Voice System, which is what Department of Defense facilities use to send out safety messages, did indeed go off on Monday. “I remember being relieved — at least it’s bells and not, you know, nuclear sirens,” she says. “That can be kind of unnerving when you’re trying to get your work done.”