- Drop the bass — the fish or otherwise.
It’s late at night as you crawl into your comfy bed and pull the blanket up to your ears. But just as you’re about to fall asleep, it begins.
From somewhere, you can’t quite tell where, emanates a repeating, bassy thumping. It resonates in your walls, filling your bedroom until falling asleep becomes just a pipe dream.
This is the problem plaguing Tampa, Florida. For at least two years, the bizarre noise has bothered locals, particularly on winter nights.
The biggest mystery is the sound’s origin. If you heard it, you might think it’s your neighbor listening to loud music, yet that’s not the case.
Now, however, Tampa residents have hired a scientist to investigate the noise. The researcher has an idea of where the thumping might originate.
He believes it’s the sound of local fish having sex.
Where’s It Coming From?
Tampa’s strange phenomenon first began bothering locals in 2021, but it has likely been going on for much longer. You could describe the sound as a bass drum or bad beatboxing, except it’s… Not.
The noise most often happens at night. It’s a repeating, low thump or thrum that can get so loud it begins to shake walls and windows of peoples’ houses.
That is irritating enough on its own. But Tampa residents say the worst part is that they have no idea where the sound is coming from.
Locals have taken to their cars at night to drive around their neighborhoods, trying to locate the source of the mysterious noise. The only thing people are fairly certain of is that the sound emanates from the direction of Tampa Bay.
Unsurprisingly, many theories circulate about what the noise could be. Some have posited it comes from the MacDill Air Force Base, while others have suggested everything from construction work to a party boat blasting bass-heave music.
Yet, no one’s ever found anything solid. And that’s what got South Tampa resident Sara Healy to take action.
Earlier this year, Healy launched a GoFundMe campaign to hire Dr. James Locascio, the program manager for fisheries habitat ecology and acoustics at Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium, to investigate the noise. Locascio has a theory of what the sound’s origin could be.
And his theory is a wild one.
The Punta Gorda Growl
Locascio believes the thumping noise haunting Tampa residents is the sound of fish having sex. More precisely, he thinks it originates from the mating calls of a fish known as the black drum.
The black drum, also called black drummer, is a sizable marine fish that’s popular among fishermen. It can weigh more than 30 pounds, reach lengths of five feet, and prefers brackish coastal waters like those of Tampa Bay.
During mating season, the black drum lives up to its name. It emits low-frequency, thumping noises — much like those Tampa residents have heard.
Locascio is very familiar with the noise. After all, he wrote his dissertation on it.
“They used to call it the Punta Gorda growl in the 1970s. So, down there, it’s been going on or known about for a long time,” Locascio told WFTS Tampa Bay.
Just listen to it. It’s exactly like bad beatboxing.
Additionally, black drums tend to get their freak on in the dead of night during the winter. Coincidentally, that’s also when Tampa residents say the noise is at its worst.
‘Nothing to Be Done’
When Locascio played the black drum’s mating sound to Healey, she immediately recognized it as the noise that has haunted her all these years. Now, having raised $2,500 through GoFundMe, she has commissioned Locascio to find solid proof that the fish are behind the sound.
To do so, Locascio plans to install marine microphones in Tampa Bay. He’ll then be able to compare the recorded sound to those that locals report to figure out if they’re the one and the same.
It would be strange for underwater sounds to cause the kind of on-land noise that Tampa residents hear. Yet, it’s not impossible.
“It’s a low frequency sound, and so they travel much better and go further distances, and they go through dissimilar media more efficiently,” Locascio explained to Fox 13.
The fish’s amorous noises could travel up sewers and drainpipes, eventually climbing to people’s homes through the foundation. That would explain why so many locals say the sound resonates through their homes, shaking the walls.
But what if Locascio is right and Tampa’s plight is caused by loud fish sex? Well, there’s not much anyone can do, really.
“It’s nature, there’s nothing to be done,” Healey told the Washington Post.
Tampa residents’ only option is to hope the fish satisfy their urges early in the year so they can finally get some sleep.
Suppose it still beats hearing a creaking bed upstairs every night.