EXCLUSIVE: Strange Earth Sounds Return!
First reported January 16, 2012 · Updated October 28, 2026
January 16, 2012 | Desamparados, Costa Rica
A second report of unusual rumbling has emerged from Desamparados, south of San José, several days after an unidentified sound drew nationwide attention in the early hours of January 9, 2012. An account attributed to Roddy Escalante describes hearing a low, sustained noise close to midnight on Friday, January 13, and attempting to record it with a mobile phone.
The testimony renews questions about the earlier event, but the sound’s source has not been verified. The account and the reported recording have not been independently authenticated through the sources available for this reconstruction.
What the new account describes
The witness said he was at a friend’s home in Desamparados when voices outside drew attention to an unfamiliar rumbling. He described a sound that appeared to last more than a minute and was unlike the brief explosions he associated with fireworks.
People familiar with the January 9 reports might recognize the broad description. Witnesses had used words such as booming, vibrating, metallic and wave-like to describe the earlier incident. Such descriptions capture the experience of hearing a noise but cannot determine its physical origin.
The second report is significant mainly because of the date and location. Desamparados lies in the southern metropolitan area of San José, away from Costa Rica’s ocean beaches. The reported setting therefore differs from the familiar sound of waves breaking near shore, though traffic, machinery, aircraft and distant thunder remain ordinary possible sources of low-frequency noise.
There is no basis in this record to claim that the January 13 sound was identical to the January 9 sound. It is also unknown whether the two reports were caused by the same type of event.
For the original January 9 incident, see Strange Sound Heard Throughout Costa Rica. Subsequent reporting examined possible explanations.
The problem with comparing online recordings
In January 2012, social media was filled with clips described as strange sounds from locations in Europe and North America. Some resembled horns or industrial machinery; others were presented as noises coming from the sky. The resemblance between two audio clips is not evidence that they share a source.
A recording can be affected by microphone distortion, compression and background noise. Without an original unedited file, time metadata, a verified location and corroborating observations, even a plausible clip provides limited evidence. Videos from other countries cannot independently establish what happened in Desamparados.
What happened next
The earlier January 9 noise remained unexplained in subsequent reviews by Costa Rican media. OVSICORI found no accompanying seismic or volcanic signal in the records for that first event. Although Turrialba volcano emitted ash on January 12, scientific reporting does not establish a connection between that eruption and the accounts of sounds heard elsewhere in the country.
The Desamparados report remains a historical eyewitness account, not confirmation of a new geological phenomenon.
Questions and answers
When was the second sound reportedly heard? Near midnight on January 13, 2012.
Where was it reported? Desamparados, in the San José metropolitan area.
Was the recording independently verified? No authenticated original recording was available in the sources reviewed.
Were the sounds proven to come from the Earth? No physical source was established.