The Tones in the Trees, Siuslaw Forest

We arrived just after dawn, fog clinging low to the evergreens along the coastal range. The Siuslaw Forest felt dense and still, almost unnaturally so. Vernon noted the barometric pressure was slightly lower than average for the altitude. Grandpa, sipping his thermos coffee, dismissed that as coincidence—“Weather does what it wants,” he said, “but sounds don’t lie.”

This trip was centered on a narrow area of forestland northeast of Mapleton where hikers, campers, and at least one forest ranger have reported tonal humming—three to five distinct notes, low and harmonic, spaced irregularly. The phenomenon has been going on for nearly six months. No corresponding construction, equipment, or seismic data explains it. According to local reports, the tones always occur between midnight and 4:00 a.m.

We split into three small groups to scout different quadrants of the grid Grandpa had mapped on the ride over. Donna, Robin, and I took the northern stretch along a narrow fire road. We brought audio recorders, EMF sensors, and a parabolic microphone setup borrowed from a radio station technician Grandpa used to work with. No tones during the daylight, but Robin pointed out a few clusters of tree moss that looked unnaturally scorched—black at the center, orange-ringed at the edges. Josh collected a sample and noted a slightly acrid smell. No signs of fire damage around it, no scorch on the bark.

Caleb and Jennifer found what appeared to be animal tracks—something deer-like but missing any hoof impressions. Just pressure marks, too shallow to measure weight, and spaced strangely, like something bouncing rather than walking.

We set up camp near a small clearing by 9:30 p.m. Grandpa had stayed in the van with the receivers. Mathew and Egiel ran a secondary dish about 40 yards from camp, rigged with a motion trigger and long-range audio sensor. Everyone stayed up waiting.

At 2:13 a.m., the first tone started. Low, almost like the opening note of a cello. It lasted for just under seven seconds. A second one followed about 45 seconds later—higher and warbling. Then silence. All of us froze. The sound wasn’t coming from any single direction. It enveloped us, like it was being broadcast through the trees themselves. Grandpa radioed in: “Got it. You all hearing this too?”

Three more tones followed—each at a different pitch, irregularly spaced. Donna looked rattled. “It’s not just sound,” she said. “I felt the last one in my jaw.”

Mathew’s instruments showed mild magnetic disruption in a narrow radius around the sensors. My compass was useless. The group stayed silent until it ended around 2:41 a.m. Five tones total. Nothing after.

We compared recordings. The tones were present on each one, but in two of them—mine and Caleb’s—you could hear an underlying distortion: like something whispering beneath the sound, not quite vocal but not mechanical either.

Jennifer noted that some Pacific Northwest tribal oral histories mention “the forest singing to warn of a coming spirit.” Grandpa didn’t comment on that. He just rewound his recorder and kept playing it back on low volume. “Something’s using frequency,” he eventually said, “but for what purpose—warning, navigation, intimidation, or communication—we’ll need more data.”

We broke camp just after 4:30 a.m. and began the long ride to Willsonville to regroup. Mathew thinks he can isolate the sub-harmonics on the drive.

Miles driven from last stop: 126 miles