Hell Is That Noise/Real Life

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Be cautious when adding Real Life examples; this is a YMMV Trope, and we don't need the Edit Wars. And, much like the Nightmare Fuel tropes, everything can be Hellish to somebody.

  • In Japan, the "Hells" ("Jigoku") is a term used for several groups of hot springs, including some found in the southern towns of Beppu and Unzen. In the latter, they are so called not only because of their extremely high temperature, but because the sound they make is said, in local folklore, to be the voices of the damned rising from the earth. You'd hope that it was just a figurative coincidence, but nope; the boiling alive of criminals and Christians during Japan's historical purges is well documented, and the screams of those unfortunate victims would certainly have been heard by nearby townspeople (not the least of which because the steam and fog the hot springs and the area's climate produce would help sound carry farther than normal).
  • For Amber Alerts, some locations signal it with this noise.
    • That US tone sounds like a movie's about to start. For true "Hell Is That Noise", you need the Canadian Amber Alert sound - strident, raucous, repetitive, and you can't opt out of getting the alerts.
  • If you've been to enough acquaintance's line of duty funerals, the song "Amazing Grace" and seven guns shot three times in succession can easily become this.
  • Air-raid and other sirens. They run them for civil-defense and other emergency drills from time to time in several places, including Russia, Israel, and some parts of the US (for instance, at 1:00 PM on the first Saturday of the month in Michigan).
  • Certain medical conditions make people specially prone to this trope. Hyperacusis is a hearing condition where the affected are extremely sensitive to certain sound frequencies to the point of actual pain, while Misophonia or Selective Sound Sensitivity Syndrome is a neurological disorder where the affected have overwhelmingly emotional reactions to otherwise innocuous sounds. To the sufferers of these conditions, even innocuous everyday sounds can become hellish.


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