San Francisco’s famous Golden Gate Bridge has started “singing” following recent changes to bicycle-path railings that appear to make music as the wind blows through them, residents have reported.
The eerie sound has prompted perplexed, cheeky, and even desperate reactions from locals.
“Can someone explain me why is this eerie sound has been going on for an hour in #SanFrancisco #presidio #sound #eerie #whatisthis #2020SoFar #2020BingoCard,” one Twitter user wrote Friday afternoon.
City officials offered an explanation for the sound, which can seemingly be heard several miles away.
Paolo Cosulich-Schwartz, a Golden Gate Bridge, Highway & Transportation District spokesperson, said the sounds stemmed from long-planned wind retrofitting.
“The new musical tones coming from the bridge are a known and inevitable phenomenon that stem from our wind retrofit project during very high winds. The wind retrofit project is designed to make the Bridge more aerodynamic under high wind conditions and is necessary to ensure the safety and structural integrity of the Bridge for generations to come,” Cosulich-Schwartz said.
“We knew going into the handrail replacement that the bridge would sing during exceptionally high winds from the west, as we saw yesterday. We are pleased to see the new railing is allowing wind to flow more smoothly across the bridge.”
A headline on the website of local NPR radio station KQED read: “The Golden Gate Bridge Sounds Like a David Lynch Movie Now.” The director is a prominent user of wind sounds in his films.
The station reported: “Because it spans a very windy gap across the Bay, the Golden Gate Bridge is now effectively a giant orange wheezing kazoo.”
Others who posted videos of the novel sound appeared more at ease, however. One described it as “so peaceful”. Another said: “So crazy but also kinda beautiful!!”
“We can hear this in our house more than three miles away from the bridge. It’s crazy making,” one user wrote Friday evening.
The noise is not the first time a suspension bridge’s physical qualities have raised eyebrows. Central London’s Millennium Bridge, for example, closed days after it opened in 2000 because of dramatic swaying. It reopened a year and a half later.
