Mysterious ‘howl’ is coming from California’s Golden Gate Bridge

California’s iconic Golden Gate Bridge is releasing a mysterious howl that pierces through cars driving across the landmark and homes nearby.

Social media users shared videos revealing an eerie sound from the bridge, with some claiming they could hear the strange noise from miles away. 

The noise is caused by high winds blowing through the suicide deterrent rails added to the San Francisco bridge in 2020.

The new railing, which features thin slats, emanates the sound when hit by winds more than 22 miles per hour, and the region experienced more than 28-mile-per-hour gusts this week.

Social media users shared videos revealing an eerie sound from the bridge, with some claiming they could hear the strange noise from miles away

The Golden Gate Bridge District is working on a redesigned railing that would reduce the sound by 75 percent – and the first installation is expected to be completed in the first half of 2023. 

Initially, bridge officials said they did not know that the air rushing through the slats would release the loud tones under extreme conditions, but later, they said they did know the bridge would create the sounds. 

Several videos have been shared on Twitter and YouTube by people who witness the ghostly sound as they cross the more than one-mile-long bridge.

Twitter user Alison Young recently took the trip on January 14 as a storm ripped through the area.

‘For the first time in my life, I heard the Golden Gate Bridge singing this morning… which is actually kind of creepy-sounding & really only added to the terror of the super-rainy commute,’ she shared in a tweet.

Another Twitter user named Joe Pierre had a similar experience on January 4, noting it was the first time he had heard the sound while crossing.

‘It’s much louder and more disconcerting than in the video, but this whistling noise is what the Golden Gate Bridge sounds like in the rain and wind,’ he shared.

Locals also endure the piercing noise, which led to the Golden Gate Bridge’s $450,000 redesign project, which will see u-shaped clips attached to both edges of all 12,000 vertical slats on the newly installed west railing.

On average, 30 people die from suicide at the Golden Gate Bridge each year. 

Hundreds more were stopped from harming themselves through the efforts of the Golden Gate Bridge District Patrol, California Highway Patrol, other law enforcement and citizen intervention. 

State officials needed a more efficient way of preventing people from jumping off the bridge – and that is when the railings were added.

The noise is caused by high winds blowing through the suicide deterrent rails added to the San Francisco bridge in 2020

However, they did not think to test the railing in a wind tunnel.

‘The proposed solution will be invisible to most Bridge users and, importantly, will not affect the Bridge’s structural stability during sustained high winds,’ the Golden Gate Bridge District shared in a 2021 statement. 

The clips, which are just one-eighth of an inch thick, will cover the edge of every slat from top to bottom and include a thin rubber sleeve underneath to dampen vibrations that contribute to the sounds.

And the new structures have been tested further in a wind tunnel under 110 different combinations of wind speed and direction, where it was shown to eliminate or make inaudible the sounds in all but two particular and severe wind scenarios.  

The clips will be painted in the Golden Gate Bridge’s famous International Orange, making them invisible to most Bridge users.