I started very, very loud, like ear piercingly loud, then the severe, severe ear pain started.

On this week's On The Media, we bring you three audio puzzles, beginning with the Havana

Syndrome.

So I liken it to, like, if you take a Q-tip and you bounce off your spear, you know, like,

you get that jarring, like, ah, well, imagine taking like a sharpened pencil and then poking

that off the ear drum.

Also, a hum that you live with can help law enforcement solve crimes.

You hear it with my refrigerator, a TV, elevators, and buildings, you hear it.

Everything is interconnected, right?

It's very common.

Plus, how an invisible disturbance ruined a series of high-stakes pigeon races.

It was built as the race of the century, but many of the homing pigeons carefully prepared

by their owners never returned.

The mysteries of sound and the limits of our senses, it's all coming up after this.

From WNYC in New York, this is On The Media.

I'm Michael Owens, you're filling in this week for Brooke Gladstone.

We begin the show in Havana, Cuba, in the fall of 2016.

I'm slaying on my bed with my laptop, you know, like, you know, next to me and I'm watching

the show.

Former CIA officer going by the pseudonym Tony.

And then all of the dogs in the neighborhood started barking.

And then this loud sound just blasted into my bedroom.

...