Old Second Bay Signal Station's Foghorn Returns After a Month, Confirmed by a Night-Patrol Officer
A low, foghorn-like sound heard around the decommissioned Old Second Bay Signal Station was confirmed again after nearly a month by a night-patrol officer on duty late on the 5th. The previous confirmed instance was on August 31, with no notable reports since. The station was decommissioned in 1983, and no warning equipment remains on site. The TDA says it has identified neither the source nor the cause.
The Old Second Bay Signal Station once helped organize shipping lanes along the bay before its decommissioning in 1983; it now stands unattended within a restricted-access zone. As previously reported, residents have intermittently reported a low, drawn-out, foghorn-like sound near the site, last confirmed on August 31. After more than a month without further reports, Iori Kiryu, 29, a covert patrol officer, confirmed the sound again late on the night of the 5th while on night patrol. "It wasn't the wind," she said. "The way it rose and cut off had a mechanical, consistent length to it."
As previously reported, Kiryu is a covert patrol officer trained to move through her rounds unnoticed, with a signature line — "Not being heard is the job." This time, however, she recorded what she herself had heard. "My job is to erase my own presence, but I can't erase something I actually heard," she said. "I only logged the time and direction in my patrol notes." The sound appeared to come from near the base of the station's tower, though investigators found no trace of equipment or recent foot traffic at the site.
The station's warning equipment was removed at the time of decommissioning, and no sound-producing apparatus remains on site today. A TDA field investigator said, "There have been similar reports before, and we've considered both a natural explanation — airflow inside the aging structure — and an unidentified source, without settling on either." A fresh inspection following this report turned up no new leads.
A fisherman living near the station said, "It's a sound I've heard on and off since childhood. My parents' generation called it 'the signal station's leftover.' You get used to it, but getting used to it doesn't make it any less unsettling." Another resident said, "Nothing in particular changes the day after you hear it. The fact that it was heard just gets recorded, and that's the end of it."
According to TDA records, confirmed instances of the sound over the past several years number only a handful, almost all single reports from night-patrol officers or local fishermen. A permanent recording device was installed once in the past, officials said, but it was withdrawn after six months without ever picking up the sound. "There's no predicting which night it will happen," an official said. "That's exactly why we end up relying more on a person's testimony that they heard it than on any instrument." Kiryu said this was only the second time she herself had confirmed it, the first having been a few years earlier, not long after she joined the patrol.
The TDA reiterated that it has identified neither the source nor the cause, and says it will continue periodic site inspections. "Whether I'll be the one to hear it next time, I don't know," Kiryu said. "All I can say is that I won't pretend not to have heard what I heard."
