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Golden Gate Bridge's new handrails are making the landmark play an otherworldly drone

By Jacob Oller
Golden Gate Bridge Getty

The Golden Gate Bridge is an oft-demolished landmark in sci-fi, fantasy, and horror films, but the San Francisco standby recently underwent an upgrade that has brought it closer than ever before to some of the oddities that have leveled it in fiction.

ABC 7 reports that the bridge recently received a handrail overhaul that, though planned to help with the bridge's aerodynamics, has also had the unintended side effect of giving the bridge an unearthly hum as the wind passes through. Take a listen below:

That's one big wind instrument! These videos (not taken from Arrival or any other mystery-laden sci-fi) were taken when winds were whipping around the bridge at high speeds. The resulting loud, tonal drone is making some residents feel as if they're hearing an alien spacecraft, or some other "scary" source for the unnatural noise:

Interestingly, this noise wasn't unexpected by those behind the renovation. "We knew going into the handrail replacement that the Bridge would sing during exceptionally high winds from the west, as we saw yesterday," Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District spokesperson Paolo Cosulich-Schwartz told ABC.

Apparently those in the government were more soothed by the bridge's melody than perturbed. Maybe the singing bridge will simply be regarded as having a new talent from now on?


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