CHARLOTTE, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) – Birds chirping and a quiet Highland Creek neighborhood is a peaceful scene, but at 4:00 Thursday morning, people say it wasn’t peaceful at all.

“It was like a grinding, a grinding noise,” said Charlene Johnson. “And it sounded like it was one street over behind us. That’s how close and how loud it was.”

The ‘hum,’ as people call it, lasted ten minutes and was heard in several neighborhoods.

“We were having a cup of coffee, and we thought it was a jet engine,” added Ed Price. “We thought something was going to crash at first; then we heard the repetitive nature of it. It was sequential.”

Even on the Next Door app, people commented and asked what it was.

“There’s all these different ideas of what it could possibly be,” said Johnson. “But no one has got any formal explanation for what it actually was.”

One suggestion was Wallace Farm, a place that makes mulch, but a person in the office said they don’t open until 7:00 a.m. and don’t process material overnight.

Another possibility is something electrical with power lines, and we even reached out to Mecklenburg County officials. The county is investigating and has not found a source yet.

People in several neighborhoods are hoping they don’t hear this for the third night in a row.

“From a disturbance perspective, it needs to be addressed,” added Smith. “If it’s something that is either maintenance based or accidental. It needs to be addressed by the business or homeowner that is dealing with that.”