UPDATE: According to KRON4, a tipster received the $500 reward after city officials confirmed that the “noise was generated from pickup trucks loaded with music speakers,” which the mayor says were blasting electrofunk music for a late-night party.
By Kathy Chouteau
Richmond Mayor Tom Butt announced in his E-Forum Sunday that his office was offering a $500 reward to the person who can clearly identify the source of a mysterious bass beat that disturbed the sleep of city residents last Saturday night and early Sunday morning.
The mayor later stated that a few community tips may have identified the source of the sound. As reported by KRON4, one tipster received the $500 reward after city officials confirmed that the “noise was generated from pickup trucks loaded with music speakers,” which the mayor says were blasting electrofunk music for a late-night party.
Residents in widespread locations spanning from Point Richmond to center city to East Richmond Heights to El Sobrante and San Pablo vented their frustrations on Nextdoor and social media about the “incessant bass tone beat that kept them up all night,” per the mayor. Some people reported hearing the loud, repetitive noise throughout late Saturday night and into Sunday morning until 8 a.m. as they desperately sought its source.
Jay Men, who posted on Nextdoor from Richmond, offered the description that the noise “Wasn’t normal music; it was a loop of some sort of electronic dance music (edm)/techno [that] would start and stop a few times, get louder and louder and then stop. Then it would start all over…Horrible night.”
Locals weighed-in with theories about the source of the loud bass beat, with the more popular theories being an event at the Craneway Pavilion—The Fluffy Cloud music and light show—Saturday night, however, Mayor Butt said “the sound continued after 2 a.m. when the event ended.”
Other online speculations about the source of the bass beat included the possibility of someone driving around the area with a beat box or in a “boom car” or perhaps racing at Sears Point—none of which panned out, said the mayor. Yet another intriguing theory on Nextdoor included that someone accessed the local Community Warning System (CWS)—and another, per the mayor, that it was possibly caused by the Golden Gate Bridge.
“People were so upset that many were driving around in the early hours of the morning seeking the source,” said Mayor Butt.
Anyone with information identifying the source of the mysterious bass beat can contact the City of Richmond’s Mayor’s Office via email here.
