What is the loudest sound you have ever heard?

[TheTecknician]

Both of mine were at very close quarters. One was a foghorn on a cross-channel ferry. It sounded whilst I, unbeknownst to me, was sitting right underneath it. I jumped so far it's a wonder I didn't end up in the sea! The other was one afternoon at work, standing underneath Concorde when it was starting two of its four engines. It was the most incredible, deep-chested roar I've ever heard. Yet to be surpassed.

Good. You win 😁

They certainly are...and that's an understatement.

My daughter Eloise enjoyed her first gig - watching them - too 😁

Probably the 12 bore shotgun cartridge I stuck in a vice and whacked with a hammer in the shed as a kid.

Have heard all manner of bands, have fires all manner of military weapons (including anti-tank) and seen all manner of aircraft (including Concorde and Vulcan) and been around a lot of other stupid shit but that is probably still the loudest.

Fucking idiot, I am.

The Buncefield explosion. I lived about 1/2 mile away and was certain that I was dead as it woke me up.

Also, the time a neighbour's firework went off course and smashed through my bathroom window before ricocheting around the tiled walls.

I'd forgotten about the Red Arrows. Not only did we have Concorde doing test flights at the bottom of the road but every summer there was an air show at Filton and the Red Arrows used to execute stunts right above our house. Both made the windows rattle (and we had a lot of large windows in our 60s semi). The Airbus planes were definitely a lot quieter.

Living next to an raf base in the 70s with Vulcan bombers. When they scrambled the noise was unreal with a very distinct howl from the engines.

I was in Edinburgh a couple of years ago for the fringe and one evening the red arrows flew low and fast through the city centre late one night. We were in a pub and ran out onto the street thinking the building was about to be hit. I live a few miles from their home base and am well used to them flying over the village but this was the worst id heard them.

Harrods Bomb
Putney Hill gas explosion

Concorde lift off. Made you instinctively look for somewhere to hide.

I was walking the dogs a few weeks ago when a helicopter came overhead checking the power lines. Came right over the top of my head at one point, and I nearly had a panic attack. I am absolutely terrified of them.

Concord at Filton
Thunder right over head
Hello fellow Welsh ladies! I didn't live in mach loop but we often had jets come down our valley. The sound of three chinucks coming down valley in the middle of the night very low was terrifying! Because the sound echoed so much. RaF completely denied did it though, because they were not ment to fly at night! But the little village herd them and saw the lights. An old barn wall actually collapsed!!

The alarm on our bath.

We'd just moved in, and it's a jacuzzi bath. When the water level gets too high, an alarm goes off. It has a speaker system for music. A speaker system, moreover, intended to inform people in the next neighbourhood that the bath is too full.

With my husband standing next to me shouting about how to turn it off, and me yelling back from the bath, we couldn't hear each other over the sound of it.

Loud alarm noises like that make me feel sick. Even the thought of that bath sounding an alarm loudly would shake for for ages afterwards. So unnecessary!!

I actually grew up in an area classified as unoccupied for the purpose of RAF test flights, so they flew so low over our house I could see into the cockpit.

The bath alarm is still the most alarming thing I've ever heard.

Many years ago, a lion roaring from a cage outside the big top of a circus - it was a winter evening, so dark & I wasn't expecting it as I walked past - it was so loud & primal I thought I was going to die & just took to my heels & ran off

Probably not the loudest noise I've ever heard but the most scary was certainly that from a large earthquake. It sounded like a train was headed for the house, absolutely horrible.

I have exploding head syndrome, and there’s an episode of that that I remember as the loudest.

That rattled our windows. We were three miles away!

An IRA bomb when I was a child. I wasn’t particularly close but I’ve never forgotten it

Sonic boom

A foghorn on a ferry. We were all standing beside it. 1 dc ran away screaming, another dropped to the floor and a third just quietly sobbed and sobbed. I was shaking, it's amazing how strong our reaction was.

I work with preschool kids and we had one who had a high pitched scream like no other, it could be heard throughout the whole building. One day he was having a meltdown and trying to hit another kid and I had to restrain him and he literally had his mouth by my ear and screamed. I'll never forget it, I was deaf for a while after and felt so dizzy and upset, I honestly wondered if I could go back to work as I was so distraught.

Edited to add another. A male lion roaring in Berlin zoo in the inside bed area.

A bike tyre popping as I inflated it. My ear was right by it and it fucking hurt!

Also, a monumental clap of thunder in Magaluf- woke me up about 4am and I've never gone from asleep to awake so fast in my life, I thought the building had been bombed.

Having my ears micro suctioned at the hospital. It sounds not too dissimilar to a jet plane taking off, in my ears!

A huge very old tree fell down outside our house in the dead of night during a bad storm, about 40 years ago! Frightening the living daylights out of me.

I’ve worn earplugs ever since..

Lightning striking the school when we were doing a GCSE English exam. We all jumped a fucking mile.