Have you ever heard your eyelids blinking or blood rushing through your veins? That does not read right, isn't it? But there is a place on Earth where this actually happens. At the quietest place on Earth, people have reported listening to these and other such sounds. The anechoic test chamber at Orfield Laboratories in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, holds the Guinness record for being the quietest place on Earth.

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According to tests conducted on 19 November 2021, the ambient sound level inside the room was measured at -24.9 decibels. The room has been designed to test the sound levels of various items. It is primarily used for product testing and research. People who have visited the room say they could hear blood running through their veins, their stomachs gurgling loudly and even their eyelids batting.

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However, because of its design and the suppression of sounds, people have also reported feeling disoriented and dizzy.

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The room's design helps suppress noise

According to Guinness World Records, "It comprises a large masonry and concrete chamber lined with 10.5-cm-thick steel plates, within which there is another, smaller steel chamber supported on vibration absorbing springs."

The room has fibreglass acoustic wedges that are 3.3-foot-thick, double walls of insulated steel and a foot of concrete. All this helps the room suppress 99.99 per cent of sound. 

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Guinness World Record for quietest place on Earth

The first time the room broke the record was in 2004 when a background noise reading of -9.4 dBA was obtained. In 2012, sound levels of -13 dBA were recorded. However, in 2015 the room lost the record to an anechoic chamber at Microsoft Headquarters in Washington, USA, which recorded levels of -20.35 dBA.

Steven Orfield, the founder of the company, told MailOnline, “When it’s quiet, ears will adapt. The quieter the room, the more things you hear."

It gets so quiet, he says, that you can "hear your heart beating, sometimes you can hear your lungs, hear your stomach gurgling loudly."

Harley-Davidson, which has a signature sound, has tested its bikes in this room to make the bikes quieter. A washing machine company even used the room to learn what sounds sound like and then come up with metaphors.