Brains On! Science podcast for kids · Brains On Universe

Mystery Sounds from the natural world

November 11, 2025·33 min·3 clips

A deer in Texas makes spooky bird-like calls to find a mate, fooling listeners.

This episode of Brains On! is a mystery sound extravaganza featuring sounds from the natural world. Host Molly Bloom is joined by co-host Rahema from Dallas and special guest Thomas Rex Beverly, an adventure field recordist who travels the globe to capture unique audio. The trio listens to and attempts to identify various mysterious recordings from Beverly's collection. The first sound is a high-pitched, bugling call recorded in Texas, which Rahema guesses is a bird. Thomas Beverly reveals it is actually a Sika deer, an animal from Asia that now lives in Texas and makes spooky, elk-like sounds during mating season. A listener-submitted sound features flapping and a motor-like noise, guessed to be waterfowl or a boat by the hosts; it is actually the Spasmodic Geyser in Yellowstone National Park. Another recording from the Arctic includes deep cracking and rumbling, correctly identified by Rahema as a glacier calving into a frozen lake, captured with an underwater hydrophone. Thomas Beverly shares that he often leaves microphones unattended to record animals naturally, recounting a time a grizzly bear in Alaska investigated and licked one of his microphones for 30 minutes. A sound from California includes a distant boom followed by raven calls; the boom is a giant redwood tree, as tall as a football field, falling over. Beverly explains an exercise to tune into nature by listening to sounds at different distances, from your own heartbeat to miles away. The final mystery sound, from Hawaii, features melodic clicks and boops that Rahema identifies as whales; Beverly confirms it is a large group of humpback whales communicating, with some sounds possibly acting like names. The episode closes with a listener's mystery sound of ice cracking on a puddle. The tone is educational and conversational, with a playful and curious atmosphere suitable for young listeners. This episode would delight children and families interested in nature, animals, and science, or anyone who enjoys interactive guessing games and fascinating audio phenomena. Listeners seeking a highly structured narrative or deep scientific analysis might find the format too light.

As heard by us

A guessing-game episode that makes wild sound feel physical.

Brains On uses its mystery-sound format to send Thomas Rex Beverly through glacier recordings, wild habitats, and the careful work behind capturing what animals and weather leave behind.

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Why you'd press play

Guess along with mystery sounds, glacier recordings, a grizzly bear mic mishap, and skunk defenses.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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