In a small village on the border between South Korea and North Korea, the lives of residents have been upended by an eerie and relentless form of warfare—one that’s not fought with guns or bombs, but with an unsettling barrage of strange and jarring noises. These loud, crackly sounds—often compared to the booming toll of a giant gong or the unnatural howls of wolves—fill the air night after night. The villagers describe it as a constant psychological assault that’s left them exhausted and on edge. “It’s driving us crazy,” says An Mi-hee, a 37-year-old resident, unable to sleep through the cacophony that haunts her home. “You can’t sleep at night.”
The noise, which has been blaring from loudspeakers along the North Korean border since July, comes in many forms. Sometimes it’s like the sound of metal grinding together, or the terrifying screech of ghosts wailing. On other occasions, it’s described as the noise of artillery fire or even the bizarre image of a furious monkey smashing a broken piano. Each night, residents endure the uncertainty of not knowing when the torment will end or whether it will ever stop at all. “The worst part is that we don’t know when it will end,” says An Mi-hee. “Whether it will ever end.”
This so-called “noise bombing” is one of the most bizarre and grueling consequences of the escalating tensions between North and South Korea, which have sunk to their lowest point in years. Under the leadership of Kim Jong-un, North Korea has ratcheted up its hostility toward its southern neighbor, and this bizarre form of psychological warfare is a direct result of deteriorating inter-Korean relations. The once-frequent propaganda broadcasts of the past have now given way to an unrelenting barrage of noise that is increasingly hard to bear for those living in South Korean villages near the border.
The villagers, who mostly consist of older residents, find themselves caught in the middle of a geopolitical struggle that’s far beyond their control. Dangsan, the village in question, sits on the northern shore of Gwanghwa Island, just one mile from North Korea, separated by a stretch of gray sea. With a population of only 354, many of whom are in their 60s or older, the village has become one of the hardest-hit by North Korea’s psychological warfare.
For decades, the loudspeakers lining the border have been a fact of life for those living near the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), a place where tensions between the two Koreas have often fluctuated between moments of relative calm and terrifying provocations. But the noise campaign being waged by North Korea today is different—there’s no music, no human voices, just a nonstop onslaught of sounds that have been described as both “irritating” and “stressful.”
Many of the villagers say that the noise has had a profound impact on their well-being, causing not only insomnia and stress but also physical consequences. They’ve reported that their animals are affected—goats have miscarried, hens are laying fewer eggs, and even a beloved pet dog has suddenly died. “I wish they would just broadcast their old insults and propaganda songs,” says An Seon-hoe, 67, a fellow resident. “At least they were human sounds and we could bear them.”
For as long as anyone can remember, loudspeakers have been a fixture of life along the DMZ. Both North and South Korea have used these broadcasts to spread propaganda, insulting each other’s leaders and attempting to win over soldiers from the opposing side. In the past, South Korea’s loudspeakers would blare K-pop music and upbeat news broadcasts into North Korea, trying to entice North Korean troops with the allure of freedom and luxury. On the other side, North Korea’s broadcasts would call on South Korean soldiers to defect to the “people’s paradise” in the North, all while berating the South’s leadership with insults.
But the latest round of broadcasts from the North is unlike anything the villagers have encountered before. There’s no music, no human voices—just an unsettling array of noises that seem to serve no other purpose than to cause discomfort and distress. “It’s bombing without shells,” says An Mi-hee, describing the torment she and her neighbors are experiencing. As the sounds grow louder into the night, she wonders whether the psychological assault will ever come to an end.
This wave of noise is part of a broader strategy by North Korea to retaliate against what it perceives as South Korean hostility. North Korea’s anger has been mounting ever since the breakdown of negotiations between Kim Jong-un and then-U.S. President Donald Trump in 2019, which resulted in a souring of relations not only with the United States but also with South Korea. In recent years, Kim has increasingly turned hostile toward the South, escalating tensions and attempting to justify his actions by portraying South Korea as an enemy.
In South Korea, President Yoon Suk Yeol has also taken a more hardline stance since taking office in 2022, with an emphasis on spreading ideas of freedom into the North and increasing military cooperation with the United States and Japan. These moves have only further provoked North Korea, and now, the people living near the border are bearing the brunt of this escalating conflict. The North’s new strategy, which involves using loudspeakers to broadcast strange and unnerving sounds, is just the latest in a series of retaliatory measures that have left the residents of Dangsan feeling increasingly helpless.
The situation has grown so dire that political leaders have made visits to Dangsan to express sympathy. During a parliamentary hearing, a visibly emotional An Mi-hee knelt before lawmakers, pleading for a solution to the noise. Unfortunately, officials have offered little in the way of concrete answers, aside from suggesting double-pane windows to help mitigate the noise and providing medication for the villagers' animals to cope with the stress. “The solution is for the two Koreas to recommit themselves to their old agreements not to slander each other,” says Koh Yu-hwan, a former head of the Korea Institute for National Unification. However, there seems to be little hope for de-escalation anytime soon. In fact, North Korea has escalated its aggressive behavior even further, destroying all railway and road links between the two Koreas with dynamite, and even disrupting GPS signals near the western border, affecting civilian air and sea traffic.
The villagers of Dangsan feel abandoned, believing that they’re being sacrificed in the midst of a political rivalry between two powerful nations. “The government has abandoned us because we are small in number and mostly old people,” says Park Hae-sook, a 75-year-old resident. “I can’t imagine the government doing nothing if Seoul suffered the same noise attack as we have.”
As tensions continue to rise and the psychological warfare persists, the residents of Dangsan are left to wonder how much longer they can endure the barrage of sounds. What was once an occasional annoyance has now become an inescapable nightmare, a constant reminder of the deepening divide between North and South Korea—and the human toll of a geopolitical conflict that shows no signs of ending anytime soon.
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