It's time for the....Mystery Sound Extravaganza!

to our 2026 live show tour. Get ready for singing, dancing, magic trick, game shows, mystery sounds, and science is falling from the sky. It in a totally safe way, we promise. Plus, there's a chance for you to attend special meet and greet parties in every city.

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“I love some mystery, I know, I know, like, who stole the cookies from the cookie jar?”

Oh yes, I know what it's time for. It's time for? A mystery sound extravagant, so stay tuned. Hello brainson listeners, it's me Bob! brainson universe is now its own independent media company, and since I love filing, counting

my popsicle stick collection and thinking about decimal points, Molly asked me to be the CFO of brainson universe.

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honey from local beekeepers and cheese from local cheesekeepers, but it turns out it stands for chief financial officer, which means I make sure brainson universe has enough money to keep going. Though I've been looking at the numbers, and wow, CFO should stand for counting bands over joyedly.

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You're listening to brainson, part of the brainson universe, I'm Molly Bloom, and my co-host today is Juniper from Philadelphia, hi Juniper, I'm Molly. Today is a mystery sound extravaganza, so I hope your ears are ready to solve lots of mysteries.

“So Juniper, I'm wondering, do you like guessing the mysteries sound?”

Yeah, I really do, I think it's really fun to guess what other people have at home and what they're using for it, totally, which ones do you find easiest to guess? Probably the ones that come from your kitchen, because my mom really likes to cook in like big, so I really recognize those sounds, so those are familiar in your life. What about the Chiastuan's to guess?

Those would probably be the ones that are really unusual in the household that isn't really common. Yes. For me, recently, that was rolling a hard-boiled egg around in a metal bowl. Yeah.

And I was like, I have never done that before.

So what would you say is your favorite sound? In the world. This is a really hard question, it's either goats or the ocean.

“Oh, I like both of those sounds so much, do you know goats personally?”

No, but I'm a Capricorn, so I feel like I identify with goats. Gotcha, because Capricorn the symbols of goats.

But what do you like about goats?

Like, then like the sound they make, particularly? I just feel it's like really goofy and how they act as really goofy, kind of like cats. Is she? Yeah. Um, can you do an impression of a goat?

Mm. Oh, that was very good, very, very nice. Thank you. What would a goat ocean sound like? Maybe like the ways are like, and then the goat are like, all the time.

“Honestly, I'm just picturing like goats on the surfboard for some reason.”

Oh, yeah, that's a good idea, too.

Well, let's get to it, Juniper. Do you feel like you're ready for some mystery sounds? Yeah. Awesome. We're going to start with this one.

What do you think? Um, I know this noise, like I know it by heart, but I don't know what it's called. Um, okay, where are you picturing it? I don't, um, where I live for some reasons. Mm-hmm.

And what happened? Ooh, like there was a big smell a couple of weeks ago, so maybe like someone shoveling out the ice? Oh, M.J. Juniper. But that is a really good guess.

Okay. Here's the answer. Hi, my name's Isla from Scotland Aberdeen. And that was the sound of me putting a snowshovel knife, basically. There's two of those.

Snow, then ice, and more snow. When the snowshovel goes in the ice, it makes a sound of an attractely ice. And when you push it forward, that makes the sound incredible work. Like a hundred percent correct.

I'm really surprised that I got that right, because I pretty much never get that right

memory. I'm so impressed. Okay, I mean, you guys in the Northeast particularly have had a lot of snow lately. So it makes sense that it's kind of fresh in your mind.

“Are you the person who has to shovel in your family?”

Um, me and my dad tend to shovel like we shoveled out our car, and then we also shoveled out our car again, because it's snowed recently. So that's like, you got it, cause there's a lot, when you shovel, you hear that sound a lot. A lot more.

Well, excellent work, all right, here is the next mystery sound. What do you think? What? Yeah, I did, it sounds absolutely insane. Yeah.

Oh, I could think of in that was like a ping pong table, so I'm going to say ping pong table. Okay, very nice, very nice. I picked this sound and I honestly heard it.

“So let's hear it again, let's hear it again.”

Well, I still think ping pong table, but like someone's having a really bad fight with the ping pong table and the ping pong table is winning. Excellent, excellent guess. Okay, let's hear the answer. Hi, my name is Leila, I'm from Los Angeles and that was the sound of my catch scratching

his scratching post. Oscar is a black hat and has a white belly. Here's a brother named Felix, who is Brown. The patch scratching post looks like a llama. Oh, okay, well, all right, a cat scratching post.

It's close. Yeah, it's like kind of like someone fighting with a ping pong table except the cat scratching a llama shape, scratchy post. Thank you for that sound Leila, you got us, okay. Here is the next mystery sound.

Okay.

Yeah, what do you think? I think it's like when I was little enough to get in my bathtub, I would like slapped the water. Oh, yes. And it would make something like that noise, like totally, totally, so maybe that.

Excellent guess. I'm going to give you a hint because I do know what this one is. This is a food related sound. So let's hear it again. Well, now it sounds like something's like boiling.

Yeah, you're like the bubbles popping. Yeah, like if you put like, if you like boiled carrots or whatever, you know, you like, makes that weird bubbly noise, you're like, wrong and totally. Is there a food that would make that sound on its own, not while it's being cooked?

“Like, it just that's what sound the food makes.”

I didn't know food makes sounds.

My food's always talking to me, it's just like, take a bite.

Cheers. Whoever sent this has the, like, really one of the best mystery sounds, it's a really good one. You ready for the answer? Yeah.

Okay, here it is. My name's Thor. I live in Seattle, Washington, and that was the sound of me shaking my jelly when the glass bowl. Wow.

Yeah, I don't really like jelly, so that's maybe that's why I stopped. That's fine. Yeah, it is a very particular texture. And if that is not your thing, then it's really not your thing. And I feel like that sound is pretty indicative of that texture.

So I apologize if that was unpleasant to do. It's fine. I just don't like the piece, didn't it? Mm-hmm. Very fair.

All right.

We have another mystery sound.

Do you want to hear it? Yes. Okay. Here it is.

“It kind of sounds like someone taking like 5,000 grains of rice, putting them in a bowl”

and like a metal bowl and then shaking them around. Okay, yes. So rice isn't really a good guess. It's not a kitchen sound. It's a sound that you'd probably do outside while you're doing this.

You would hear it while you're doing this particular activity. It's a solo activity. Let's hear it again. (crickets chirping) I haven't been outside in so long.

If you get with the outside sounds like. If it's a game with a bowl, right? It's not only with a bowl, it is something that involves a wiggling kind of moving in a rhythmic way.

And it's pretty good exercise.

Involts your hips. Oh wait, will it hoop? Is it that, you know, like, you know, they have those little beads in it sometimes? Mm-hmm.

Here is the answer. Hi, my name is Eleanor. And I'm from Dallas, Texas.

“And that was the sound of me who was hoping.”

Very nice. Yes, we haven't been outside in a while here in the northern part of the country. But yes, who the whooping? Yeah, has those little things that sound like rice

or sand inside? Yeah. Little rhythmic. Do you get a pull-up? I was and then I stopped to a looping

'cause we don't have pull-ups at home 'cause my grandpa's a juggler. So we use his whoo-loops. Your grandpa's a juggler? Yeah.

Wow, okay. And my I cordially request a mystery sound related to juggling at some point in the future. Okay. That's really cool.

I used to be good at whoo-looping when I was a kid. And then I recently tried it over the summer. Turns out I can't do it at all. I cannot railroad it with. I can do like three.

And I used to be able to do like 18 in a row. So it looks so satisfying. And that's one of my goals is to get better at whoo-loops. (whoo-loops) Our next sound comes from a parent of a brains-on listener.

Hmm. One with a cool job that involves helping lots of people stay healthy. So here is that sound. (whoo-loops)

(whoo-loops) (whoo-loops) (whoo-loops) (whoo-loops) (whoo-loops)

(whoo-loops) (whoo-loops) (whoo-loops) Whoa. That was noisy.

So helping people stay healthy. What do you think? Is it like one of those like, (whoo-loops) I don't remember what they're called,

but they're kind of like mini jack cameras that they put in duty to get cavities out or something like that. Oh yeah, that's literally what I was thinking.

And I was definitely thinking like a drill. Yeah, like a drill of the dentist often. Yeah. We're gonna have the answer right after this quick break. (upbeat music)

We're working on an episode about baseball's. Baseball has some really great cheers for fans in the stands. Like, G-W-O-D-E-Y-E, good eye, good eye, good eye, good eye. But you know what needs some cheers? Science.

We wanna hear your cheers and chance for science. Juniper, what is your cheer or chance for science? My cheer for science is SC-I-E-N-C-E science. Yes, I love spelling in cheers. It's one of my favorite things.

I approve. So listeners, please send your cheers or chance to us at brainson.org/contact. Well, you're there. You can also send us questions, ideas, and mystery sounds.

That's brainson.org/contact. And keep listening. (upbeat music) Today's episode is sponsored by every plate. Every plate is the go-to dinner solution

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We're back, and we're trying to figure out what this sound is. Okay. What do you think?

“I think I'm on the lines of the taking care of people thing,”

like the mini-jack hair-rethane magician, but at the end, I did hear kind of like water falling, so maybe that was just an accident, or maybe that was part of the noise. It's hard to say. Yeah, I heard that flopping this time too, like maybe, well, maybe it is the drill for the dentist, and the dentist took it out of the mouth,

and then that was the person being like, well, let's get out of the way. Maybe, maybe I'm going to stick with the jackhammer thing with the jackhammer thing. Yeah, me too. Let's see if we're right. My name is James Hall. I'm a pharmacist in Oakville, Ontario, Canada. Why you just heard was a blood pressure cuff inflating.

Blood pressure cuffs are used to measure blood pressure, keeping a healthy blood pressure helps

Oh, okay. Have you ever gotten your blood pressure checked?

“Um, yeah, I think so. We actually, I went on a trip last night,”

and we were able to, we got to go to a fire station near us. Oh, cool. My friends at Grossgats, and we got to take the blood pressure on our arms. Oh, very cool. I guess when I think of blood pressure, I think about like the old kind of timing old fashioned ones, or they're like, "Ch, check your company to buy hand." But yeah, there's all those like cool machines now that do it. All right, Gina, we have another mystery

sound from a parent who also happens to be a scientist. Here's that sound. Now, I really like watching like spooky shows. Uh-huh. So to me, it kind of sounds like someone pouring like hydrogen or like dry ice and something. Oh, yeah, excellent guess.

“We're going to play it again. See, what do you think?”

Yeah, I think I'm going to stick with the dry ice. Excellent choice here is the answer. Hi, my name is Alanafay, and that was the sound of my mom scooping out dry ice. Seriously, Gina, that's incredible.

I literally never get these right. So as well. It's like the magic of the studio.

I mean, those two of you got right. We're like hard, and you got them like so specifically, right? I am so impressed. Yes, so that was the sound of dry ice. Here's Alanafay's parent, Erin Bondette, to explain more. Hi, I'm Alanafay's mom. I work in a lab that studies what happens to ourselves when they have the wrong number of chromosomes. We use dry ice to keep things like cells, DNA, RNA, and protein, cold for our experiments. My favorite part about working in a lab

is that it's kind of like always working on a mystery. Nobody knows the answers, but we're trying

“to figure them out. Here's a fun fact. Did you know that you share 60% of your DNA with banana?”

That's very cool, because I love bananas. I'm in tap banana. Okay. My dad is antipenana, like very much so it's to the point like growing up. We couldn't like save an antipenana. I mean, do you feel that? Do you feel that strong? No, no, no. Okay. I mean, I think here the word banana is just they're just not my my banana. I understand. I understand. Well, so now we know dry ice is used for science and also spooky TV shows. Very cool.

All right, so Juniper, I've gotten to pick these mystery sounds. Stay which is super fun. And I understand though, they you have brought a mystery sound for me, and I'm so excited. Can I hear it? Yes. Okay. Well, okay. This is hard. Okay. I'm going to say what I heard. Maybe something will emerge. I heard like a slapping sound, and also like a springy sound, and it happened a bunch of times.

You said you like kitchen sounds. Maybe you're chopping something with a spring-loaded chopper. This is, this is a really tricky one. I think I need a little time to mull it over. So why don't we check out what's in the mail bag, and then when we come back, maybe you'll have a better guess? Hello, this is the mail bag. Where we look at the awesome stuff that you have sent us. All right, so let's see what we have today in the mail bag.

That's my little mail bag, so on. Okay. Okay. Incredible. Okay. This is a drawing

from Celine from Houston, Texas. It is Celine and I having a picnic together. The sky is blue. There are fluffy white clouds. Celine really captured my curly hair and my glasses. We're on two lovely green hills, and there's a picnic basket and two apples. One for each of us. Celine has an awesome red shirt and pink pants. Very stylish. Thank you for this amazing drawing. All right. Here's another amazing drawing. It says, "This is Colleas drawing interpretation of

really great picture. It is, okay. So there's a worm. There's a couple worms. Very cool. There's

“there's challenges. There's trees. There's clouds. There's us. It is a very dramatic and exciting”

drawing. Thank you for making it. Okay. There's one more drawing I got to talk about. Okay. This is from Eleanor, who lives in Berlin, Germany, and Eleanor writes,

this is a picture of a person sneezing and oh boy, is it ever? There's incredible action lines

around the person's head. This person's eyes are squeezed tight as they sneeze and there's all sorts of green germs coming out of this person's nose. It's very dramatic. It was even a red germ who looks angry, incredible work Eleanor. He really captured a sneeze. If you have drawings, you'd like to send to us or really anything, you got questions. You have maybe a song you wrote. You have a joke to share. We want to hear it. So go to brainson.org/contact. And that's it for today's

meal bag.

Okay. We're back. And I'm guessing this mystery sound that Junipera brought in for me.

I guess a spring-loaded chopper is that at all close? Okay, so we have it's it's a knife. We have we have we so we have like this middle slip in our kitchen on the side of our fridge. And I took the knife off and I kept putting it back on and taking it off and putting it back on. It was like a magnet. Yeah. Oh, that's so good. Okay. So I was kind of close. Wow. Excellent mysteries sound. Thank you. Very good. Okay. Junipera. I have a few more sounds for you before.

We go. Here's open and ready. Yes. Here is an X-Mistery sound.

What's your guess? Okay. So in the background I heard sizzling. But then at the same time I heard like like the corks on the top of one bottle's popping. Oh. So I don't know what would make that noise. I would say the sizzling part is the key part of the sound. And it is a kitchen sound. Oh, so here it again. Yeah. All right. And he other thoughts. I don't know. Something on a skillet

“that's like, you know like what the minute it was like. Totally. Yeah. Why don't you take a guess?”

What do you think is in what do you think is being sizzled in the skillet? Maybe like a carrot. I love it. I feel like you've carrots on your brain. I do have carrots on the brain. All of carrots. They're really good. All right. Should we see if it's a carrot sizzling? Yes. All right. Here it is. Hi. My name is Shepherd Ed. That was a solid of butter bubbly to the pet. Oh, butter. No, no, no, no. Yes. It's key to key to cooking, butter, oil, fat.

So you could eventually put a carrot in there. Yeah. And it would be delicious. It was carrot with butter. Okay. I'm hungry. What's here? The next mystery sound.

“Okay. This one makes me laugh. I think this might be my favorite sound of the day. Uh-huh.”

I think so too. What do you think it is? I think it's someone either putting their mouth in front of the fan and going, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Or they're just going in front of the microphone and going, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like. I love it. I think we should hear it again. Just, you know, because it's fun. , and kind of, and you know, maybe this one keeps popping up in my brain. It's like a baby is in front of a dog.

I really like that. I love a story. Uh, like, a mystery sound that tells a story here is the answer.

“Hi. My name is correct. And I'm from Skoki, Illinois. And the sound you just heard was my dad's”

padding, my little brother's mouth. Okay. Excellent work. It was a baby. So that's a little baby. And the dad's padding the mouth while the baby goes, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, that's hilarious. I love that makes me so happy.

Thank you for sending that sound. All right. We got a couple more. Here is the second to last mystery sound.

What do you think? When I first heard of that, I thought of that thing. It lifts up like big boxes of something, like big boxes of paper. And it makes that weird clunk noise. Very nice. I'm going to give you a hint. Um, someone's being lifted up and it's something that you might hear at your home near a car,

“or in near, in a somewhere where you should put your car. I think I'm going to stop there before.”

Well, now that you gave me those hints, it's either like a tow truck or it's like the one of those carless like in the parking lot where they lift up your car. Do you want to hear it again? Yeah. Yeah, I think I'm going to stick with the carless answer. Okay. Here is the answer. Hi, my name's Maddie and my name's Edis and we are from Monochree, California and the sound you just heard was us closing our garage door. A garage door because that's because that weird mechanical sound

like, yeah, yeah, excellent guessing. Yeah, lifting up a car and lift it. Probably makes a similar noise on this way. Okay. Here is the last mystery sound of the day.

What do you think? When I first heard that sound, I thought two things at once, which was

someone roller skating, like someone has a microphone down where their rollers are going or like their blades if they're ice skating. And it's like just like recording them going across the floor like that kind of noise. Juniper. You're really good at this. Let's hear it again.

“I think I have another idea. Okay. Which is like a crowdwine that's like, like someone that's really”

rooted, like a ton of people that are really rooting for this, this person on a sports team. Nice. Okay. So you're hearing sports. You ready for the answer? Yeah. Here it is. Hello. My name is Ashwin. I live in Washington, D.C. And that is the sound of my hockey team practicing with pox and sticks.

Thank you. Juniper. I mean, incredible. I was so close. I'm giving it to you. Because the first time

you're like skates. Oh, check, check, check. Sports, yes, absolutely. Maybe not a crowd, but his team is there. So 100% full credit for me. Very good work, guessing today, Juniper. And thank you to all of our listeners for sending in these mystery sounds. If you have a mystery sound, you'd like to share. You can always send it to us at brainson.org/contact. Please upload the sound and your explanation of what it is. Thank you so much. Mystery sounds are everywhere. You just

have to keep your ears open. They are fun to hear and even more fun to guess what they are. That's it for this episode of Brainson. This episode was produced by me, Molly Boom,

and engineering help from Alex Gazenza. I want to give a big shout out to Tenova and Rami.

“Brainson is an independent media company. To keep the brains on universe going,”

join Smarty Pass. You can do that by heading to SmartyPass.org.

Now it's time for the brains on our role. These are the incredible kids who keep his show going

with their questions ideas, mystery sounds, drawings, and high fives. Henry from Columbia, South Carolina, Keegan from Toronto, Alexander from Anchorage, Alaska, Marshall, and Ansley from Cincinnati, Ruby from Dublin, Ireland, Avery from North Carolina, Griffin from Dairy New Hampshire,

“Madeline from Duluth, Minnesota, Olivia from Forest Hills, New York, Wolf from Beverly, Massachusetts,”

Max, and Toby from Washington, DC, Arya from Guthrie, Oklahoma, Leo, and Charles from Mountain

View, California, Nora from Daphne, Alabama, Eliana, and Nora from San Raymond, California, Phoebe from Belt and Texas, Cove from American Fork, Utah, Charlotte from Australia, Zaby from Manchester United Kingdom, Francis from Philadelphia, Tray from Rockwell, Texas, J from Dayton, Ohio, Adriana from Pittsburgh, Amber from Brooklyn, Bailey, and Roy from California,

“Wesley from Columbia, Missouri, Jagger from Austin, Texas, Leia from Nanjing, China,”

Nova from James Town, New York, Sally from Ontario, Caleb from Clayton Falls, New York,

Elias from Austin, Texas, Silas from Colorado, April from Napier, New Zealand, Ren from McColle, Idaho, Bodie from New South Wales, Australia, Bennett from San Antonio, Texas, Langston from Harbor Springs, Michigan, Jackson from Linexaca, Kansas, Chorra from Hamilton, New York, Jacob and Finn from Highland Park, Illinois, Maddie from Lincoln University, Pennsylvania, Claire from California, Octavia from Phoenix,

Jules from Brooklyn, New York, Luca from San Ensemble, California, William from Lake Widow, Ohio, Andrew from Shanghai, Mike from Ireland, Freddie from Cricklaid, England, Eli from Pendleton, Indiana, Felix from Brooklyn, New York, Peter from Los Gatos, California, Camilla from New York City, Claire from Sarasota, Florida, Adam from Tarzan, California, Camilla from Boston, Tim from Georgetown, Ontario,

Ruby and Dahlia from Calabas as California, Gideon Harper and Cyrus from Altadina, California, Avery from Pickering, Ontario, Theo from Durham, North Carolina, Henry from Inverness, Florida, Dalton from Pottenham, Belly, New York, and Henry from the Philippines.