Why is that national news on CNN?
Anyway, reminds me of something that happened to me. When I was a kid - about 8-10 - I had some friends stay over. I woke up because my ear was hurting. I too heard a weird sound in my ear and it just hurt.
Basically what happenend is we had Doritos out and ants found them. One of them found its way into my ear. I discovered this when I was digging my pinkie finger into my ear over and over and eventually it came out with a squashed ant on it.
I don't know why it was painful. I don't know if the ant was biting my ear canal or what. Maybe I'm remembering it wrong and it was just that the sound and sensation of an ant walking around in there was really annoying.