I just woke up and it is about 5am where I am and I heard some church bells ringing and my question is do people ring them at night or does a machine do it?
From my understanding all the old church bells are rung by hand; I would have no idea why they're ringing them at 5am.
I used to live in a factory town that was so small that a whistle went off at 5 am to let everyone know it was time to get up, but that was everyday, Monday-Friday. Never heard a church go off at 5 am, unless they worship that early.
Here's everything to do with church bells:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_bells
the church in the center of our town is set up to ring on the hour every hour, but the ringing is actually a song (different each time). maybe it has some kind of machine like that?