Infrasound & Ghost Sightings / Hauntings

[Anonymous]

Not sure whether to post this here or in Ghosts. From the BBC:

'Sound waves so low in frequency that the human ear cannot detect them may be behind ghostly sightings and haunted buildings.

Human ears detect sounds in the frequency range of about 20 to 20,000 Hertz, or cycles per second. Anything below 20 Hz is defined as infrasound, which although not heard, is experienced in the form of pure vibrations.


The discovery that infrasonic waves are present in a number of allegedly haunted houses in the UK has prompted scientists to investigate the effect of the waves on human emotions...

...Dr Richard Wiseman, of Hertfordshire University, UK, believes it is the vibrations of low frequency acoustic waves, felt particularly in the stomach, which may cause the recipient to feel uplifted or create unease depending on the environment in which they are experienced.

"This is not a new phenomenon; church organ builders have been using infrasonic pipes for over 250 years to create a sense of awe in congregations," says Sarah Angliss, an engineer and composer involved in the music project.'

The article also notes that they are investigating new weapon technologies using these discoveries.

 

[OldTimeRadio]

Ghosts and Sub-Sonic Sounds

It is JUST as possible that ghosts find it easier to materialize in locations where sub-sonic sounds cross an area, possibly at certain angles to each other. Or perhaps ghosts ("wandering magnetic fields," say the skeptics) are attracted TO such sound waves.

Some traditions associate ghosts with stormy weather. Thunder generates sub-sonic sound waves.

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

A couple of days ago, I had a day off work and we took our 4 1⁄2 year old granddaughter out for a picnic. We went to the Devil's Punchbowl (Hindhead), which crops up here occasionally for anomalous compass readings and such like. It has a sensory trail, designed to appeal to youngsters. Our granddaughter was quite fearless - crawling through tunnels, running way ahead of us and climbing up log staircases etc. On returning to the car park, we stopped at the café for drinks and my wife took our granddaughter to the toilets. When they returned, our granddaughter was in floods of tears. When I asked her what the matter was, she said, between sobs, "don't know". My wife explained that the sudden tears started when she was drying her hands under the air-blower. By the time we got back to the car, thankfully, the tears had stopped. When we took her back to her mum that evening, we said everything went brilliantly except for the strange incident when drying her hands. My DiL nodded in recognition and said not to worry because it's happened before. She said she believes some of those dryers generate infrasound at a frequency that can upset people - notably sensitive youngsters.
Certainly sounds plausible to me and I won't underestimate the effects of infrasound.

 

[escargot]

The lat Vic Tandy knew all about this.

Ghost buster

Guardian piece from 2002, possibly cited on'ere before -

Chris Arnot explains why Vic Tandy of Coventry University is doing time in a cellar


She called herself a white witch. One of three, as it happens, who had visited a 14th-century cellar near Coventry Cathedral at different times.
Word had spread that there was a "presence" down there. Whatever it was certainly put the fear of God into witch number three. She was up the steps and through the tourist information office, which stands over the cellar, almost before staff had noticed she'd gone. Almost, but not quite.

Carole Jung, assistant manager of the tourist office at the time, noticed that the witch looked "frightened to death". And she wasn't surprised. She, too, had had first-hand experience of the apparition and felt as though she were "intruding, disturbing something" when she took tours down the cellar.
Others had been affected as well. Colour was seen to drain from the face of a visiting Canadian journalist, who said later that he was sure the face of a woman had been peering over his right shoulder.

Tandy put the disturbances down to infrasound.

Infrasound is not easy to measure because it vibrates at a frequency below the level of human hearing.

"Evidence from Nasa and other sources suggests that it can cause you to hyperventilate and your eyeballs to vibrate," says Tandy.

Having established its presence here at a level likely to cause anxiety and apparitions, he is now trying to establish why some people are affected and not others.

Vic Tandy died, of suicide as I recall, only a few years later.

 

[Fabio Picasso]

Infrasound and the paranormal.
Abstract:
Infrasound has become established within paranormal research as a causal factor in the production of subjective experiences that may be interpreted by the percipient as having a paranormal origin. This paper introduces infrasound and describes the nature of sound and infrasound, its production and measurement and interactions with structures.

Human hearing and the perception of low-frequency sounds and the psycho-physiological interactions between infrasound and human percipients are discussed. This paper will consider infrasound measuring techniques and choice of a suitable sound filter weighting scale, together with a description of equipment

designed by the author to permit infrasound monitoring and measuring to be undertaken at selected locations throughout the UK and Eire.

The historical links between low-frequency sound and infrasound and the development of the case for
infrasound in the production of anomalous experiences are examined. Following the hypothesis that a frequency of close to 19Hz was key in the production of anomalous experiences (Tandy & Lawrence, 1998), the focus of parapsychology has been towards testing this hypothesis. Studies such as ‘The Haunt Project’ (French et al., 2009) and pilot studies by the author have focused on this range of infrasound frequencies.

This paper will argue that the original hypothesis failed to understand fully the manner in which the frequencies of infrasound standing waves are determined and will examine critically the results of The Haunt Project, suggesting that the failure of the experimenters to understand all the problems of infrasound measurement and propagation may have led to an unreliable conclusion. Finally, the paper will discuss the question of an infrasound role in the production of anomalous experiences.​

Source: Parsons, S. "Infrasound and the paranormal." Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 76, no. 908 (2012): 150-174.