Rather than cause trouble by posting messages about unexplainable effects
in physics, below I offer the exact opposite: an unexplained effect which
may have a simple physics behind it. Hauntings are subsonic whistles!???
The following appeared the discussion of LF environmental "Hum."
Note: some researchers have found that the human Temporal Lobe is the
source of the feeling of "being watched", and that the effect can
sometimes be triggered by small magnetic signals. It is therefor not
entirely silly to find that perhaps the same feelings might be caused by
intense mechanical vibration. If one were to strap a voice-coil driver to
their head and experiment with various amplitudes and frequencies, the
reported phenomena could possibly be duplicated. If anyone experiments
with this, please take a self-photograph, it would look great on the cover
of TPT!
Monday 29 June 1998
Science finds reasons for ghostly'hauntings'
Ultra-low sound waves blamed for visions,feelings of terror
Robert Matthews
The Sunday Telegraph
LONDON -- Ghosts may have a scientific explanation after all. New
research into a real-life "haunting" has revealed that all the classic
signs of ghosts can be explained as the result of very low-frequency
sound waves trapped inside buildings.
The sound waves -- capable of being triggered by nothing more than
the wind passing over walls -- cannot be heard by human ears. But
scientific tests have revealed that they have effects on the human
body that can account for visions of wraith-like appearances, and even
the feelings of cold and terror that accompany them.
The explanation emerged after a chance discovery by a university
academic who found himself involved in a haunting late one night in
the laboratory of a medical manufacturing firm in England.
Vic Tandy, an expert in computer-assisted learning at Coventry
University,had been told that the building was haunted, but dismissed
it as a joke. He changed his mind after the events that unfolded one
night as he worked alone in the office.
"I began to feel increasingly uncomfortable," he recalls."I was
sweating but cold, and the feeling of depression was noticeable -- but
there was also something else. It was as though something was in the
room with me."
"Then I became aware that I was being watched, and a figure slowly
emerged to my left. It was indistinct and on the periphery of my vision,
but it moved just as I would expect a person to. It was grey,and made no
sound. The hair was standing up on the back of my neck -- I was
terrified."
Mr. Tandy plucked up courage to look at the apparition face-on -- only
to see it fade and then vanish. "I decided I must be cracking up, and went
home."
The explanation emerged the following morning. Mr. Tandy,a fencing
enthusiast, was modifying one of his swords and had left the blade
clamped in a vice while he went in search of oil.
"When I returned, I noticed that the free end of the blade was
frantically vibrating up and down," he said.
Mr. Tandy, a trained engineer, realized the blade might be receiving
energy from very low-frequency sound waves filling the laboratory --
so low that they could not be heard.
Tests duly revealed the existence of a "standing wave" trapped in the
lab which reached a peak in intensity next to Mr Tandy's desk, where
he had been working when he saw the "ghost."
"It turned out to be caused by a new extraction fan,which was making
the air vibrate at about 19 cycles per second. When the fan's mounting
was altered,the ghost left with the standing wave."
Working with Dr. Tony Lawrence of the university's school of health,
Mr.Tandy has now discovered the significance of this rate of vibration. In
research published in the latest issue of the Journal of the Society for
Psychical Research, they reveal that "infra-sound" around this frequency
has been linked to a whole host of physiological effects --including
breathlessness, shivering and feelings of fear.
Most significantly, research by NASA, the U.S. space agency, has shown
that the human eyeball has a resonant frequency of 18 cycles a second, at
which it starts to vibrate in sympathy to infra-sound."This would cause a
serious smearing of vision," says Dr. Lawrence.
While acoustic experts have known about the health effects of infra-sound
for many years, before now no one had made the link to ghost sightings.
Mr. Tandy said he has since come across two more "hauntings" where
low-frequency sound may be to blame.
"One occurred in a corridor of a building that had a wind-tunnel in the
basement, and it was operating at the time of the sighting," he said. He
added,however, that the wind blowing over a window in a side wall of a
long corridor might be enough to create a standing wave,similar to that
formed by a person blowing over the neck of a bottle. "It would be
interesting to look at reports of haunted houses, to see if the "ghosts"
tend to appear in long, windy corridors."
The discovery of the infra-sound effect is already creating a stir among
experts in paranormal phenomena. "It is very interesting,as it gives us
another scientific variable we can fit into the picture," said Professor
David Fontana of the University of Cardiff, a former president of the
Society of Psychical Research.
But Mr. Fontana insisted that infra-sound was unlikely to be the
final answer.
"It cannot explain those cases where there is some interaction between
the person and the apparition -- as there is with poltergeists, for
example. The problem is that whenever you get a potential explanation like
this, you find that there are a whole lot of things it cannot account
for."