I just read a fascinating (if true) comment in the skeptics section of Reddit, to the effect that 18hz sound causes humans to experience hallucinations and uneasiness. According to the commenter, this explains some “ghost stories.”
This sounds amazing, but–at least at first glance–it also sounds like a load of crap. I immediately thought to turn to you guys. So, is it for real? Could someone make a device that plays 18hz audio, carry it with them everywhere, and drive their friends crazy?
I could imagine that there’s a grain of truth to that. not that people actually “see ghosts” or “hallucinate” or anything, but that high-energy sound at frequencies that low could, uh, confuse a person’s equlibrium such that they’d experience anxiety and some degree of disorientation. I mean, there are things like Meniere’s syndrome or other inner-ear dysfunctions which can trigger anxiety, vertigo, and other unpleasantness.
I can’t debunk the claim specifically, but about using your computer as a pitch detector: Most microphones only have a frequency response range above 20Hz. Unless you have a microphone specifically designed for picking up infrasonic sounds, it probably ain’t gonna work.
that may be true for mics geared towards music recording, but measurement mics (like the B&K 4191/4192 or ACO Pacific 7012 that I use) are calibrated down to 3 Hz.
But at second glance…it is a steaming load of crap.
What? Anytime you hear “frequency” and “resonance” together in a paragraph with no science to back it up, it’s very likely to be bafflespeak by a woo-meister. Along with “quantum” and “vibrations”, these terms are often used by people who have no idea what the terms mean.
Do loud, high or low frequency sounds affect humans? Sure, but it’s a big jump to suggest they will see ghosts. More likely give them split eardrums or a headache, and when I get a headache, all I see is aspirin.
I was specifically referring to the claim that you could use “any computer with a microphone or even an iPhone” to do it, though. To me, that implies that any off-the-shelf microphone will do.
That’s a shining example of taking a reference out of context and using it to prove something unrelated. Read the paper. It doesn’t suggest in the slightest that the resonant frequency of an eye leads to hallucinations or seeing ghosts; it is concerned with skull shaking in an aircraft or space vehicle affecting visual acuity.
That report does not support the OP, but it may be where they got the idea.
No, it’s an example of you claiming that he was making up terms, when the paper itself uses them. It doesn’t mean the OP is correct, but it does mean your castigation for using the wrong terminology is incorrect.
What BigT said. The point is that the wikipedia article isn’t just throwing around scientific terms at random like Deepak Chapra randomly inserts “quantum” into sentences to add the veneer of science, as you suggest. The resonant frequency of the eye is a real thing and it has a measurable physiological effect thats at least conceivably related to the phenomena being discussed.
As to the larger theory that 18Hz noise cases haunted houses, I don’t think thats woo either. It might not br true, but its supported by at least some empirical evidence (the skepic’s dictionary mentions at least one published study, wikipedia a second).
Indeed, its sort of the opposite of woo, in that its seeking a naturalistic explanation for supposed supernatural phenomena and then using experiments to back up the explanation.
With all due respect to Richard Wiseman, whom I admire very much, the tests do not support those ideas in the slightest. It’s a quantum leap from feeling bad when subjected to extreme low frequency sounds at extreme levels to imagining ghosts in old houses. Have any tests been done to show that old houses exhibit extremely low sounds at extremely high levels?
And “tests” by “ghost-hunters,” which are notorious for using instruments to detect magnetic or acoustic phenomena, are unreliable and rarely repeatable.
I challenge this person to replicate this and write it up in a paper; otherwise it is worthless. And note that nothing was said about high signal levels, which, according to the other tests, must be extreme before anything is noticed.
If that claim is valid, why doesn’t a “funhouse” at a fair make a booth where you can see ghosts, every time? Apparently all you have to do is pump some loud, low sounds into a person and the ghosts appear. If not, then this claim is a load of hogwash.
Someone is connecting dots that have no reason to be connected until proven.
I feel bad when I take some medicine. Does that mean that the cause of ghosts is that medicine? Nonsense.
Ssince this is GQ, the answer to the OP, “Does 18hz audio (“infrasound”) make people see ghosts?” is: There is insufficient evidence to support that conclusion at this time.
Similar effects were investigated in the Haunt Project, an attempt to induce supernatural sightings by means of infrasound and electromagnetic fields (abstract, Scientific American article). The test subjects were interviewed and rated for spooky beliefs on the sheep/goat scale, and while most did feel a little odd subjected to these sonic and electromagnetic influences, only a few reported apparitions, and they tended to be those high up on the sheep scale.
Bonus points for dzero for mentioning the Brown Note. 90s hardcoremonger Tad Doyle used to experiment on his audience at gigs in an attempt to reach this holy grail. I’m not sure if he had much success. Though the body can be influenced by infrasonic vibrations (the usual effect is nausea), it’s difficult to deliver the required energy by acoustic means.
Eyeballs don’t have to be subjected to their natural resonant frequency to be vibrated, it’s just that they vibrate more efficiently at this sweet spot. From lots of experience of holding a percussive massager to my head, I can attest that this just produces blurred vision (at least in an old skeptic like me). The effect can be a bit weird though, as brighter objects (such as a TV screen in a moderately lit room) will appear more blurred than the darker surroundings.
Around 1988, when I was a grad student, we had a lab with a computer, a Sun IIRC, set up at one end of the lab, that could be seen from long ways away, maybe up to 100 feet. I found that if I was far away, and bit into a Dorito (a corn tortilla chip, for people outside the US), the screen would appear to flash. If I got closer, to maybe 30 feet, the effect would go away. At the time, and still, I attributed this to the sound vibrations of the crunch causing small ripples on the surface of my eyeball. The rest of the room didn’t flicker or flash, so I’d guess the CRT’s raster scanning was necessary for the effect.
You can do the same thing with a juice harp. It took me a minute to realize it was my eyes and not the TV that was causing the effect. I don’t think it was hitting the resonant frequency of my eyes but it was causing my eyes to vibrate at the frequency of the TV which I suppose was 60 hz.
My experience with objects hitting a resonant frequency is something best described as a feedback loop where the object increases vibration. I once had a bad wheel bearing in a car that would vibrate badly when the exhaust of my car or a passing car hit a certain frequency. The wheel assembly shook violently if I didn’t slow down or speed up.
On the one hand, it looks like a piece of sensationalist crap. They’ve got evidence to cover the allegation that “something happens when external force causes your eyes to vibrate at a certain Hz”, not “18 Hz makes your eyes see ghosts!”
On the other hand, the brain is known to produce mild hallucinations when it’s under, for instance, total sensory deprivation. (The classic black room with white noise experiment, which I’ve tried for myself.)