# What do noise bombs do? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 14, 2004, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-noise-bombs-do/239915 "2004-04-14T03:49:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Plan\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Plan\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plan_B)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2004, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-noise-bombs-do/239915/1 "2004-04-14T03:49:22Z")
I just read that US troops have been dropping noise bombs on Fallujah during the past few days. What does this accomplish? ---
**Author:** ![Valgard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/7feea3/32.png) [@Valgard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valgard)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2004, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-noise-bombs-do/239915/2 "2004-04-14T04:54:09Z")
> [@Plan B](#): > > I just read that US troops have been dropping noise bombs on Fallujah during the past few days. What does this accomplish? Haven’t heard the term before but any chance you’re talking about some type of big stun grenade aka flashbang? They’re devices that make an incredibly loud bang and bright flash, disabling people who are nearby without killing them. Handy if you are a hostage rescue team storming a room with innocent people and you need to make sure that the bad guys can’t do anything nasty while also making sure that you don’t accidentally blow up the hostages. In this case I can see that dropping king-size noisemakers all over the place would start to wear the opposing soldiers down while minimizing the risk of blowing up innocent bystanders. Imagine trying to sleep, plan an attack, etc. while somebody keeps lighting cherry bombs off outside your window. ---
**Author:** ![Plan\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Plan\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plan_B)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2004, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-noise-bombs-do/239915/3 "2004-04-14T12:24:03Z")
Thanks. The complete story was on [debka.com](http://debka.com) yesterday - didn’t say anything else about the nature of the bomb. Your answer makes sense. ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2004, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-noise-bombs-do/239915/4 "2004-04-14T15:03:27Z")
Noise bombs are a psy-war tool. They disorient the victim and create a desire for hearing hip-hop recordings, which encourage the growth of democracy. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2004, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-noise-bombs-do/239915/5 "2004-04-14T15:21:37Z")
I for one have never heard of a ‘noise bomb.’ ---
**Author:** ![TellMeI\_mNotCrazy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tellmei_mnotcrazy/32/3419_2.png) [@TellMeI\_mNotCrazy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TellMeI_mNotCrazy)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2004, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-noise-bombs-do/239915/6 "2004-04-14T18:02:38Z")
A google on “noise bomb” turns up various references to crowd control techniques, mainly in the middle east, a picture of an airport employee deploying a “noise bomb” onto a runway to scare off the birds, and numerous references to bad music. There was also an interesting interview between Dick Cavett and David Bowie, in which Bowie discusses “Black-noise” noise bombs. [From here:](http://members.ol.com.au/rgriffin/GoldenYears/741204DC.html) > [@](#): > > Bowie: Black-noise is something that Burroughs got very interested in. It’s a…one facet of Black-noise is that…um…everything, like a glass if an opera singer hits a particular note, the vibrations of that hit the metabolism of the glass and cracks it, yeah? So a Black-noise is the register within which you can crack a city or people or…it’s a new control bomb. It’s a noise — bomb in fact, which can destroy…why do you ask that?