In 2003, scientists subjected 750 volunteers to an odd experiment, within the type of a concern and anxiety-inducing live performance.
For some time, individuals had suspected that low-frequency sounds, past our listening to, can have unusual results on people. But in 2003, there had been little in the way in which of analysis. And so, scientists from the National Physical Laboratory in England determined to topic individuals to infrasound at a live performance the place infrasound could be performed to them beneath common music.
“For our experiment we needed to ascertain if infrasound in music generated uncommon psychological results, even in listeners unaware of its presence,” Sarah Angliss, a composer and sound designer who labored on the venture, explains on her web site.
“Of specific curiosity had been its reputed emotional results. Infrasound is utilized in sacred music, as an illustration throughout cathedral organ recitals, and there may be debate about why it’s used. Some individuals say it provides a way of awe to the music – it places a shiver down your backbone. Others say that enormous infrasonic organ pipes are nothing greater than ‘an costly technique to make a draught’,” Angliss defined in a separate weblog.
“Stranger nonetheless, infrasound has additionally been detected at some ostensibly haunted websites…the place it could even be making individuals really feel very uneasy.”
In one instance she referred to, scientists working at a laboratory in Coventry, England, reported emotions of melancholy and shivers, and varied different unusual goings on, together with “figures” being seen within the nook of 1 scientist’s imaginative and prescient.
When one scientist seen {that a} foil blade in a vice was vibrating wildly, he investigated and located the obvious explanation for all their hassle; a brand new extractor fan within the lab was creating infrasound, a low-frequency sound wave beneath human listening to. Once the fan was switched off, the issues disappeared.
The group from the National Physical Laboratory determined to play sound at 17.5 Hertz (Hz), simply past human listening to, generated via the usage of a 7-meter (23-foot) pipe at viewers members at a London live performance corridor.
The infrasound was solely performed throughout sure items, and viewers members didn’t know which. Despite this, 22 p.c of viewers members reported unusual results throughout items laced with infrasound. These included emotions of sorrow, chills down the backbone, common unease, and emotions of revulsion and concern.
“These outcomes recommend that low frequency sound could cause individuals to have uncommon experiences though they can’t consciously detect infrasound,” Professor Richard Wiseman, psychologist on the University of Hertfordshire stated on the time, per NBC News.
“Some scientists have urged that this stage of sound could also be current at some allegedly haunted websites and so trigger individuals to have odd sensations that they attribute to a ghost — our findings help these concepts,” he added.
Subsequent research, together with one which intentionally set about making a “haunted room”, have proven proof that infrasound can produce results just like hauntings in people. Of course, not all hauntings might be defined on this method, with different explanations starting from hoaxes to carbon monoxide poisoning, and the genuinely unknown.
