Sensing Spooks?

If you have ever had a bad case of the creeps, you know the symptoms: anxiousness, spine tingling, skin crawling -- you feel uneasy to the point of dread. Are you in the presence of some sort of spirit or ghost? No, you are in the presence of low frequency sound waves. They can, as researchers have discovered, not only impact your senses but can in extreme cases cause things to move.

Human beings have a hearing range from around 20 - 20,000 Hertz. Any sound above or below this range cannot be heard, but that does not mean it cannot be felt. Very low frequency sounds called infrasound can produce a sensation of anxiety, fear, sorrow, discomfort, shivers and a chilling feeling along the spine by its perceivers. These feelings are very close to the eerie feeling one has while watching scary movies and support the suggestion of a strong link between infrasound and strange sensations.

A team of British scientists experimented with infrasound in a controlled environment. They played pieces of contemporary music for an audience and secretly laced some of the pieces with infrasound. Audience members were asked to describe their feelings. Twenty-two percent reported unusual experiences during the music with infrasound added in. Richard Wiseman, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire in England says, "Some scientists have suggested that this level of sound may be present at some allegedly haunted sites and causes people to have odd sensations that they attribute to a ghost -- our findings support these ideas."

Resources:

Read a Reuters news story about the phenomenon.

Read more about low-frequency effects at Planet Science.

October 25, 2003