Infrasound could be cause of many spooky moments...

[Larry_OHF]

Feel a ghost? Perhaps it's infrasound Monday, September 8, 2003 Posted: 7:12 AM EDT (1112 GMT) MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) -- Mysteriously snuffed out candles, weird sensations and shivers down the spine may not be due to the presence of ghosts in haunted houses but to very low frequency sound that is inaudible to humans. British scientists have shown in a controlled experiment that the extreme bass sound known as infrasound produces a range of bizarre effects in people including anxiety, extreme sorrow and chills -- supporting popular suggestions of a link between infrasound and strange sensations. "Normally you can't hear it," Dr Richard Lord, an acoustic scientist at the National Physical Laboratory in England who worked on the project, said on Monday. Lord and his colleagues, who produced infrasound with a seven meter (yard) pipe and tested its impact on 750 people at a concert, said infrasound is also generated by natural phenomena. "Some scientists have suggested that this level of sound may be present at some allegedly haunted sites and so cause people to have odd sensations that they attribute to a ghost -- our findings support these ideas," said Professor Richard Wiseman, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire in southern England. In the first controlled experiment of infrasound, Lord and Wiseman played four contemporary pieces of live music, including some laced with infrasound, at a London concert hall and asked the audience to describe their reactions to the music. The audience did not know which pieces included infrasound but 22 percent reported more unusual experiences when it was present in the music. Their unusual experiences included feeling uneasy or sorrowful, getting chills down the spine or nervous feelings of revulsion or fear. "These results suggest that low frequency sound can cause people to have unusual experiences even though they cannot consciously detect infrasound," said Wiseman, who presented his findings to the British Association science conference. Infrasound is also produced by storms, seasonal winds and weather patterns and some types of earthquakes. Animals such as elephants also use infrasound to communicate over long distances or as weapons to repel foes. "So much has been said about infrasound -- it's been associated with just about everything from beam weapons to bad driving. It's wonderful to be able to examine the evidence," said Sarah Angliss, a composer and engineer who worked on the project.

[Vaskez]

interesting stuff (just to let you know that someone actually read your post Larry )

[Larry_OHF]

Thanks!

[Stratos]

So how do they explain these guys?-> [img]graemlins/skeleton1.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/skeleton1.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/skeleton1.gif[/img]

[AzRaeL StoRmBlaDe]

I've never believed in ghosts so I guess this seems to support that.

[Reeka]

I thought this was fascinating, Larry. Makes me wonder if psychics and people like that might just be more sensitive to those infrasounds than the average person.

[Kakero]

Interesting, now I've learn a new way of how to scare people.

[Azred]

Infrasonics is an incredibly under-noticed area of scientific study. Some evidence suggests that infrasound might also be able to induce hallucinations, as the vitreous humor in the eye is vibrated, in addition to the chills, nervousness, etc. often sensed. Unfortunately, it is also possible to induce breathing difficulties, coronary arrythmias, damage to internal organs, vomiting, and/or death with infrasound.

[Harkoliar]

all i can is that it is very interesting

[Larry_OHF]

In a related website, not in dealing with ghosts, but dealing with terribly low sound...read this! It says that they discovered a balck hole that sings in B-Flat, 57 octaves lower than middle C on the Piano.
I bet if you heard that you'd crap your pants!

http://www.msnbc.com/news/963885.asp