The Why Files: Operation Podcast - Sonic Weapons, Havana Syndrome and The Fear Frequency

Episode Date: June 26, 2022

Do some horror movies use sounds of a *specific frequency* to amp up the scare factor? Yes.  Can infrasound and ultrasound damage the human body? Yes.  Has sound been used as a real-world weapon? Yes.  Is sound being deployed by America's enemies to cause serious physical harm? Yes.  Let's find out why. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thewhyfiles/support

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And Hecklefish. Right, and Hecklefish. We just wanted to tell you that if you want to start a podcast, Spotify makes it easy. It'd have to be easy for humans to understand it. Will you stop that? I'm just saying. Spotify for Podcasters lets you record and edit podcasts from your computer. I don't have a computer.

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Have you ever wondered what ghosts sound like? In the early 1980s, Vic Tandy was working at Warwick Labs in the UK, where he designed medical equipment. And there were rumors among the staff that the building was haunted. But Tandy figured this was related to the constant sound of life support systems that were operating on site. But one night, Tandy was working late when he started to feel strange. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

He broke into a cold sweat and felt the sense of dread wash over him. His heart started to race and he had the very specific feeling that he was being watched. Then out of the corner of his eye, he caught the glimpse of a gray figure drifting across the room. He turned around and the figure was gone. Absolutely terrified, Vic Tandy bolted from the lab and raced home. Now, after he calmed down, he vowed to find a logical scientific explanation for what happened. Well, did he? Well. Vic Tandy got to his office the next day and started looking around for the ghost. He didn't find one, but he had noticed something strange.

He was an avid fencer and in his lab he had a foil locked in a vice. He sold stolen merchandise. No, that's a fence. Fencing is a style of sword fighting using a foil sword made out of foil. A foil is the type of sword. I'm so confused. It doesn't matter. Anyway, a foil sword was locked in a vice and Tandy noticed it was vibrating really quickly, even though nothing was touching it.

Now, it turns out a fan was recently installed in the lab and was causing a sound wave to bounce between the walls. And the waves intensity was focused in the center of the room, which was the location of the foil. And where he was standing when he saw the ghost. A candy calculated the frequency of the sound at about 19 hertz. This frequency is important. The range of human hearing starts at 20 hertz. So Tandy's fan wasn't audible. It's what's known as infrasound.

But just because we can't hear it doesn't mean it can affect us. All material objects have a natural resonant frequency. And if the object is exposed to a sound wave of this frequency, it'll vibrate in response. This is called sympathetic resonance, and you can test this. If you strike a key on a piano in one room, a piano in another room will resonate that same note. This is also why running your finger around the rim of a glass at just the right speed will produce sound. Now back to Tandy's lab. It turns out that the human eye resonates at about 19 hertz. So what appeared to be a ghost was actually Tandy's eye vibrating at the frequency of the fan. Since this frequency has an actual physical effect on the body, the sound was causing a sense of fear and anxiety to employees in the area. And Tandy said that when they switched off the fan, it was like a huge weight was lifted.

And these frequencies don't just affect humans. Researchers have discovered that just before a tiger attacks, its roar contains frequencies at 18 hertz, which could disorient their prey long enough for the tiger to move in for the kill. Now, just under 20 hertz has been called the fear frequency for how it affects mammals. And lots of horror movies have used sounds at or just above the fear frequency to make their films even scarier. What happens if we go lower? Lower than 18 hertz? Yeah. Things get much worse.

How much worse? Ever hear of the brown note? The brown note? Does that mean what I think it means? Grab a diaper. Oh, no! The brown note is said to occur at frequencies between 5 and 9 hertz. This is the hypothetical range of sound that supposedly causes humans to lose control of their bowels. I say hypothetical because nobody's been able to actually prove it yet.

The brown note was famously busted by Adam Savage on Mythbusters when he surrounded himself with giant speakers and had the note pumped into his body. Now, he didn't feel so great afterwards, but his diaper stayed clean. He actually wore a diaper? Yup. I love Mythbusters. Me too. But here's the thing about that experiment. Air really isn't a great conductor of sound, especially at low frequencies. But when you're physically connected to the vibration, its effects are much more intense. The United States Space Program conducted tests that transferred brown note and other frequencies directly to subjects bodies by vibrating cockpit chairs. Now, test frequencies range from 0.5 hertz to 40 hertz and power levels of 160 decibels. Is that loud? Well, for comparison, a lawnmower is 90 decibels.

A chainsaw is about 130 and a gunshot is 140. So testing people at 160 dB, even if you can't technically hear the sound, it's going to get results. Test subjects experienced nausea, hallucinations, difficulty breathing and involuntary motor functions. Now, nobody officially crapped their pants, but this experiment is probably where the urban myth came from. But you don't have to be an astronaut to get sick from sound. There's something called wind turbine syndrome. Now, not everyone, but a little over 20% of people who live near large wind

turbine farms report all kinds of negative effects. And they range from difficulty concentrating all the way up to extreme stress and uncontrollable migraines. In one instance, an air traffic controller almost caused a fatal plane crash because he was experiencing insomnia caused by living near a wind farm. Now, there have been about 20 studies done on wind farms, but they found no link between the turbines and people getting sick. Who conducted these studies? The wind turbine companies. Uh-huh, I thought so.

Still, it has been proven that people who live and work near a lot of noise experience higher levels of stress and have more cortisol in their blood than people who live in quiet environments. So if we know sound can be dangerous, could it be used as a weapon? I'm gonna go with the yes. Yup. Could it be used as a weapon? I'm going to go with the yes. Yep. The most dangerous frequencies to humans are at about 7 hertz. This is the median alpha rhythm of the brain and the resonant frequency of many of the body's organs.

What does all that word salad mean? This means that at high enough volume, these sounds can directly affect the central nervous system, causing panic, convulsions, vomiting, and with long enough exposure, organ rupture and death. And one of the most well-known inventors of infrasonic weapons was a Russian-born French scientist named Vladimir Gavreau. Gavreau became interested in sound research in 1957 when he was asked to cure an unknown illness that was affecting people at a research plant in Marseille. Gavreau tracked the problem to air conditioning units that were generating low frequency sound.

When the units were turned off, the problem suddenly disappeared. So Gavreau began experimenting with acoustics to create a weapon for the French military. Big shock. Whenever we discover something dangerous, turn it into a weapon. That does seem to be what happens. Gain of function. So Gavreau developed a few prototypes, which he tested on himself and his team. And according to reports, one of the researchers died instantly.

And Gavreau wrote, his internal organs mashed into an amorphous jelly by the vibrations. Organ jelly. Even people at nearby labs were sick for hours. They said every organ in their body was vibrating. Hearts, lungs, stomachs, everything. Now, these weapons use infrasound, which are frequencies below human hearing. But what about frequencies above human hearing?

That's called ultrasound. And it's also dangerous. There are two ways that ultrasound damages the body. The first is that sound waves can actually heat up human cells, which causes all kinds of problems. The other is something called cavitation. When sound waves pass through an object, they rapidly push and pull on that object. This is called compression and refraction. When ultrasound causes human cells to cavitate, it creates bubbles in the tissue. And this is exactly what happens to divers suffering from decompression sickness.

The bends. Right, the bends. Ultrasound is such an effective weapon that has been used by the U.S. Navy to repel pirates. Yeah! So the U.S. has used sonic weapons against its enemies. But have the enemies of the U.S. used sonic weapons to attack Americans? Turns out, they have. If it's a flat or a squeal, a wobble or peel,

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You battled krakens and navigated through storms. Your spade struck the lid of a long-lost treasure chest. While you cooked a lasagna. There's more to imagine when you listen. Discover best-selling adventure stories on Audible. You searched for your informant, who disappeared without a trace. You knew there were witnesses, but lips were sealed.

You swept the city, driving closer to the truth, while curled up on the couch with your cat. There's more to imagine when you listen. Discover heart-pounding thrillers on Audible. You searched for your informant who disappeared without a trace. You knew there were witnesses, but lips were sealed. You swept the city, driving closer to the truth,

while curled up on the couch with your cat. There's more to imagine when you listen. Discover heart-pounding thrillers on Audible. A strange illness has been afflicting American intelligence officers and diplomats in Cuba, and it's now known as Havana syndrome. This summer, the CIA reported that officers were experiencing symptoms while traveling to India. Two U.S. officials visiting Hanoi suffered unexplained health incidents. And recently, German officials confirmed that they were investigating an alleged sonic attack against the U.S. embassy in Berlin. So what does Havana syndrome feel like?

Well, it's described as someone suddenly experiencing a broad range of symptoms like migraines, anxiety, dizziness, lapses of memory, and cognitive disruption. Now, some people describe that they feel like they were hit by a blast wave or a beam of energy. In some cases, the symptoms were brief, but other people experienced such devastating effects that they required hospitalization and long-term care. The first cases of Havana syndrome were reported in 2016 when Canadian and American officials arrived in Cuba. CIA officers stationed at the embassy there reported feeling fatigue, nausea, and pressure headaches. And brain scans showed tissue damage that's normally seen in people with concussions after being in a car accident. The issue was so serious that the Obama administration

evacuated the embassy. And what did the Cubans have to say about it? Oh, they had no idea what could be happening. But since then, Havana syndrome has been reported by U.S. officials all over the world. Cuba, China, Russia, Colombia, Uzbekistan, even the United States. And last year, two White House staff experienced symptoms while working at the White House. Now, according to investigators, the illness could be the result of a sonic weapon or exposure to high energy microwaves. Another study done by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine said that directed, pulsed radiofrequency energy could be responsible.

Many intelligence officers are quietly pointing the finger at Russia, but no evidence has been made public yet. What did the Russians have to say about it? They deny any involvement. As of now, there's still no official explanation, but the CIA and State Department have prioritized getting to the root cause of Havana syndrome. Oh, they're always trying to get to the root cause. They are.

Do they ever find it? Uh-huh. Thanks for hanging out with us today. My name is AJ. That's Hecklefish. This has been the Y-Files. If you had fun or learned anything, help us out by liking, commenting, or sharing this video. Only with your help can we defeat the algorithm.

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