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Haunted Houses Explained: Infrasound

Posted by Hemos on from the soundings-from-the-deep dept.

anagama writes "For anyone who cringes whenever accosted by topics such as psychics, haunted houses, or any sort of new age drivel; for anyone who thinks James Randi is cool or has an active subscription to the Skeptical Inquirer - you're gonna love this story about infrasound. Here's a quote: "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. ... 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.""

5 of 558 comments (clear)

  1. The Three Investigators knew this.... by psykocrime · · Score: 2, Redundant

    Does anybody remember those "The Three Investigators" books? In one of those, the Investigators were investigating some "haunted house" or something and, in the story, they talked about how a pipe organ playing a very low frequency tone was causing the fearful sensations that everybody was getting.

    Of course, being /. I didn't RTFA... so, is this research claiming to have discovered something new and previously unknown, or are they saying they've simply confirmed something which has been suspected for some time?

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  2. Oldish books... by Destrado · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Oh, please. This was in a book from 1964! The Three Investigators and the Secret of Terror Castle! This "news" was known back in Alfred Hitchcock's days.

  3. I thought these sound effects were known? by nuggz · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Isn't this known information?
    I know it isn't common knowledge, but we've played with it.

    I'm not sure how low of a sound frequency they're dealing with, but we "found" that the annoying guy at school didn't like us playing very low frequency sounds through our stero into his room.
    You couldn't hear it, he didn't know about it, but he got very uncomfortable.

  4. Read more Hitchcock by KlausBreuer · · Score: 1, Redundant

    Have you never read his line of books titles "The three ??? and..." ?
    He mentioned the usage of very low frequencies to produce fear as well, and this *was* quite a long time ago...

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  5. Prior art... in 1964! by maiden_taiwan · · Score: 1, Redundant
    Those of us who used to read "Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators" novels in our childhood have known about this effect since 1964, when The Secret of Terror Castle was published.

    The story is about a supposedly haunted castle where nobody can spend the night without fleeing in terror. Guess what was responsible? (Hint: there was a huge pipe organ in the castle.)

    For anyone unfamiliar with the "Three Investigators" series of books, it's about trio of teens, sponsored by Alfred Hitchcock, who investigate mysteries. Similar to the Hardy Boys, but I remember liking it better.