Posted on 09/14/2003 9:39:00 AM PDT by blam
Sound of silence gives you that eerie feeling
September 12 2003 at 04:36PM
London - The haunted feeling given off by certain buildings is the result of low frequency "infrasound" vibrations, according to a team of British scientists who have conducted a series of experiments in a concert hall.
Richard Wiseman told a conference in the northern English city of Manchester on Monday his tests showed extreme bass sounds, like those emitted by some church organs or from the wind on windows and chimneys, could have a profound effect on feelings.
"It makes people feel extremely strange, even though they can't tell whether it's there or not," Wiseman, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire, said.
"It has implications for claims about hauntings, and things people think they feel in religious settings like cathedrals.
"What appears to happen is that people have odd sensations that they cannot explain, and so they attribute them to supernatural causes. It could lead to people having weird experiences in churches and attributing them to God. If you are in an old house, you might attribute the same thing to a ghost," he added.
Wiseman said he had tested the effects of infrasound on 750 volunteers at a concert hall in London, where a special additional instrument - an 8m pipe - was switched on and off secretly.
This produced inaudible vibrations at 17 hertz, whereas the audible range is from 20hz to 20khz.
The concertgoers heard four pieces of contemporary music, two with the infrasound added. When subsequently asked to describe their feelings, reports of "strange feelings" rose 22 percent.
Wiseman said the sensations reported from the South Bridge Vaults in Edinburgh, which he has studied, were an example of the effects of infrasound, generated by traffic moving overhead. - Sapa-DPA
FMCDH
I thought it was The Village Of The Damned"
The blonde haired English kids?
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