The Sound of Spirits:
What is Infrasound and Why Should We Care About It?
“There is certainly a world beyond our normal consciousness from which neither space nor time divides us, but only the barrier of our sense-perceptions.... this threshold is not immovable.” ~William F. Barrett, 1918
That overwhelming feeling that you are
being watched; the sensation that you are not alone although no one
is in sight; that “6th sense” that many of us have
experienced at one point or another…It can cause the little hairs
on our arms to stand up and our heart to beat just a little bit
faster. The majority of people believe that there is a world unseen,
a spiritual plane perhaps coexisting with our physical world. These
feelings however, do not constitute evidence. That being said, they
are also not to be ignored. These perceptions originate from
something…some stimulus we cannot easily interpret. In a sense, if
we cannot easily determine the origin, it may be considered “para
normal’, that is, outside the normal experience. As a paranormal
researcher, our jobs are to provide the physical evidence to validate
these 6th sense experiences. It is our responsibility to
be well-informed of all the potential natural causes of haunted
feelings.
Infrasound is sound frequency that is
too low for the human ear to detect, falling below 20 hertz. Some
natural causes of infrasound include earthquakes, avalanches, and
waterfalls. Animals such as whales communicate via infrasound.
Man-made producers of infrasound include explosions, diesel
machinery, and wind turbines. Researchers who have studied infrasound
posit that, although it is below our conscious perception, infrasound
affects our bodies nonetheless. It can cause feelings of anxiety,
dread, depression, and fear. At the right frequency it can impact our
eyes, causing vibrations leading to distortions in vision and
hallucinations or illusions.
So if we know
that infrasound exists and that it is one potential cause of a
haunting, why are we not measuring it? Measuring this low frequency
requires highly specialized equipment, as readily-available sound
sensors only measure in decibels and cannot account for the ultra-low
frequency which constitutes infrasound. Instruments for measuring
infrasound are few and far between and are typically quite expensive.
However, TSPI is committed to providing the highest-quality
investigations to our clients, and our ongoing desire to evaluate
potential hauntings in a scientific manner will ensure that we search
for a way to measure infrasound in the upcoming years.
Written by Laura Palmese
Investigator & Researcher
Thames Society of Paranormal Investigations (TSPI)