Russian scientists were the first to think of using sound as a weapon of mass destruction. Back in 1904, they proposed to transmit the sounds of powerful explosions by radio waves. A report with a detailed description of the new methodology was put on the king's table. Nicholas II rejected this weapon as too dangerous for humanity
Attempts to create "Jericho pipes" capable of destroying cities, destroying or at least demoralizing enemy soldiers began during the Second World War and continue to this day.
It is known that certain sound frequencies cause fear and panic in people, while others stop the heart. A frequency between 7 and 8 hertz is generally extremely dangerous.
Theoretically, such a powerful enough sound can rupture all internal organs.
Seven hertz is also the average frequency of the brain's alpha rhythms. Whether such infrasound could trigger epileptic seizures, as some researchers believe, is unclear. Experiments give conflicting results.
One way or another, the scientific prerequisites for the creation of sonic weapons abound. But there are still known more myths than facts. Internet fans can find tons of links to mysterious experiences, but they will hardly ever see a working sample.
One story tells about a certain device Feraliminal Lycanthropizer, which, thanks to the selected infrasonic frequencies, stimulated animal reflexes, sexual excitement in people, and made people forget about conventions. Such is the electronic drug.
Legends say that the impact of the machine not only caused violent orgies, but also caused a number of murders during these. There is no evidence for this and many similar stories. As there is no evidence for the many tales of infrasonic weapons that destroyed buildings over huge areas.
And the first real attempts to create infrasonic weapons were made by the Germans during the Second World War.
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In 1940, they planned to plant a lot of special copies of gramophone records with recordings of popular performers, but with the addition of infrasound, to the British. The plan was to create confusion, fear and other mental disorders in the audience. The German strategists lost sight of the fact that no players of those years could reproduce these frequencies. So the British listened to the records without any panic.
More successful were the experiments of Nazi scientists on the effect of infrasound on objects.
Austrian researcher Dr. Zippermeyer created the "Whirlwind Cannon". It was supposed to produce vortices due to explosions in the combustion chamber and the direction of shock waves through special tips. These whirlwinds were supposed to shoot down planes.
Experiments with a small prototype sonic weapon reportedly destroyed boards at a distance of about 200 meters. But the full-scale model turned out to be untenable, since the same effect could not be reproduced at a great distance from the gun and, apart from the installation's maintenance personnel, no one suffered from its actions. The monstrous installation was discovered by the Allies in Hillersleben in April 1945.
It is possible that the failed project of the Germans pushed the Americans to their own research in this area. But the United States had other motives as well. In the early 1960s, NASA conducted many experiments on the impact of powerful infrasound on humans. It was necessary to check how the low-frequency roar of the rocket engines would affect the astronauts. Former expert of Rosaviakosmos, retired colonel, Doctor of Sciences Vadim Sinyakin said that scientists have found that low sound frequencies from 0 to 100 hertz, with a sound strength of up to 155 dB, vibrate the walls of the chest, confuse breathing, cause headaches and cough … When the sound becomes even stronger, the cosmonauts fell into a rampage and did not want to fly into space. And then - up to death. Then these studies were taken by the relevant authorities.
Subsequent studies have shown that the frequency of 19 hertz is resonant for the eyeballs, and it is this frequency that can not only cause visual impairment, but also vision, phantoms.
So the engineer Vic Tandy from Coventry hoaxed colleagues with a ghost in his laboratory. Visions of gray glimpses were accompanied by a feeling of awkwardness among Vic's guests. It turned out to be the effect of a sound emitter tuned to 18.9 hertz.
Tandy suggested that ghostbusters might benefit from researching infrasound in haunted locations. Moreover, infrasound can act not only on vision, but also on the psyche, and also move the hairs on the skin, creating a feeling of cold.
Infrasound in old castles can be generated by corridors and windows, if the speed of the drafts in them and the geometric parameters of the premises coincide in the right way.
Scientists also believe that natural infrasound can stimulate aggression and increase unrest. It is possible that this explains the connection between the increase in the number of psychosis and insanity in certain areas with natural phenomena, such as Mistral (in the Rhone Valley) or Cirocco (in the Sahara). After all, winds can also be a source of infrasound. Here it is appropriate to recall the infrasonic hypothesis for solving the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle, according to which waves generate infrasound, causing the crew's madness or even the death of people, which leads to the death of an uncontrollable ship or the appearance of legends about the "Flying Dutchmen" - for some reason, left by the team.
However, all this does not mean that subsonic weapons are easy to create. Low-frequency sound waves dissipate too quickly in space, they lose energy too quickly, and besides, they are difficult to direct to the right place. Agree, it would be stupid if its owners suffered from the action of the weapon. Yes, there are reports of sonic guns and lasers being created - you can read the details below. But so far we are talking either about ultrasound, or about audible frequencies. For infrasound, such a task will be much more difficult.
Scientists have recently suggested that tigers use an 18-hertz roar just prior to an attack to stun their prey. The temptation to replicate a natural patent in metal is too great for engineers to give up on this topic. Despite all the failures in the past.
This remarkable review lists the main and to some extent known facts concerning the effect of sound on the human psyche and body (of course, no one posted detailed reports on experiments on the network), but we can add something to the above.
For example, recall that before entering the brain and further into consciousness (about the nature of which no one has the slightest idea), sound waves are transformed into electrical signals: vibrations of the eardrum cause vibrations of the mechanical part of the human auditory receptors, and these, in turn, are transformed into electrical impulses of auditory neurons. However, the opposite process is also possible, when certain groups of neurons (the so-called Broca's zone) begin to vibrate under the action of an external electromagnetic pulse, exciting subtle mechanical vibrations in the brain structures (usually 3-4 resonant frequencies in the range of 2.0 … 6.0 kHz). However, no matter how weak they are, these vibrations are perfectly captured by the sound-perceiving neurons of the auditory nerve and the person seems to hear the "sound". That is, in theory, the illusion of a "siren sound" or other (theoretically any) sound can be obtained by irradiating the human brain with specially selected electromagnetic pulses.
In particular, some types of psychotronic weapons of an electromagnetic nature are based on this principle. Scientists began to talk about this weapon at the beginning of the 20th century, but soon the topic was blabbed, and even later, it completely disappeared from the scientific press, emerging exclusively by accident. For example, in the mid-sixties, the American magazine Newsweek published on its pages a report on a medical study of one woman who "heard" AC vibrations in her apartment. For several years, she complained to homeowners about the "noise from neighbors", but inspections revealed that there was actually no noise. The woman was sent to psychiatrists, where they began to "treat" her, until one of the employees of the University of California, a certain Clarence Whiskey, became interested in the case. Empirically, it was revealedthat in fact the woman was simply an unusually sensitive person, capable of "hearing" electromagnetic fields. Naturally, Mr. Whiskey immediately assumed that any person can potentially "hear" the electromagnetic field, but he did not write anything else on this topic in the open press.
Somewhat later, in the seventies of the last century, other American researchers returned to the topic, proving by a number of experiments that people are really capable of perceiving sound messages carried by radio waves. They even invented a special term for them - "radio sound". It was experimentally found that the temporal lobes of the brain are responsible for the perception of "radio sound", the sensitivity of which is comparable to the sensitivity of a powerful radio receiver - you only need to select the appropriate frequencies (425, 1310, 2982 megahertz). According to the sensations of the subjects, the sound source is located either directly in the brain, or "overhead", and the perception of radio sound is better in a quiet, soundproof room. And then everything is in the hands of the experimenter: turn on the "siren" or "inner voice" in the subject's head.
By the way, the first researchers of radio sound (albeit under a different term) were Russian scientists - the president of the Leningrad Society of Naturalists Professor L. Vasiliev, who dealt with the problem back in 1926 and one of the employees of the X-ray Institute of the Crimean People's Commissariat of Health B. Mikhailovsky, the main discoveries which falls on the 1935th year. Both scientists, like many others, were arrested by the NKVD and their further fate is unknown - whether they were shot with other "enemies of the people" who occupied Russia, or whether they were involved in working for this people, is unknown.
The physical carriers of sound (atmosphere) and radio sound ("vacuum") are different, but the point of their application (sensory neurons of the auditory cortex) is most likely the same, moreover, the modulation effect known to physicists (superimposition of one signal on another) makes it possible to combine impacts (sound and electromagnetic), enhancing or masking each other. Modern means of communication (television, radio, Internet and mobile communications) open up truly terrible possibilities for manipulating huge masses of people.
An example of an interesting combination of sound and electromagnetic influences are nasty (as a rule) for perception, but very intrusive melodies, for some unknown reason "stuck" in the head of a radio listener or TV viewer, who then inadvertently begins to repeat them to himself. Psychologists call them "sound worms" or "infectious sounds", which are used to draw attention to something, to scatter attention in front of something, or to excite unmotivated irritation in the nervous system. An example of such "sound worms" are the screensavers of some radio stations (for example, "Echo of Moscow"), acoustic accompaniment of advertising blocks, and so on. But this is a separate topic.