Vic Tandy of Coventry University never took any ghost stories seriously. Once, as usual, he was working and suddenly quite distinctly felt someone looking at him ominously.
Then this "something" materialized into a shapeless mass of ash-gray color, slipped across the room and came close to the scientist. In the blurred outlines one could see the legs, arms, but instead of a head, fog swirled, in the center of which there was a dark spot resembling a mouth. In a moment, the vision vanished into thin air without a trace.
Despite the fact that Vic experienced seconds of fear and shock, he, having come to his senses, began to act like a scientist, that is, to look for the cause of an incomprehensible phenomenon. The first simple thought is to attribute the incident to a hallucination. But how could it have arisen? As for the otherworldly forces directly, he simply did not believe in them, as already mentioned. It was necessary to look for elementary physical reasons.
It is important to note that Tendy did find them, although it happened by accident. To some extent, he was helped by his hobby - fencing. Some time after the meeting with the phantom, the scientist brought a sword to put it in order for the upcoming competition. And suddenly at some point, the blade, clamped in a vice, began to vibrate more and more, as if someone was touching it.
This strange vibration prompted Vick to think about resonant vibrations, similar to those caused by sound waves. For example, when music is playing very loudly, the dishes in the cupboard begin to clink. But then in the laboratory, oddly enough, there was complete silence. Then the scientist measured the sound background using special equipment.
And as it turned out, there really was an unimaginable noise in the room. It was not heard because the sound waves had a rather low frequency that the human ear does not pick up (infrasound). After a short search for the source of the sound, it was found: as it turned out, it was not so long ago a fan installed in the air conditioner. As soon as the scientist turned it off, the blade stopped vibrating.
I must say that infrasound carries quite a lot of surprises. For many years sailors have been tormented by the mystery of the "Flying Dutchmen" - ships that wander the seas without a crew. At the same time, the ships turned out to be in perfect order, and the question arose: where could people go? This mystery haunted many.
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And they solved it all the same. As it turned out, infrasound with a frequency of 7 Hz is to blame for everything, which, under certain conditions, is created by ocean waves. In a person, this sound causes simply unimaginable horror. That is, sailors in the ocean sometimes just go crazy and throw themselves overboard to escape.
After that Vic Tandy wondered if the infrasound was related to his nightmare. Measurements of the sound frequency in the laboratory showed 18.98 Hz, and this practically corresponds to the frequency at which the human eyeball begins to resonate. Therefore, such an explanation is possible: the sound waves made Vic's eyeballs vibrate and thereby caused a deception - he saw a figure that did not exist in reality.
Subsequent studies have shown that in natural conditions, waves of such a low frequency can often occur. For example, infrasound can be generated when strong gusts of wind collide with chimneys or towers. It happens that sound waves of this type begin to rumble in corridors that are shaped like a tunnel.
Therefore, it is not by chance that people often meet with ghosts in the long, winding corridors of old castles.
Vic Tendy later published the results of his work in the journal of the Society for Physical Research. It was formed back in 1822 and united British parapsychologists and naturalists who were solving the problem of finding a reasonable explanation for paranormal phenomena.
Unsurprisingly, professional ghost hunters were enthusiastic about Tendy's idea. Moreover, one of the leading parapsychologists, Tony Cornell, believes that this idea of infrasound will help explain many mysterious phenomena.
As for other scientists, they have doubts about this theory. Physicists who directly investigate the effect of infrasound on the human body note that during experiments people complain of fatigue, strong pressure in the eyes or ears, but no one has seen hallucinations, especially in the form of ghosts.
Car drivers also do not experience any optical illusion, although it has long been known that when a car overcomes air resistance at high speed, the level of infrasonic waves in the cabin is very high.
