Of all the currently known anomalous phenomena, the so-called disembodied voices are considered one of the most mysterious and difficult to explain.
A shot from the Soviet cartoon "Echo" about a forest man who imitated various sounds
Researchers use this term to refer to semi-mystical sound phenomena observed in different parts of our planet.
They are often similar to human speech, but they do not have a visible or tangible source of sound.
Stories about such phenomena have been known since ancient times, and they exist in almost all peoples of the world.
The spirits talk
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Witnesses say that disembodied voices are similar to the well-known physical effect of sound bouncing off a solid obstacle. In particular, this is hinted at by one of the variants of the ancient Greek myth about the fate of a beautiful nymph named Echo. The myth about her says the following: "She dried up so that only a voice remained of her."
In Japan, disembodied voices were heard in some areas hundreds of years ago, and most often this happened in sparsely populated areas. They have long been called Uvan, Youkai, or Navii among the people. It is believed that these are the voices of spirits that inhabit abandoned temples or houses abandoned by people.
These disembodied entities do not contact a person in any way, but communicate only with each other in a language only they understand. The local residents try not to visit such places unnecessarily, although they assure that the conversations of spirits are not dangerous for a person.
An excerpt from the Irish saga "The Voyage of Mail-Duin" has become almost a classic, where the following description is given: "They (the travelers) sailed until they approached the giant silver pillar … Neither the base of the pillar, nor the top of it could be seen - he was so tall … And suddenly they heard a voice from the top of the pillar - powerful, sonorous, sonorous, but could not understand who was speaking, in any language.
Such stories can be found not only in the distant past. In the book of the candidate of historical sciences Andrey Burovsky (cycle "Mysteries of Khakassia") there is such a description:
“… near the modern village of Maina, a few kilometers away, there was an ancient cemetery … Every night, exactly at midnight, a voice was heard at the cemetery. Where he was coming from was not clear. A man spoke, but no one would undertake to determine his age … Some disembodied, rustling voice, as if an inanimate creature. A quiet voice impassively pronounced something like: "Teki mordo sella poki teva."
Further A. M. Burovsky writes that all local residents knew about this voice very well. Archaeologists also knew about him, who usually brought all the newcomers who arrived on the expedition to this cemetery - to listen to otherworldly sounds. And when the voice was eventually recorded on a tape recorder, the researchers tried to determine the language in which the words were spoken, but this did not bring results.
They also tried more than once to find out where this mysterious voice is coming from, but to no avail. And it all ended in 1980, when, when filling the bed of the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric station, the cemetery was flooded, and the mysterious sounds stopped. Now only tape recordings remain of the phenomenon.
This place is unclean …
Several points at once where such disembodied voices are heard, researchers from the nongovernmental organization "Avesta" noted on the territory of Samarskaya Luka, on the Middle Volga. Here, as in other similar places on the planet, no visible sources of sound were found.
Nowadays, the Avesta archive contains a lot of information about such anomalous phenomena, both discovered in historical sources and recorded according to modern observations.
One of the largest gullies (ravines) on Samarskaya Luka is called Askulsky, because its valley begins in an open area near the ancient village of Askuly, then it rushes southward, after which it flows into the Volga after 15 kilometers.
Information about the Askul gully and the village of Askuly was left in his book by the Holstein traveler Adam Olearius, who saw them in 1636. Among researchers of anomalous phenomena, these places are considered unique in terms of the accumulation of various natural and anthropogenic artifacts, and modern science cannot reliably explain the origin of some of them.
Legends about disembodied voices, which are sometimes heard in the little-studied screwdrivers of the Askul ravine, have been known to local residents for hundreds of years. In the 70s of the XIX century, some of these legends were recorded by the collector of Zhiguli folklore Dmitry Sadovnikov.
The old-timers of Askul told him that in the small ravines not far from their village, one sometimes hears some vague muttering. “But no one knows who is speaking and what exactly is saying, because the words are completely incomprehensible. And the old people interpret it like this: “The leshanka sings, but it doesn't seem to people, hides behind the haystacks”.
At the beginning of the XX century, another Samara local historian Fyodor Yakovlev, who studied the legends and legends of some Zhiguli villages and villages, wrote the following:
"Some indefinite sounds are often heard at the bee-house, and no one goes there now, because this place is unclean … Someone groans, cries, but no one is there …"
The researcher did not indicate the exact place where this phenomenon took place, however, by a number of signs it can be understood that he described the villages of Podgora or Vypolzovo, where beekeeping was widespread for a long time.
And in the 80s of the XX century, the Samara ethnographer Kirill Serebrenitsky recorded bylichs among local residents about the mysterious sounds and conversations sometimes heard in the foggy semi-darkness in the local tract of Maytuga.
According to his notes, here on dark moonless nights sometimes appears the ghost of an old robber hermitage, from which to this day you can hear strange voices calling somewhere belated traveler and seemingly whispering something to him under cover of fog. But, as in previous cases, it is not possible to determine the language spoken by this mystical voice.
The president of the non-governmental group "Avesta" Igor Pavlovich once became a direct witness of such a phenomenon, who tells about him as follows.
- This happened during our expedition trip to the Vavilov Dol tract, and then we were with television men from Moscow. It should be noted that in the tract there are many ravines overgrown with forest.
And during one of the filming in such a ravine, at some point, the usual forest sounds, that is, the rustle of leaves from the wind, the creak of trunks and the tapping of branches, were suddenly replaced by a strange blurry noise characteristic of a modern city street.
One could discern snatches of some conversations, individual words of human speech, and even something similar to the hum of assorted cars passing by. The most interesting thing was that these sounds were not only perceived by ear, but were also recorded by the microphones of TV cameras.
No visual or light effects were observed, only sounds. The phenomenon lasted no more than a minute, and then it stopped as suddenly as it began.
How to explain?
Alexander Koltypin, Candidate of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences, President of the Society for the Study of the Secrets and Mysteries of the Earth, made an attempt to explain the origin of disembodied voices on his website about the ancient (antediluvian, mythological) history of mankind.
- Once in one design bureau I had to deal with some artificial sound devices with twisted passages like shells and tuning forks. These devices cut off unnecessary frequencies and amplify the necessary ones, which are better perceived by the ear.
When you listen to the noise for a while, you soon begin to isolate various words and even individual phrases from it. With the proper tuning of the psyche, you can even receive significant verbal clues to the questions asked.
In the end, you can even enter into a kind of dialogue with someone unknown. You ask questions out loud, and a sound wave is generated, and after a while an echo is reflected in the ears in the form of quite recognizable words, which are perceived as answers to questions.
Conclusion from A. V. Koltypin can be done like this. When exposed to such sounds of unknown origin, the human brain sooner or later adapts to the information it receives. The auditory cortex of the brain begins to automatically isolate from the noise only the most necessary and builds these signals into a coherent internal dialogue.
As a result, chaotic noise begins to be perceived by us as human speech. Perhaps this is exactly what happens to observers in those places on our planet where incomprehensible sound effects are noted.
However, it should be noted that this hypothesis, of course, does not allow one to explain all the diversity of those phenomena that scientists now combine under the general name "disembodied voices."
Valery EROFEEV, magazine "Secrets of the XX century" №51, 2016