The Creepy Scientific Explanation Behind Ghost Sightings
In the engineering building where Tandy worked, cleaning staff as well as fellow researchers complained of feeling dread, depression and a strange feeling that someone was watching them. But what made the situation really worthy of a Scooby-Do episode was the fact that every so often the staff would see dark figures out of the corners of their eyes.
You can get the same sensation by going four days without sleep.
Now we're talking.
After one particularly strange experience when a gray shape sat next to his desk for several minutes, Vic Tandy was determined to figure out what the hell was going on. Being a man of science, he was going to skip the part where he had an exorcist come and bless the facility.
After eliminating gas poisoning and rogue equipment, Vic realized that the ghostly apparitions seemed to almost always occur in a certain section of the lab. He also realized that if he put a metal sheet in a vice, it would spontaneously vibrate uncontrollably for no apparent reason. Poltergeist, right?
No. Just infrasound.
Specifically, a "silent" exhaust fan was sending out low frequency vibrations that bounced back and forth on the lab's walls until they formed a powerful wave at... 18.9Hz. Right at the top of the panic range.
And, according to a NASA study, it was powerful enough to resonate with the average human eyeball, causing "smeared" vision. This is a phenomenon where the eye vibrates just enough to register something static -- say, the frame of your glasses or a speck of dust -- as large, moving shapes.
GAH!
Predictably enough, once the vibrating fan was removed, the strange apparitions and feelings of fear disappeared.
Convinced that he had stumbled onto something, Vic Tandy went on to test this explanation for ghostly apparitions in the cellar of a nearby "haunted" abbey. According to the locals, as soon as someone would step into the cellar they would freeze up, see strange gray ghosts and have to leave because of nausea. Vic discovered that the shape of the cellar, the hallway leading to it as well as nearby factories all contributed in making the haunted cellar a perfect resonating chamber. The vibrations created were exactly 18.9Hz and were most powerful at the threshold of the cellar, where most people became sick and terrified.
Could it be? All of these hauntings, all of this folklore, all of it caused by something so, so stupid?
Pictured: fucking pipes.
Also, could somebody with an infrasound generator use this against you? You bet. They even experimented with this during Vietnam, blasting sounds of various frequencies from helicopters, trying to induce panic or at least severe annoyance in the Viet Cong below. Instead of driving away the enemy, infrasound only made them scared and trigger happy. While this was not ideal during a war situation infrasound was later used by the British as a successful method of crowd control.
The problem is it doesn't affect everyone the same way -- obviously not everyone at the abbey saw a ghost. And if you're trying to do it artificially, you need very large and very powerful equipment.
Still, if you want to make people who enter your building feel an otherworldly sense of fear or awe, install an infrasound generator. A large pipe organ will do.
Better home defence than a 12 gauge shotgun.
So if you're ever troubled by strange noises in the middle of the night or you experience feelings of dread in your basement or attic or even if someone in your family sees a spook, specter, or ghost ...
Well, call the repair guy, because it might be caused by a malfunctioning ventilation fan.
Sadly, it turns out these guys AREN'T who you need to call.
Well, i really dont believe in ghost, at all, and this article serves to solidify my points, but how about those "videos" on the news, does the same resonance thing apply for video cameras ?
ReplySoon my plans will be complete and my army of ghost will rain terror on this earth!! And it will all be thanks to you Crakced!! (and science!)
ReplyWhat the fuck? I never clicked on this article, why did my laptop randomly open a new tab? f**k it, this article is bullshit, ghost ARE real...
ReplyOf course they are. They opened up the article, didn't they?
That's been happening to me a lot on Cracked lately. Never this article, though, ghosts are afraid of it.
Occam's razor =-) knew what it was, all thanks to Eureka.
ReplyI kinda shat my pants when I hurriedly scrolled down and stopped on the mole person ;_;
Replyheres another one, humans are the greatest storytellers on this planet. their imaginations seem to know no bounds, if its not a physical occurrence, its a psychological one.
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesSo, who are the second greatest storytellers on the planet?
That would be the slow loris
Dolphins, and mice.
I would have said lassie or any other animal that cannot speak yet is in a spot of bother are
I rather enjoyed this article, and only wish it was longer.
ReplyAll this time, Video games aren't to blame for anxiety, it's the noisy fans!
ReplyHow absolutly, (and typically), arrogant for human beings to think that we possess the all the intellect we need to understand all there is to know in the universe, both seen and unseen. There are an infinate amount of things...very real things... all around us that we have no idea about.
Reply Hide All See All 16 Replies... except they DID explain the phenomena in these specific cases, and then proved it using experimentation, and nobody claimed to have explained away all ghost sightings ever. How "absolutly" arrogant of you to assume that scientists think they know everything.
I just read over my post, and the only thing I see is I used the word, "the" twice in the first sentence. I've looked, and don't see the word, "scientist", in my post at all.
I agree with Magnolia1354
are you kidding me? seriously? your stupid.
What's wrong with wanting to explain how everything happens?
What's wrong with trying to find explanations for all the random phenomena that happens in the world?
Well unless you are talking about dolphin scientists, they are human, a word you did use.
How absolutely (and typically) arrogant for human beings to dismiss conclusions reached through large amounts of time and effort spent by people much smarter than them, in favor of their own made-up-on-the-spot explanations, because they are to stubborn to accept explanations that they don't like or that don't fit within their narrow world view, because, well, they just know it in their gut. Well, fine. You, sir, are a complete and utter moron! What do I base this on? Well, I just know it in my gut
How absolutely (and typically) arrogant for human beings to begin their sentences with "How absolutely (and typically) arrogant" when trying to act snobby and condescending towards someone else's views. How absolutely (and typically) arrogant of us, indeed.
How very funny. Are you suggesting that we stop trying to figure out the cause and effect of the world around us? Would you like us to stop searching for the cause/cure for cancer and other fatal diseases? Or when a natural disaster occurs, maybe instead of trying to figure out what conditions caused it and minimize those conditions in the future we could all just hide under tables and proclaim that God has smote us for our sins.
God, if there's anything I hate more than snooty people who try too hard to appear smart, it's snooty people who try to hard to appear smart while high.
There may indeed be things that we cannot currently explain. That doesn't mean there is no rational explanation for these things that we may eventually discover.
The information in this article show that we can certainly explain some of these things.
I actually agree with you on a great level, human's do have the overwhelming urge to try and solve everything single phenomenon. We're now in a day and age of a paradigm shift where science is the biggest belief, because it has the most evidence. Before it was religion and funnily enough a lot of scientists are agreeing with spiritual predictions now e.g. revelations. This article is a good theory but one theory can't explain every single ghost encounter or study ever witnessed. That's flawed research. Sceptics can disagree all they want unfortunately not everyone has an open mind.
Everyone in this thread is arrogant and human !
will smith milked a frog once... with his mouth!
I'm sure that once you find proof that rather than nature and our bodies teaming up to scare us that ghosts are actually caused by that persons soul failing to get into heaven or hell that scientist will also change there theories. Scientist arent morons. They will change their ideas when presented with evidence to the contrary. For example just because scientist agreed back a few hundred years ago that the world is flat does not mean scientist are bound to say it is flat now.
If you need huge equipment to artificially create this phenomenon then why is it that just a faulty vent fan can produce it. I'm no acoustics expert but I know a bit about the topic and you can create all sorts of sounds with very tiny pieces of equipment. I suspect, but do not know because this article didn't discuss it, that it has something to do with the volume, or amplitude, needed to instill fear or resonate with a human eyeball.
Reply Hide All See All 5 RepliesAlso, just a bit of info to fill in some blanks, the average human can hear frequencies as low as 20 Hz but you can resonate the human eye at higher frequencies. From experience I know that the low A of a baritone saxiphone (about 55 Hz) can resonate the eye to the point where the lines of the numbers of a digital clock appear to move independently from one another.
And by "the average human can hear frequencies as low as 20 Hz" I mean that the person can actually discern a tone, not the "silent" hearing discussed in this article.
Because in the conditions stated in the article, both the fan and the environment itself is the equipment in question. For instance, the example of a room's exhaust fan sending vibrations that bounce back and forth to amplify at a particular frequency is a standing wave. Standing waves only occur in very specific conditions; They require parallel walls at a distance that is a multiple of the frequency's wavelength. So in order to generate infrasound at a particular frequency, you need to either be in a room that is of those particular dimensions or you need a loudspeaker capable of generating that frequency. The large equipment the article refers to is the latter. A loudspeaker's lowest generating tone is proportional to its size. For reference, while an 8 inch diameter loudspeaker (average sized subwoofer) can generate 20hz, it requires a LOT more power to do so at equal amplitude compared to, say, 40hz.
Thanks asovren. That does make quite a bit of sense but it also suggests that if you know what you're doing you could recreate this effect without humungous equipment as long as you have a decent chamber in which to do it. My only real skepticism left for this article then is that if it's so unlikely to purposely or accidentally produce these frequencies why are ghost sightings that fit the situations discussed so common. Not trying to be argumentative. Just playing devil's advocate here.
@Asovren, if this is the case, couldn't we create a "superhaunted" room? A room of the right dimensions, with an audio installation capable of generating the desired wavelenghts and the room's dimensions to amplify those?
Not only would it make a great themepark haunted house ride, but we could also use it for tests. Send in a couple self-proclaimed Mediums, see what they come up with. Send in a few regular folk, see what sights, visions or feelings they report. It could be an invaluable look at the human psyche. Plus, afterwards we'd get to wave the scientific facts in their faces.
...And possibly still use the room as a themepark ride.
To answer the question about "Why are 'haunted' houses so common if the situations to create them are so hard to pull off?", how many of those houses have you actually seen? I know of one in my area, and even then, I spent several hours in it after midnight and I didn't notice a thing. For every 'haunted' house there's a thousand, if not ten thousand or even a hundred thousand homes with nothing.
This isn't a creepy explanation it's a plausible one i was hoping the scientists would say "We have no idea what causes this phenomenon it could very well be supernatural".
ReplyIt can't explain everything, but it does explain quite a bit of "sketchy" sightings.
ReplyGhost don't exist, if they did, it will be a BIG deal. We will then finally have the answer that yes, afterlife exist. We life even after death. Out of the thousands of ghost sightings per year, for many many years, there has never been a single piece of evidence that ghost exist.
ReplyBut if they actually did, it will be awesome. I could finally become a ghost-buster, capture ghost for a living.
I'm not saying that ghosts are real per se but I'd llike to play devil's advocate here and thousands of eyewitness accounts could very well be considered evidence not to mention that many things that science had yet to get around to were previously without any evidence, such as atoms, megnetic fields, the type of gravity and nuclear fusion needed for stars to exists, and even Ted Nugent.
The fact that thousands of people see them every year means there is something that they are seeing. No more, no less. I believe there is one semi-famous ghost story that turned out to be caused by carbon monoxide poisoning due to a faulty furnace or something. And then there's this low frequency sound stuff that we can't hear or causes our eyeballs to vibrate so we see stuff that isn't really there.
And fyi, I'm pretty sure that I could find enough unexplained phenomena out there that shows that... how should I put it... that would suggest that flat out denial of ghosts is unreasonable.
I'm pretty sure it was the devil...
Replysome say the devil is dead.... And buried in Killarney!
"Ghosthunters" makes at least a sincere attempt to "debunk" ghostly experiences. That said, sometimes they seem too quick to accept "ghosts" as an explanation, while contrarily accepting assumptions "debunking" paranormal activities that fly in the face of the evidence. They are the first to acknowledge that they aren't scientists but do make an effort to compile relatively "hard" evidence using the tools of the trade. I find their experiments using simple flashlight to communicate with "ghosts" very interesting. At times something DOES seem to be responding to their questions. Even the snarky skeptic that hosts Destination Truth has had some interesting unexplained experiences. And he makes a show out of his disbelief. Of course you could argue that these shows are all "fake", but there's been no evidence to that effect, and being on TV you would think someone would have come forward if that was the case. Science? No. Interesting? Yes. Ghosts? I don't know. Maybe there's another explanation, but not every person who sees or hears a ghost is deluded, and not every haunted area offers a logical explanation--at least not with the science we have today.
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Reply"Ghosthunters" makes at least a sincere attempt to "debunk" ghostly experiences. That said, sometimes they seem too quick to accept "ghosts" as an explanation, while contrarily accepting assumptions "debunking" paranormal activities that fly in the face of the evidence. They are the first to acknowledge that they aren't scientists but do make an effort to compile relatively "hard" evidence using the tools of the trade. I find their experiments using simple flashlight to communicate with "ghosts" very interesting. At times something DOES seem to be responding to their questions. Even the snarky skeptic that hosts Destination Truth has had some interesting unexplained experiences. And he makes a show out of his disbelief. Science? No. Interesting? Yes. Ghosts? I don't know. Maybe there's another explanation, but not every person who sees or hears a ghost is deluded, and not every haunted area offers a logical "scientific" explanation--at least not with the science we have today.
the 1st season they did. ever since then they sold out and every single noise is a ghost. I can't even watch that show anymore. SYFY ruins all their good shows
So...does that mean deaf people would be immune to the "scary frequency" effect?
ReplyNot necessarily...many people classified as 'deaf' are not 100% deaf. There may be certain frequencies that they can hear to a certain extent. However, it makes sense that deaf people would experience this less often than people with fully functional hearing.
I believe that infrasound is "heard" outside of the usual hearing process (that is to say that infrasound doesn't get transferred from physical energy into bio-electrical energy by means of the inner ear). The reason for the 20hz limit in human hearing is because we don't have cilia large enough to be affected by a wavelength larger than that. Given that, I'm assuming that the body reacts to infrasound by the brain detecting the resonance of the body itself, rather than detecting them from the usual cues in the auditory system. I'd guess that someone would be less prone to reaction from infrasound if they were deaf for a mental reason (the ear translates the sounds as it should be the brain for whatever reason is unable to compute). A person deafened by physical means (punctured ear drum, for instance) should be able to react to infrasound as anyone else would.
Just my speculation, I could be totally wrong on this assumption.
EVP Experiments,
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesDead Weight Experiment,
The God Helmet Experiment,
The Philip Experiment,
Harry Houdini’s Secret Code Experiment,
The Afterlife Experiments,
Sir William Crookes Experiments,
The Reincarnation Experiments,
The Scole Experiment.
Sure Infrasounds explained the scenarios of sudden coldness and omnoius feeling but theres far more to explain to settle it. So Crack,can you make any article for it?
you're gullible. there- settled without an article.
@monkbot: Come on now. A healthy amount of sceptisism is one thing but out right calling people who want to further a science (notice the word experiment after each of those examples of possible evidence) gullible is the same sort of logic bullies used when you asked why they were taking your lunch money and they said "because". I bet you don't believe in germs either.
"Gulible" is not an explanation of an occurence any more than immediately shouting "ghosts" is, even if it is in your best Shaggy or Scooby impersonation. Then again I guess there's a reason you're not writing articles for cracked. In fact, I can explain the reason for that.
you're dumb. (tottally a scientific explaination)
@Kirin, just because someone puts the word "experiment" after something doesn't mean that an actual scientific experiment was done. I don't have time to go through all of them, but using the first example, EVP, how is tape recording a silent room, playing back the sound with the gain up very high, and hearing "ghost noises" a scientific experiment? Also, there is the small fact that what they're hearing can be explained by auditory pareidolia (giving some noise that isn't human speech meaning in our own language), surely if you had someone who speaks a different language, they would imagine that what they're hearing is a "ghost" saying something in their own language. As an example, an article I was reading on here yesterday mentioned how there was a creepy voice saying what sounded like "forgive us" after a certain chord was played on a music game for some handheld. In reality, it was the Japanese phrase for "next", meaning "okay, let's play the next chord".
Science can actually explain ghosts and s**t like that a little better than "infrasound" But only in theory, like most stuff. Everything is made up of energy, and the law of theory of relativity says energy can NOT be destroyed, but only changed or absorbed. So the human body is a giant meat-sack holding a s**t ton of energy. What happens to the energy when we die? In a residual haunting, the energy is absorbed into the walls, and replays over and over again, or sometimes it remains dorment until some a*****e decided to add a batcave to it. Then the energy is released. Who's to say we live never-ending lives, only changing form or dimentions or whatever? Nobody really knows, but it's still fun to think about it.
Reply Hide All See All 5 RepliesAlso, i Would like to say,copper pipes and high electrical fields like a breaker box, (which i have in my damn bedroom) intrfer with a living beings own little field of energy, f*****g with their brain. So most often than not, old houses with old wireing, will make you feel, see and hear shit. So it's not logical to assume "GHOST" just because you feel something is watching you undress and shit.
Right, that could just be the nerd up the street.
Aw, your pathetic attempts to understand energy (by the way, the law of conservation of energy is the first law of thermodynamics. Einstein wasn't even born yet) are adorable. I bet you think you can totally, like, channel your energy and be Naruto dude.
So basically your trying to say that ghosts our just our soul but in 'scientific' terms?
The energy in our bodies "goes" to the same place the energy in your Game Boy goes to when you switch it off.
Why stop at the abbey? This dude could've made millions by going from place-to-place cleansing spirits by locating the source of infrasound. He'd be nicknamed Ghostbuster and probably get the rights to the movie. Instead he tests two spots and was satisfied with this as research? Doesn't sound very 'scientistish' to me. Definitely doesn't cover the spectrum caused by either real ghosts, severe mental illness or both.
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