I attended a concert recently. I'm not really one for concerts. The large groups of people, shiny things and music befuddles me. However, I went along and experienced an interesting phenomena, for want of a better word.
There we were, standing at Twickenham, when my heart started to really hurt, like it was in a vice. Eventually, I had to leave the crowd and go outside for an emergency fag. Normally, I'd just put this down to my poor health, but a few of the other people I was with experienced the same thing.
More worryingly, I was just looking up some of the possible causes on the net and came across this:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_weapon
Usage and deployment
Extremely high-power sound waves can disrupt and/or destroy the eardrums of a target and cause severe pain or disorientation. This is usually sufficient to incapacitate a person. Less powerful sound waves can cause humans to experience nausea or discomfort. The use of these frequencies to incapacitate persons has occurred both in counter-terrorist and crowd control settings.
The possibility of a device that produces frequency that causes vibration of the eyeballs — and therefore distortion of vision — was apparently confirmed by the work of engineer Vic Tandy[3][4] while attempting to demystify a “haunting” in his laboratory in Coventry. This “spook” was characterised by a feeling of unease and vague glimpses of a grey apparition. Some detective work implicated a newly installed extractor fan that, Tandy found, was generating infrasound of 18.9 Hz, 0.3 Hz, and 9 Hz.
A long range acoustic device has been used by the crew of the cruise ship Seabourn Spirit to deter pirates who chased and attacked the ship.[5] More commonly this device and others of similar design have been used to disperse protesters and rioters in crowd control efforts. A similar system is called a "magnetic acoustic device".[6] 'mobile' sonic devices have been used in Grimsby, Hull and Lancashire to deter teenagers from lingering around shops in target areas. The device works by emitting an ultra-high frequency blast (around 19–20 kHz) that teenagers or people under approximately 20 are susceptible to and find uncomfortable. Age-related hearing loss apparently prevents the ultra-high pitch sound from causing a nuisance to those in their late twenties and above, though this is wholly dependent on a young person's exposure to high sound pressure levels.
High-amplitude sound of a specific pattern at a frequency close to the sensitivity peak of human hearing (2-3 kHz) is used as a burglar deterrent.[7]
Some police forces have used sound cannons against protesters, for example during the G20 summit in Pittsburgh.[8]
I'm not suggesting I was exposed to a sonic weapon, but I find it interesting just how little your average person knows about this stuff. By the way, I'm not suggesting everything on wiki is correct, either, but I know some of the above to be absolutely true. I think it interesting, given all the news about weird sounds and dead animals recently.
