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New Subsonic Danger
The original experimenter with subsonic whistles killed himself with them. Exposure to one of his devices disassembled his innards sufficiently to do him in.

I have not, however, heard of any problems with frequencies as high as 20 cps (Hz), and most speaker systems are useless below that frequency.

6 cps and thereabouts interferes with your brain waves causing confusion and probably disabling your ability to turn off the device. Basically, you're done for.

There was very active discussion of subsonic whistles many years ago in Scientific American (and some science fiction stories featured them). Then an article was published in Scientific American on how to make a directional array of subsonic whistles (which would obviously turn them into a Weapon of Mass Destruction). That was the very last article or story on the subject I ever saw, and I'd wager you'll have a really hard time finding a copy of that issue.

I still doubt you can get enough acoustic power out of a computer subwoofer at frequencies significantly below 20 cps to do much damage.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
New extra low frequencies ELF
[link|http://www.earthpulse.com/haarp/ground.html|http://www.earthpuls...haarp/ground.html]
as usual raytheon owns the patents, When I interviewed with Hughes electronics{purchased by Raytheon) the man who did the interview was the chief scientist of the project, We had a greay interview, 5 minutes about the company then an hour and a half of what they were doing with elf. (I was remotely hired pending a f2f for an FAA COTS project spec) He was explaining that using an aiming point on certain old mines in fairbanks alaska area near murphys dome they could map all the tunnels and hopefully veins. I suggested they ought to get the govt of Egypt to allow the pyramids to be probed. He said the effects of being directly in this wave would feel your skin heating up and disorentation but the beam was low lasting and you could move easily into a safe zone. About a year later the army took it under.
thanx.
bill
"You're just like me streak. You never left the free-fire zone.You think aspirins and meetings and cold showers are going to clean out your head. What you want is God's permission to paint the trees with the bad guys. That wont happen big mon." Clete
questions, help? [link|mailto:pappas@catholic.org|email pappas at catholic.org]
New Medusa: a French weapon.
Somewhere I think I still have a Science & Mechanics? with a pic on cover of a French "lethal sound" military device. It indeed resembles 'Medusa' in having various horns of appropriate taper - sprouting from the generator, their exponential bores entwined, to compact the mess.

Off-tophead - seem to recall that ~54 Hz was close enough the res. freq. of the anal sphincter. [non-lethal trooper pooper?] Article included 'infrasound' in the description. As you suggest here, freqs in the single-digit proved capable of really screwing up internal organs, most of which hang in ways as can be reduced to a simple Helmholtz resonator.

(Think this issue was from the mid '60s, but maybe '70s)
Since lethality was claimed and it was intended to be a working weapon: I don't doubt the concept. Put enough energy into Anything and you can do bad things.

Note that they were talking EXTREMELY high SPLs (sound pres. level) like ~ >150+ dBm, though that refers to "a mW across 600 Ohms" and I'm not sure if it was a mere "dB" ref to some other power level and impedance.

Only surprise:
That of having heard so little about these matters, since.

moi

(I can look for the issue, if anyone cares - after I return)

PS - no 'audiophile' system, bass-cube etc. even of the Yuppie massively-overpriced-Rolex sort -- is apt to come close to anything lethal, my slide rule suggests. And getting an authentic (non-doubled) 20 Hz signal into a room is also no trivial matter .. re room dimensions and Audio 101A physics.
New Kate Bush song - Experiment IV
[link|http://www.seeklyrics.com/lyrics/Kate-Bush/Experiment-Iv.html|Experiment IV] lyrics:

We were working secretly for the military.
Our experiment in sound was nearly ready to begin.
We only know in theory what we are doing.
Music made for pleasure
music made to thrill.
It was music we were making here until -

But they told us all they wanted was a sound
that could kill someone

From a distance
so we go ahead

and the meters are over in the red.
It's a mistake in the making.

[...]


A problem with a weapon like this is - how do you protect your troops from being affected by it?

Cheers,
Scott.
New sound is a wave, point it in front of you
"You're just like me streak. You never left the free-fire zone.You think aspirins and meetings and cold showers are going to clean out your head. What you want is God's permission to paint the trees with the bad guys. That wont happen big mon." Clete
questions, help? [link|mailto:pappas@catholic.org|email pappas at catholic.org]
New Low frequencies aren't as directional as higher.
E.g. Subwoofers often point down and the sound just fills the room, they aren't aimed at your ears.

[link|http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:JlqvbT8XRWkJ:www.natf.org/documents/psycoa.pdf&hl=en&ie=UTF-8|Psychoacoustics]:

Low Freq. waves are very long and non-directional.

High Freq. waves are very short and very directional.


The wavelength of a 20 Hz sound is 56.5 feet, so it's not directional the way a 4000 Hz sound with a wavelength of 3.3 inches is.

Cheers,
Scott.
New Which was the point of the array,
With a properly phased array (don't remember how they did that) of whistles, the sound beam becomes highly directional and a scientific curiosity becomes a WMD.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
New Exactly, similar but not identical to...
A Rail Gun, but using sound pressure.

Rail guns use phasal motivation, if you add energy at the correct phase it adds to the effect, affecting the projectile (or pressure wave)

Have to be a big dern gun though.
--
[link|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net|greg],
[link|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ iwethey

"I told my doctor that everyone hates me. He said I was being ridiculous, everyone hasn't met me yet." -Rodney Dangerfield
New Probably more similar to phased array radar . . .
. . those big flat panel things you see pictures of all the time.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
New has 5 stars in my iPod
I have a few of her CDs, good stuff.
Darrell Spice, Jr.                      [link|http://www.spiceware.org/cgi-bin/spa.pl?album=./Artistic%20Overpass|Artistic Overpass]\n[link|http://www.spiceware.org/|SpiceWare] - We don't do Windows, it's too much of a chore
New An article on Gavreau's organ.
[link|http://www.borderlands.com/archives/arch/gavreaus.htm|Here].

I'd be skeptical though, based on things like [link|http://trauma.cofa.unsw.edu.au/Infrasound/NewScientist01.html|this] more recent article.

The idea that low-frequency vibrations make you ill may have started because some people feel queasy during earthquakes. Nikola Tesla, the inventor of transformers and generators, reportedly duplicated the effect with a vibrating chair almost a century ago.

But those observations were based on mechanical vibrations in solids, which couple energy to the human body much more efficiently than sound waves can transfer energy from the air. Altmann says that experiments in which people or animals have been subjected to airborne infrasound suggest the weapons won't work.

"I found no hard evidence for vomiting or uncontrolled defecation, even at levels of 170 decibels or more," Altmann says. And while air transmits infrasound very well, he points out that the wavelengths are so long--17 metres or more--that it spreads out too rapidly to form a controllable beam.


FWIW.

Cheers,
Scott.
New Re: An article on Gavreau's organ.
Nice followup, at first glance - wonder if the US Army bothered to check with the French.

Having built at least the prototype shown, one might suppose that they had found some other poor fucking mammals to try it out on, quite a while back from '99. A little physics calc. on the 17M wavelength vs radial dispersion.. should aso prompt a little more informative a rebuttal than, "can't work". Faith-based, perhaps?

Though one can grok the different efficiencies twixt 'chair bolted to floor' VS air - methinks that the link no more proves 'won't work' - than does the French prototype's existence prove the opposite. Square One: so then, what About infrasound weapons ??






Guess: classified. Either way. Sometimes the threat is enough. Reminds me of an observation *cough*


What a bizarre 'field' ... all about 'Information' - and nobody has any you'd trust!
New A more detailed scientific report.
[link|http://trauma.cofa.unsw.edu.au/Infrasound/acousticweapons.pdf|Here] (PDF), and [link|http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache:C9ara51zb2AJ:trauma.cofa.unsw.edu.au/Infrasound/acousticweapons.pdf&hl=en&ie=UTF-8|here] is Google's HTML version. It's a report by J\ufffdrgen Altmann of Germany.

1.4 Goals of This Report

To my knowledge, acoustic weapons have not been the subject of detailed public scientific analysis. They were discussed in a section of a 1978 book and a 1994 conference contribution, both motivated by humanitarian-law concerns; these, however, are rather short and non-quantitative. A very recent article is significantly more comprehensive, but relies heavily on general statements from a firm engaged in developing acoustic weapons, the defense press, and military research and development institutions. The author calls for a "much more sophisticated and fuller understanding of the damage caused by high power acoustic beams" and asks the humanitarian-law community to involve itself in the assessment and debate.

The present report is intended to contribute to that goal by presenting more, and more reliable, information, so that serious analysis of military-operational, humanitarian, disarmament, or other political aspects need not rely on incomplete or even obscure sources.

This study is based on the open literature and my own theoretical analysis, without access to scientific-technical data gained in acoustic-weapons research and development, and without original experiments. Something may have been overlooked; at some points speculation is unavoidable; and some questions will remain open, hopefully to be answered by future work.

The questions to be answered are the following:
C What are the effects of strong, in particular low-frequency, sound on humans?
C Is there a danger of permanent damage?
C What would be the properties of the sound sources (above all, size, mass, power requirement)?
C How, and how far, does strong sound propagate?
C Can we draw conclusions on the practical use by police or military?

The following subsection (1.5) gives a few general remarks on acoustics. Effects of strong sound on humans are described in section 2. Section 3 deals with production of strong sound. Protective measures and therapy are the subject of section 4. Several allegations made in journalistic articles are analyzed in section 5. Finally, section 6 presents preliminary conclusions.

General properties of pressure waves in air are described in the appendix, and details of the analysis of allegations concerning acoustic-weapons effects are given.


Cheers,
Scott.
New Thanks -
lots of material there, though apparently not from any of the military data. Shall have to follow several of these, after current project. I see that one shortly must ponder the other implications, as with any effort to make weapons less lethal - inevitably these too shall proliferate, even if half-baked.

Now I do have to look for that Sci & Mech. issue! Dunno whether to hope this works <--> or doesn't, given our propensity for magnifying mischief. (And who ever sets their Phasers on stun - in '04?)


Gracias,

moi
New I'm not quite sure what the big deal is
when an explosion causes overcompression that turns a body's internal organs into soup, it is basically the same thing that is beind discussed here. Simply put, right next to the explosion the sound of the explosion is loud enough to kill. I don't think there's a lot of need to refine more than that...
--\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\n* Jack Troughton                            jake at consultron.ca *\n* [link|http://consultron.ca|http://consultron.ca]                   [link|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca] *\n* Kingston Ontario Canada               [link|news://news.consultron.ca|news://news.consultron.ca] *\n-------------------------------------------------------------------
     Fun? Comments? Tinfoil hattery? - (pwhysall) - (25)
         since its an exe file I cant tell -NT - (boxley) - (1)
             It's an ogg, innit? -NT - (pwhysall)
         I feel fine. - (Another Scott) - (5)
             Wot OS/Platform? - (pwhysall) - (3)
                 Win2k + SP4, Moz. - (Another Scott) - (2)
                     I'd recommend WinAmp 2. - (pwhysall) - (1)
                         Hmm. Typical Windows run-around in progress. - (Another Scott)
             I suspect that my Altec Lansing ADA995 will reproduce 20Hz - (pwhysall)
         Odd tingles -NT - (ben_tilly)
         Subsonic Danger - (Andrew Grygus) - (14)
             extra low frequencies ELF - (boxley)
             Medusa: a French weapon. - (Ashton) - (7)
                 Kate Bush song - Experiment IV - (Another Scott) - (6)
                     sound is a wave, point it in front of you -NT - (boxley) - (4)
                         Low frequencies aren't as directional as higher. - (Another Scott) - (3)
                             Which was the point of the array, - (Andrew Grygus) - (2)
                                 Exactly, similar but not identical to... - (folkert) - (1)
                                     Probably more similar to phased array radar . . . - (Andrew Grygus)
                     has 5 stars in my iPod - (SpiceWare)
             An article on Gavreau's organ. - (Another Scott) - (3)
                 Re: An article on Gavreau's organ. - (Ashton) - (2)
                     A more detailed scientific report. - (Another Scott) - (1)
                         Thanks - - (Ashton)
             I'm not quite sure what the big deal is - (jake123)
         Run away! It is the "Brown Noise"! :) - (orion)

Shown here is a tranquil scene in the north woods. A beaver has just completed its dam, two black bears forage for food, a swallow-tailed butterfly flutters in the foreground, a loon swims quietly by, and a kingfisher searches for a tasty fish.
120 ms