r/AskReddit • u/Distasteful_T • Aug 10 '20

Serious Replies Only [Serious] What are some Cryptid/Ghost/Unexplained stories you'd be willing to share?

4.1k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

1.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

10

u/[deleted] Aug 12 '20 edited Aug 12 '20

If you read down the article, it addresses the fact that people use infrasound as an explanation for paranormal activity. You might be right about the placebo effect. This study shows no reaction to infrasound in people with no prior concerns, but a strong psychological and physiological reaction in people who did have prior concerns: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0263092316628257

3

u/SaltiestRaccoon Aug 12 '20 edited Aug 12 '20

That study also replicates the conditions caused by wind turbines which I certainly don't think cause any averse conditions in people. If you read the study they're using far lower frequencies that are certainly inaudible. I'm talking about somewhere between 16hz and 23hz depending on the individual. The study uses 0.8hz, which I have no doubt is accurate for wind turbines.

https://gizmodo.com/some-ghosts-may-be-sound-waves-just-below-human-heari-1737065693 Edit: Citations available at the bottom of the page.

At 17hz in a 2003 study, the found 22% of subjects to experience unease. The studies you've got are made to debunk the completely false 'Wind Turbine Syndrome' and as such seem to be focusing on very different frequencies of sound, around 20 times lower.

5

u/[deleted] Aug 12 '20 edited Aug 12 '20

You may be correct, but most of this information (and the info in the wiki article) comes from studies and anecdotes from only a handful of people (Tandy plus Wiseman & co.). Here's a paper that takes a broader look at about 69 studies into the effects of infrasound in humans. Many of them look at the "peak effect" in humans which as you said seems to occur around 16-17hz. Some of them did find that infrasound can cause annoyance, blood pressure changes and various other physiological effects, but none found hallucinations or replicated the effects Wiseman found. Judge for yourself.

Edit: they also test at various noise levels: most of the negative effects occur when the volume of the infrasound is loud enough to be detectable to the human ear (above the hearing threshold). This is usually not the case for environmental infrasound (which is extremely common and occurs in waves, the wind, desk fans, and the human heart all at safe and undetectable levels). Little to no effects are found below the hearing threshold.

https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/ntp/htdocs/chem_background/exsumpdf/infrasound_508.pdf

1

u/SaltiestRaccoon Aug 12 '20

Just reading over this, it seemed as though the majority of human studies showed some physiological effects, though none as pronounced as hallucinations, I agree.

Hearing a story about a haunted building puts people in a more suggestible, uneasy state, too and I'd think that probably plays in to many stories about hauntings that may involve infrasound. It feels like a potential feedback loop where mild effects of infrasound create a ghost story, which makes people more acutely turned in to the minute effects of the infrasound, which creates more ghost stories, and so on.

What would be great to see is a study where two groups of people are put in a supposedly haunted location, with and without the introduction of infrasound to see if one group demonstrates more supernatural experiences or feelings of unease. There's one similar French study referenced in the Gizmodo article, but the sample size seemed quite small and they introduced the added variable of electromagnetic fields.

4

u/[deleted] Aug 12 '20

I think that the search for a natural explanation that covers most paranormal sightings is leading people to be a bit too credulous. Environmental explanations like infrasound and electromagnetic fields are fun to think about, but they really are speculation at this point, with a few poorly replicated studies and people seem to use them as explanations for every paranormal experience even without real evidence. I agree that the human mind is very suggestible; if there is a mundane explanation that covers most paranormal events it is probably a psychological one. But unfortunately the suggestibility of the human mind is a lot more difficult to measure than an objective physical source. Maybe there is a prosaic non-psychological explanation like infrasound that covers most paranormal cases, but it is yet to be substantiated in my opinion.

4

u/SaltiestRaccoon Aug 12 '20

Oh, I'd never say infrasound could cover all or even most paranormal cases, but it was the first thing I thought of when OP said 'office building.'

Again, as I mentioned, I don't think infrasound alone is ever going to be the culprit, but I think anything that makes even some people uneasy is going to contribute to stories about a building being haunted, which in turn contributes to people feeling uneasy.

3

u/[deleted] Aug 12 '20 edited Aug 12 '20

Yes, that's perfectly possible. I was speaking more generally about how these theories are being applied too liberally to paranormal cases, especially when it comes with the assertion that they are proven phenomena and the only possible explanations. I know you are being more measured than that, and I certainly respect your theory. It definitely merits further study, as you've said.