More on DoD sound

[Eliot Handelman <eliot@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello once again,

My request for information about DoD infrasound research has been answered
by people with similar interests, but so far no specifics. Lest this topic
die in the fold, here's a summary of an interview with Mark Pauline of
"Survival Research Labs" that appeared in Mondo 2000 #2, Summer 1990:

1. He has "all of the papers," about 400 papers and articles. There's
"hundreds and hundreds of studies." He's got "several hundred studies
by all these different people on the kinds of effects."

2. "It's really a very powerful tool for mood manipulation ... you'll
feel very giddy, your face will flush red ... if you're drunk you'll
become much more drunk ... you'll lose about 20% of your IQ and about
15-20% of your ability to balance yourself ... it makes your chest vibrate
... it makes your eyes shake so much that you can't see clearly
anymore."

3. The French Police have "ultrasonic ... like phase waves of
ultrasonic [ellipses in orig.] ... those are dangerous." "They make
phased waves of two different frequencies that are slightly off each other
by like 30 Hz. What happens is you experience a really high frequency
scream that you can't really hear but can really damage, rupture, your
insides if it's on a long time." "... this guy had binoculars with
these ultrasonic transducers beaming out 2 different frequencies
and he fired it at a horse during a horse race and the horse
just tumbled out of control."

4. "Every part of your body has a resonant frequency. ... The really
dangerous frequencies are in the area of 2000 Hz. Anything above 500 Hz
is extremely dangerous."

5. "I'm using sound to evoke the same kind of emotions that music
typically would. But I believe that the beneficial and _even_ the
manipulative effect of music has been co-opted and has been made essentially
useless now. And that's why I'm trying to think of other
ways to use sound that ... have the kind of transformational potential that
music used to have."

An alternate rumor about the riot gun I've heard specified something
like 77 Hz at high intensity, used in the east bloc, as I seem to remember,
the purported effect of which was to rattle the sphincters with
predictable consequences. Since I'm trying to fill out a few pages of
a book with a discussion of this area, any information, whether
technical reports or newspaper clippings, would be extremely helpful.

The only part of the above that I can substantiate is the end of #3,
since JASA reported experiments (around 1960?) in offing mice with
high-intensity sound; I recall a paper that examined the hypothesis
that death was caused by heat induced by fur beating, and destroyed some
hairless mice to show this was not so. It's a weird area.

Best,

-- eliot