Terror Tuesday: Ghosts of Sound?

Time to get your ghoul on for another Terror Tuesday. So quit “goblin” the neighbor kids and pull up an electric chair…

First a couple reviews: Darkness: Starring Anna Paquin (True Blood), this one actually isn’t too bad. A bit of The Shining mixed with the typical family-moves-into-a-new/old-house-and-things-start-to-go-bump plot. Little too much noise and running around but overall worth watching. Anna’s cute and unfortunately keeps her clothes on, but you can’t have everything.

White Zombie: From 1932 Bela Lugosi post-Dracula. I am just not a fan of Lugosi’s. I don’t think he can act or has the screen presence of Chaney, Jr. or Raines and he spends a lot of time standing around looking kind of silly, but for an early zombie flick this one is pretty good (though the nerve-wracking musical score drove me nuts and did nothing for the mood). For some reason I was surprised to see a girl standing around in her underwear in such an early film, though I don’t know why. But, anyway, an engaged couple moves to Haiti and soon runs into the living dead. Not the flesh-eating kind, but the regular groaning, command-taking automatons popular in movies and on radio at the time (akin to the one in the excellent Kolchak: The Night Stalker episode, “The Zombie”). If you like the old horror style movies, give it a look.

Ghosts made out of sound? Really? I caught part of a show the other night, not even sure what the title was, as I was flipping channels, something guys never do. But in the show, scientists were testing an alternate theory for ghosts, that they may not be the spirits of the dearly departed or angry remaining. Instead, they theorize that they may be caused by certain sound frequencies’ effects on the nervous system. They went to a dingy old place purported to be frequented by paranormal visitors and set up sound-producing equipment along a dank stone hallway and in other areas of the building. Apparently the place is a perfect conductor for these low frequency waves.

The frequency was set too low for the ear to perceive (I think in the range of 15hz, but don’t quote me), then investigators, some who knew about the sounds and some who did not, walked through the areas whilst the waves were emanating.

Sure enough, our guinea pigs experienced myriad paranormal sensations. Depression, a feeling of something standing in the room with them, fluttering tingly touches on the skin, the urge to run, low level anxiety. All things associated with hauntings. None saw a ghost, however.

It is food for thought. Many hauntings take place in areas where high quartz (a natural sound wave conductor) concentrations are present. It would explain EVPs pretty handily, and even film and digital camera oddities, along with a host of other electronic equipment anomalies. And certainly feelings of paranoia, agitation and a host of other nervous system reactions.

But does it explain everything? What about sightings? What about personally specific manifestations? And if we are to believe at least a small percentage of photographic evidence is real, such as ghost faces and forms with recognizable features, could sound waves, no matter how strong, place an image on film?

Are ghosts nothing more than the effects of sound on the human body? Can listening to rap music make the spirit of your departed great grandma appear? What do you think? Hauntings, real or sound?


The Chloe Files: Kicking Evil’s ass one demon at a time…
In the tradition of Sookie Stackhouse and Buffy, The Vampire Slayer…
In paperback from www.bn.com.