Page 33 - Volume 9, Issue 3

Fig 1. Jet engine as infrasonic weapon.
All this leads to the unequiv- ocal conclusion that the scope of the agreement on the pro- hibition of the development and manufacture of new types of weapons of mass destruction must also be extended to the military use of infrasound weapons of mass destruction ...
An example of an infrasonic weapon was given as a jet engine attached to a long resonance tube, shown in Fig. 1. The physics is at fault, because the rapid flow of the exhaust gas from the engine will prevent the development of resonance (Leventhall 1998). After tak- ing advice, the Western powers con-
away produce a resonance that can knock a building down as effectively as a major earthquake.”
One can detect a transition from Gavreau and his colleague feeling ill after exposure to the high level of 196Hz to “fell down dead on the spot” and a further transition from laborato- ry walls vibrating to “can knock a building down,” transitions which resulted from repeated media exagger- ations over a period of five or six years.
The Internet
Currently, the internet is the favored medium for information on infrasound and wind turbines. A web page that features the subject is <www.windturbinesyndrome.com>. Main themes of this page are that wind turbine developers are greedy and heartless money-makers and that wind turbine infrasound causes a range of illnesses. The writers use colorful and forceful language. For example, as in <http://www.windturbinesyndrome.co m/2013/why-wind-developers-are- sharks-mass/>. The writers are so focused on supposed dangers of infra- sound, which they use as a scare tactic on residents near proposed wind farms, that they may be led astray by this. For example, the long range acoustic device (LRAD) is described as an infrasonic weapon, whereas it is actually based on an ultrasound carri- er: <http://www.windturbinesyn- drome.com/2011/the-misuse-of-infra- sound-industry-military-and-now- the-cops/>. Any evidence on the pro- duction of even low level infrasound by wind turbines is hailed as a victory <http://www.windturbinesyndrome.co m/2010/wind-turbines-produce-
major-infrasound-period-no-ques- tion-about-it/>. Another view, not favored by the web page, is that wind turbines produce infrasound, but it is of negligible impact on humans (Leventhall 2006).
Public perceptions
We cannot blame the public for their anxiety about infrasound and low frequency noise when they have been exposed to statements like those described earlier. Public concern over infrasound was one of the stimuli for a growth in complaints about low fre- quency noise during the 1970s and 1980s and has continuing effects. It appears that concerns over infrasound and low frequency noise have found a place deep in the national psyche of a number of countries and lie waiting for a trigger to bring them to the surface. Earlier triggers have been gas pipelines and work at government research establishments. A current trigger is wind turbines.
Infrasound in the Cold War
The media follow-up of Gavreau’s work led to interest in infrasonic weapons, although these have not been produced, as it is not possible to gener- ate directional infrasound of high enough level to be effective at a dis- tance. However, during the cold war, the Conference of the Committee on Disarmament was presented with a paper from the Hungarian Peoples’ Republic (Anon 1978) which discussed infrasonic weapons and concluded:
... infrasound can become the basis of one of the dangerous types of new weapons of mass destruction ...
Fig. 2
32 Acoustics Today, July 2013