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The Sounds of Paranormal…Meteors?

Readers of Darklore Volume 1 will (hopefully!) have perused my article “Her Sweet Murmur: Exploring the Aural Phenomenology of Border States” (aw heck, for all you cheapskates – it’s also available as a free PDF download at the Darklore website). In it I note how various ‘paranormal’ phenomena seem to be preceded by certain sounds. As such, I was very interested to read Colin Keay’s article in the Journal of Scientific Exploration (Volume 7, Issue 4), “Progress in Explaining the Mysterious Sounds Produced by Very Large Fireballs”:

For about ten percent of those who do witness a very luminous meteor fireball, the mental impression is heightened by strange swishing, hissing and popping noises coincident with its passage across the sky. Such sounds are quite anomalous in that they imply acoustic propagation at the speed of light. This anomaly was first recognized more than two centuries ago, and has defied explanation until quite recently.

To clarify the ‘anomaly’ part – these bolides are often more than 50km away, so no noise should be hear (or if so, at the very least it should be delayed by a significant time due to the difference between the speed of light and the speed of sound.

Keay catalogues various historical instances of these strange sounds – including ‘swishing’/wind blowing and ‘buzzing’ aural phenomena, similar to those I listed in my article, preceding strange sightings of UFOs, entities and ‘the Virgin Mary’. Additionally, sometimes only certain people in a group of witnesses reported ‘hearing’ the sounds – again, another point of intersection with my article.

I’m certainly not saying that these fireballs were paranormal events. In fact, Keay points out that James Oberg has noted a similar effect in witnesses to Space Shuttle re-entries. He also points out that ‘rushing’ sounds have also been documented preceding earthquake events. This suggests that the mechanism underlying paranormal events (at least, those that I concentrated on which were preceded by a certain noise) may be the same as that which lies behind meteor and earthquake phenomena. Keay’s conclusion is that this is ELF/VLF electromagnetic radiation (which would probably go far to explaining various other aspects of UFO close encounters).

Dr Michael Persinger has already explored some of these avenues, but there’s not really space here to discuss in detail. But, as I mention in my Darklore article, there are still questions as to how such a ‘prosaic’ explanation (relatively speaking) can explain other aspects of paranormal encounters – not least, when groups of people see the same thing.

Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice would say…

Editor
  1. Very interesting
    This could also imply that there are people more receptive to some of the electromagnetic radiations, and therefore might also be more prone to experience more fringe phenomena.

    Have these sounds produce by the “fireball” ever been recorded by microphones or other instruments, or all we have are anecdotal registers?

    —–
    It’s not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me…
    It’s all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!

    Red Pill Junkie

  2. Some EM = “sound”?
    So, is the suggestion that some types/frequencies of EM can sometimes induce, in the brains of many people, what seems like sound, when it really isn’t? Hasn’t that been observed before?

    1. The short answer
      Yes and yes. It’s what it means for these types of paranormal encounters which is the interesting part (and the meteor thing is pretty interesting on its own).

      It’s also interesting to note that a number of other ‘symptoms’ can be found in close encounter reports – metallic tastes in the mouth, strange smells, engines stalling.

      Kind regards,
      Greg
      ——————————————-
      You monkeys only think you’re running things

      1. Fireballs, UFOs, Bigfoot and weapons
        [quote=Greg]Yes and yes. It’s what it means for these types of paranormal encounters which is the interesting part (and the meteor thing is pretty interesting on its own).

        It’s also interesting to note that a number of other ‘symptoms’ can be found in close encounter reports – metallic tastes in the mouth, strange smells, engines stalling.[/quote]

        Also burns and conjunctivitis.

        What intrigues me is those symptoms (possibly not the taste, as far as I’m aware) is also described in some Bigfoot encounters.

        Equally, this kind of thing is of interest to non-lethal weapons experts. It always intrigued me that many of The Aviary combine an interest in UFOs with a specialism in non-lethal weapons. I tend to suspect they know about as much as we do about the field but it could be enough for them to find ways to weaponise the effect.

        The importance of this study is that it provides a mechanism for inducing these sounds, it is unclear what is producing the effect and if so is it responsible for other aspects of paranormal phenomena?

        Of course, it may be we are looking at more than one unknown phenomena which might make it tricky to tease out all the threads but there does seem to be something lurking here at or beyond the fringes of accepted science.

    2. EM radiation and neurons
      It would seem obvious that electromagnetic radiation can cause neural activity. Neurons and parts of them are electric conductors, so they have to interact with EM radiation, unless they are isolated enough. Such as in the brain case, where the brain is surrounded by water.

      But this could easily be tested in the laboratory, we don’t have to rely on subjective testimony to see if this happens. And we don’t have to take apart human brains.

      —-
      if everything is under control, you are not going fast enough (Mario Andretti)

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