The Sense of Being Stared At.. in the woods!

That Creepy Feeling..

As I detailed in this post, we have some problems in bigfoot research.. we’ve definitely got some ‘splainin’ to do. For instance, what accounts for the frequently reported phenomena of feeling that you are being watched shortly before a bigfoot encounter? Witnesses will describe thinking thoughts like, “It was as if something was breathing down my neck,” or “I just got the feeling I’d better get the heck out of there!”

There are some theories that bigfoot researchers have proposed to account for this. I know that, on the one hand, pheromones have been conjectured to account for the creepy feeling for years. And then there’s infrasound.

I first heard about infrasound on the BFRO Olympic Peninsula expedition of 2004, from none other than Matt Moneymaker himself. I don’t know who he heard it from, or if the idea originates with him, but essentially it goes like this: bigfoot is a big creature, and like other big creatures, it is able to produce sounds in the infrasound range. It has recently been suggested that sounds from certain frequencies in that range can produce feelings of anxiety, and even illness in people. But the research on this is far from clear, or even widely available. (I just heard from a reader in North Carolina that he had heard from a friend in the military that the Pentagon was researching the use of infrasound as a method of crowd control. Don’t know how true that is, but I pass it along here.)

So the basic theory is that bigfoot can produce these sounds and uses them to frighten humans and other animals away.

Of course there are immediate problems with this theory -- for one, no one has ever observed bigfoot using infrasound. At best we have some incidents where something happens that would seem to fit with this theory, but nothing that comes anywhere near proof. But here on The Blogsquatcher, we are not afraid to speculate. No no, on the contrary, we speculate freely while wearing rakish hats and eating trail mix!

Survey Says..

You can find a few resources on the internet about infrasound, but they are few and far between. Most are in the form of “edutainment” webpages, and the writings there may be of dubious value. Persistence may pay off, though. I found one entire article available as a .pdf download which details some of the health issues that infrasound can be associated with. Here’s a couple of choice quotes, the first from the abstract:

Among the more consistent findings in humans were changes in blood pressure, respiratory rate, and balance. These effects occurred after exposures to infrasound at levels generally above 110 dB. Physical damage to the ear or some loss of hearing has been found in humans and/or animals at levels above 140 dB.

And here’s one from the executive introduction:

There is no agreement about the biological activity of infrasound. Reported effects include those on the inner ear, vertigo, imbalance, etc.; intolerable sensations, incapacitation, disorientation, nausea, vomiting, and bowel spasm; and resonances in inner organs, such as the heart.

Infrasound has been observed to affect the pattern of sleep minutely. Exposures to 6 and 16 Hz at levels 10 dB above the auditory threshold have been associated with a reduction in wakefulness (28). Workers exposed to simulated industrial infrasound of 5 and 10 Hz and levels of 100 and 135 dB for 15 minutes reported feelings of fatigue, apathy, and depression, pressure in the ears, loss of concentration, drowsiness, and vibration of internal organs. In addition, effects were found in the central nervous, cardiovascular, and respiratory systems (29). In contrast, a study of drivers of long distance transport trucks exposed to infrasound at about 115 dBA found no statistically significant incidence of such symptoms (e.g., fatigue, subdued sensation, abdominal symptoms, and hypertension) (30).

I have never experienced any of these effects in the field, but I know bigfoot researchers who have. One participant on this last weekend’s trip talked about a previous outing where she was not able to move or breath for a short time, and suffered a terrible headache the next day. I know of another researcher from Pennsylvania who was overcome by nausea to the point that he couldn’t continue his field work. But beyond these physical effects, there is an increase in anxiety in many people subjected to infrasound, as was indicated in a test conducted in 2003 (which I found out about in this answers.com article).

It has long been realized that infrasound may cause feelings of awe or fear. Since it is not consciously perceived, it can make people feel vaguely that supernatural events are taking place. In a controlled experiment published in September, 2003, people at a concert were asked to rate their responses to a variety of pieces of music, some of which were accompanied by infrasonic elements. The participants were not aware of which pieces included the infrasound. Many participants (22%) reported feelings of anxiety, uneasiness, extreme sorrow, nervous feelings of revulsion or fear and chills down the spine which correlated with the infrasonic events. In presenting the evidence to the British Association, the scientist responsible said "These results suggest that low frequency sound can cause people to have unusual experiences even though they cannot consciously detect infrasound. Some scientists have suggested that this level of sound may be present at some allegedly haunted sites and so cause people to have odd sensations that they attribute to a ghost—our findings support these ideas".

So the idea is not so far fetched, is it, if it’s already being proposed by scientists to explain that other classic case of the creeps -- haunted houses.

A Walking, Grunting Tone Generator

One of the problems with this theory, as applied to bigfoot, would be that, while bigfoot is a big creature, it’s not really that big. I have heard through the grapevine that certain scientists who are willing to give bigfoot a second thought don’t think the creature would be big enough to generate infrasound. (Note c2009: it is now known that tigers and lions produce infrasound when they roar, so this objection would seem outdated.) This would appear to diminish the importance of this otherwise tempting theory, but perhaps there’s a possibility that they really can do it, though not in the usual way.

One thing I’ve noted in my research into possible bigfoot vocalizations is that the sounds we record often show multiple fundamental tones that are not harmonic with each other -- like holding random keys down on the piano and getting a disharmonic chord. Very modernist of Uncle Hairy. But if these creatures really can produce disharmonic tones together with the same vocal apparatus, then they can create infrasound even if they aren’t large enough to produce it directly. They can make two tones that interfere with one another, creating a lower tone. I’ve seen a reference on that says a tone of 400Hz combined with a tone of 373Hz will create a tone with a frequency of 7Hz. If the sounds we’ve been recording really do belong to bigfoot, then this is well within their capability. And the fact that infrasounds are often unsettling to humans, who would have to be sasquatch’s only direct competitor, would even give them an evolutionary reason to have developed this capacity. What a great tool -- to get rid of the pesky little hairless monsters, you only have to hum at them.

Get Outta My Woods You Pesky Kids..

If there’s one thing that is well attested in multiple bigfoot reports, it’s that Uncle Hairy really doesn’t want you around, though he is loathe to actually put his mitts on you and throw you off his property. Bigfoot invariably resort to non-lethal intimidation tactics to get you moving, ranging from howling, growling, shaking trees, letting out a horrible stench, throwing sticks and rocks, walking loudly just beyond your vision, etc. I think infrasound fits quite well into this list, another tool on the belt of your local cranky ten-foot-tall woodsman. The physiological effects reported with infrasound appear to require noise levels that it would seem would be hard for a creature, even as large as bigfoot, to create and sustain. But the psychological effects may be triggered by far lower volumes. It only has to be enough to get that thought popping up in your head. Then add the fact that you are out in the woods, in the dark, and have maybe heard some audible noises you can’t account for, and your imagination will do the rest.

So the next time you get that feeling in the woods that something is watching you, instead of shaking it off, look around. You may be right.

UPDATE SO LATE IT'S 2008: I found another helpful quote and need to park it somewhere. From Medical Geography by Melinda S. Meade and Robert J. Earickson (c. 2000 The Guilford Press):

Infrasound . . . can travel long distances with little loss of energy. At frequencies too low for humans to hear, the waves have the potential to generate whole-body vibration by resonance. They are generated by severe weather disturbances and, traveling at the speed of sound, could be detectable weather precursors. In laboratory studies of infrasound, 10 Hz at 115 decibels can cause lethargy, euphoria, and loss of time judgment; these are frequencies generated inside closed automobiles traveling at 100 kilometers an hour. At other frequencies, infrasound is associated with nausea and dizziness. The research literature, however, is sparse. There are few weather stations that measure infrasound and fewer correlation studies under controlled conditions.

I did the bolding there. I knew about the euphoria and lethargy (infrasound can even make you harder to wake up if you are asleep) but was not aware of the loss of time judgment part. In the interview with Sally, she loses track of time at a point when she thought she was experiencing infrasound. Verrrrry interesting..