Microwave hearing effect: what it is, and possible explanations

This curious phenomenon causes you to hear clicks that are not registered by your eardrums.

Have you ever thought about the effect that microwave waves can have on our minds? Although it sounds like science fiction, its effect is real and has been studied for more than 50 years.

This phenomenon is called the microwave hearing effect.. Here we will see what exactly it consists of and how it has been studied.

Microwave hearing effect: what does it consist of?

Have you ever heard of the microwave hearing effect? Also called the Frey effect after its discoverer, the American neuroscientist and biologist Allan H. Frey, it is a somewhat curious phenomenon, which has even been labeled as a "mind control" phenomenon.

Allan H. Frey was the first to publish his findings on this phenomenon, which we will learn more about later. This phenomenon, broadly speaking, consists of an effect produced by the "clicks" (sounds) induced by different microwave frequencies.. These clicks are generated inside our head.

We find the origin of this effect in World War II, when a group of people noticed that they felt these clicks, while working in the vicinity of radar transponders. The clicks of the microwave hearing effect are only heard by the person himself, and not by people around him.

Origin and history

As we have seen, it was the American neuroscientist and biologist Allan H. Frey who first spoke of the microwave hearing effect in 1960. At that time, Frey was working at the Advanced General Electronics Center at Cornell University. It was there that was in contact with a technician, who claimed that he could hear sounds emitted by a radar..

A year later, in 1961, Frey embarked on the study of this phenomenon. Frey discovered that people who heard these clicks or noises, similar to a buzzing sound, and sometimes to numbers or words, heard them "directly from their heads, heard them "straight out of their heads" (not through their auditory organs)..

Just one year later, in 1962, Frey published his study "Response of the human auditory system to modulated electromagnetic energy".

Through his experiments, Frey observed that people could "hear" microwave radiation if it was adequate; this occurred at a distance of up to 100 meters.

However, beyond the effect, Frey also detected a series of side effects in his participants, which consisted of: tingling sensations, headaches and dizziness.

Project Pandora: the US government

Thus, it was in the 1960s, when the United States became concerned about microwaves and the "mind control" they could have. For its part, the US government discovered that its embassy in Moscow had been bombarded by low-level electromagnetic radiation.

As a result of this fact, the government itself, in 1965, launched Project Pandora, launched Project Pandora, which consisted of a top-secret investigation The mission of the project was to explore the possible behavioral and physiological effects of these low-level microwaves.

For four years, this phenomenon was investigated secretly by exposing "unwitting" sailors to microwave radiation, as well as by conducting other small experiments. The results, however, were mixed, and internal scientific disputes arose within the research itself. Some believe that the research continued, and there was even talk of a weapon that would use sound waves to send words into people's heads.

NASA

A little later, in the 1970s, NASA also investigated the possible microwave hearing effect. What they observed was that this effect was caused by thermal expansion of the parts of the human ear around the cochlea, a structure in the inner ear.a structure of the inner ear.

Through this expansion, microwaves that could generate words were modulated from inside the head. Thus, they also found that the modulated signals in the ear could include words or sounds with a possible intracranial origin.

How can this effect be explained?

So, basically, the microwave auditory effect translates into a kind of "clicks" that we hear internally as a buzzing or auditory sensations. But why do they occur?

It is believed that their cause lies, as we have already mentioned, in the thermal expansion of portions of the auditory apparatus. Specifically, what happens is that the brain heats up with each pulse, and the pressure waves that originate travel to the cochlea, through the skull, and into the brain..

Related milestones

We will list, in chronological order, a number of relevant milestones related to the microwave hearing effect.

1. 1975

On March 30, 1975, an article entitled an article entitled Microwaves and Behaviorwas published on March 30, 1975, addressing this phenomenon by Dr. Don R. Justesen (published in the journal "The American Psychologist").

2. 1983

Eight years later, on December 19, 1983, Philip Stocklin of Satellite Beach, F.L., files a patent for microwave audio communication.

3. 1988

Five years after the patent, a private entity patents an application to generate signal bursts, thus promoting the creation of intelligible communication.

4. 1998

Finally, ten years after the previous event, another device was patented, this time based on the microwave auditory effect, and with the purpose of moving birds away from airplane turbines..

What role does technology play in all this?

On the other hand, technology has also played a role in the microwave hearing effect. To give a relevant example, in 2008, a US technology company announced that it was developing a device, called MEDUSA (Mob Excess Deterrent Using Silent Audio), which was based on the principle of the microwave hearing effect.

This device would consist of a microwave ray gun, capable of transmitting sounds directly to people's heads. a microwave ray gun, capable of transmitting sounds directly to people's heads..

Thus, such a device would exploit the microwave hearing effect, and would act by causing a "shock wave" inside the skull, a wave that our ears would be able to detect. In addition, a series of pulses could be transmitted through the gun to produce recognizable sounds.

However, this device would not be intended for the common population, but its purpose or mission would have to do with military or crowd control applications. Once again, fact trumps fiction.

Bibliographical references:

• Allan H. Frey (1962). Human auditory system response to modulated electromagnetic energy. Journal of Applied Physiology 17: 689-692.
• Hambling, D. (2008). Microwave ray gun controls crowds with noise. New Scientist.
• Levy, Barry S.; Wagner, Gregory R. & Rest, Kathleen M. (2005). Preventing occupational disease and injury. American Public Health Association. p. 428.