Spend any time looking at websites about ghost-hunting or reading books about hauntings and you will soon come across the ‘Stone Tape Theory’. According to its proponents, ghosts are the result of buildings recording and then replaying past events. To put it another way, ghosts don’t just walk through walls but are actually part of them. The idea has emotional appeal but, from a scientific perspective, suffers from three significant problems. First, the idea is quite literally a work of fiction.
In December 1972 the BBC broadcast a Christmas ghost story entitled The Stone Tape . Written by Nigel Kneale (who also penned the fabulous Quatermass), the play centres on a group of scientists investigating an old haunted house. The researchers discover that the stone in one of the rooms is capable of recording past events, and that the alleged ghosts are actually these recordings being replayed. Curious to discover more, the team carry out various experiments and (as is often the way when fictional scientists meddle with the unknown) unwittingly release a malevolent force into the world. The second problem with the theory is that it is completely implausible – as far as we know, there is no way that information about events can be stored in the fabric of a building. And the third and final problem – and from a scientific perspective this is perhaps the biggest stumbling block – is that there is not a shred of evidence to suggest that it is true.
Thankfully, other scientists have come up with more plausible ways of explaining things that go bump in the night. In the 1950s Mr G. W. Lambert, the president of the Society for Psychical Research, suggested that the answer lay not in the walls of haunted buildings but rather in the natural movement of earth and water deep beneath their foundations.8
BOO!
Psychical researcher Tony Cornell carried out a great deal of fascinating work into the unknown, but perhaps his strangest series of studies aimed to assess the reliability of eyewitness testimony for ghosts.9 The idea was simple. First, Cornell and his colleagues would dress up as apparitions, stand in various public spaces at night, and attract the attention of passers-by. Next, other members of the research team would interview these eyewitnesses and assess the accuracy of their testimony. However, as is often the case with supernatural science, the studies proved surprisingly difficult to conduct.
In their initial experiment Cornell wrapped himself up in a white sheet and spent several nights walking around a dark park in the centre of Cambridge. Although 80 people were in a position to see the fake spirit, none of them appeared to notice the strange goings-on. Wondering if the disappointing results were due to poor illumination Cornell put the sheet on again and spent several nights walking around a well-lit Cambridge graveyard. A total of 90 cars, 40 cyclists and 12 pedestrians passed by, but only four people appeared to notice the apparition. Of
these, two were interviewed, with one saying that he had assumed that the 'ghost' was part of an art project and the other remarking that the person under the sheet 'surely must be mad'. In a final attempt to be spotted, Cornell contacted a local cinema and arranged to re-stage his ghost walk in front of the screen just prior to the showing of an X-rated film (chosen 'to safeguard against children being present'). The audience were then asked to raise their hands if they had seen something unusual, revealing that a third of the audience had failed to notice the fake spirit. The testimony from those who did spot the figure was often far from accurate, and included a description of a young girl dressed in a summer frock, a woman dressed in a heavy coat, and a polar bear ambling across the screen.
Cornell's findings suggest that if the dead do indeed walk among us they might benefit from wearing a high-visibility vest.
Gauld and Cornell found a house that was scheduled for demolition and persuaded the local council to give it to them for the purpose of serious scientific research. The duo started off by cementing a powerful vibrating machine to the wall of the house. Next they slung a long rope around the chimney and attached a heavy weight to the end of the rope. They then ventured inside the house and carefully positioned 13 ‘test’ objects in different rooms, for example, placing a marble on the floor in one room and a teacup and saucer on a shelf in another. Preparations complete, they moved onto the second stage of the experiment.
Gauld positioned himself inside the house and Cornell switched on the giant vibrator. The entire house shook but none of the test objects moved an inch. Cornell then arranged for the heavy weight on the end of the rope to be lifted and slammed into the side of the building. All the test objects remained unmoved by the experience. The following day Gauld and Cornell returned to the house, turned the vibrator up to 11, and finally managed to get the teacup to rotate in the saucer. The dynamic duo then repositioned the vibrator for even greater effect and took up positions in the house for one final test.
As a colleague turned the vibrator’s dial to maximum Gauld and Cornell felt the entire house shake.
Dirt came crashing down the chimney, slabs of plaster fell from the ceiling, and a large crack emerged in one of the bedroom walls. Subsequently describing their time there as ‘quite our most terrifying experience in pursuit of a poltergeist’, they stood their ground and observed that even under these extreme conditions only a few of the test objects moved (a plastic beaker fell over, the cup and saucer fell off the shelf and a plaster of Paris donkey moved a fraction of an inch away from the wall). After putting their lives on the line in the pursuit of scientific knowledge, Gauld and Cornell concluded that Lambert’s theory simply didn’t hold water.
Lambert is not the only one to suggest that hauntings might be the result of bad vibrations. In my previous book, Quirkology, I described another idea put forward by electrical engineer Vic Tandy.10 In 1998, Tandy was working in a laboratory that had a reputation for being haunted. Working alone in the lab late one August night, he started to feel increasingly uncomfortable and had the distinct impression of being watched. As he slowly turned around he saw an indistinct grey figure slowly emerge from the left side of his peripheral vision. With the hair on the back of his neck standing to attention, Tandy eventually built up the courage to look directly at the figure. As he did, it faded away and disappeared.
Tandy was a keen fencer and the following day brought his foil into the laboratory for repairs. As he clamped the foil into a vice, it started to vibrate frantically. Although initially baffled, he eventually figured out that the air conditioning unit in the room was producing a low frequency sound wave that fell well below the human hearing threshold. These waves, referred to as ‘infrasound’, vibrate at a frequency of around 17Hz, and are capable of producing weird effects. Tandy speculated that in some allegedly haunted buildings certain naturally occurring phenomena, such as strong winds blowing across an open window or the rumble of nearby traffic, could be creating infrasound and giving people strange experiences that they incorrectly attribute to the presence of spirits.
There is some evidence to support Tandy’s idea. For example, in 2000 he reported investigating a fourteenth-century cellar in Coventry that had a reputation for being haunted, and found infrasound in the part of the cellar where many people had reported seeing apparitions.11 As I also noted in Quirkology, some additional research has suggested that people do have strange experiences when exposed to low frequency sounds. However, although the theory might explain some alleged ghostly activity, the required combination of strong winds, specifically shaped windows and nearby traffic mean that it is unlikely to account for a large number of hauntings.
Of course, as a scientific explanations for spirits, infra-sound is not the only show in town. . . .