Brown note: Difference between revisions

The brown note, according to an urban legend, is an infrasound frequency that causes humans to lose control of their bowels due to resonance. There is no scientific evidence to support the claim that a "brown note" (transmitted through sound waves in air) exists.

The name is metonymy for a common color of human feces. Frequencies involved are between 5 and 9 Hz which is below 20 Hz, the lower frequency limit of human hearing. High power sound waves below 20 Hz are felt in the body, not heard by the ear as sound.

The brown note was tested on the television show MythBusters using twelve Meyer Sound 700-HP subwoofers—a model and quantity that has been employed for major rock concerts.^[1] Normal operating frequency range of the selected subwoofer model was 28 Hz to 150 Hz^[2] but the twelve enclosures at Mythbusters had been specially modified for deeper bass extension. The experimenters on the show tried a series of frequencies between 5 and 10 Hz at a level of 120–153 decibels of sound pressure, but they were unsuccessful in producing the rumored effects. The test subjects all reported some physical anxiety and shortness of breath, even a small amount of nausea, but this was dismissed by the participants, noting that sound at that frequency and intensity moves air rapidly in and out of one's lungs.

Another show, Brainiac: Science Abuse, claimed to have performed an experiment using 22.275 Hz at −30 dB (according to the show's producers used by Japan's police and tested by the French military). During the program, they broadcast the note over the air (and into the living rooms of viewers) in an attempt to cause bowel movements among those who had chosen to stay in the room despite repeated warnings and opportunities to leave. It should be noted, however, that no television speakers and very few subwoofers are able to accurately generate sound at this frequency at a significant volume (not to mention the cassette-tape boombox used to generate the note for the test subject). They also alleged to have confirmed the myth with a subject, but this subject was out of camera shot for all of the piece except at the very beginning.

Jürgen Altmann of the Dortmund University of Technology, an expert on sonic weapons, says that there is no reliable evidence for nausea and vomiting caused by infrasound.^[3]

Loud concert levels of subwoofer arrays have been cited as causing lung collapse in individuals who are very close to the subwoofer, especially for smokers who are particularly tall and thin.^[4]

Air is a very inefficient medium for transferring low frequency vibration from a transducer to the human body.^[5] Mechanical connection of the vibration source to the human body, however, provides a potentially dangerous combination. The U.S. space program, worried about the harmful effects of rocket flight on astronauts, ordered vibration tests that used cockpit seats mounted on vibration tables to transfer 'brown note' and other frequencies directly to the human subjects. Very high power levels of 160 dB were achieved at frequencies of 2-3 Hz. Test frequencies ranged from 0.5 Hz to 40 Hz. Test subjects suffered motor ataxia, nausea, visual disturbance, degraded task performance and difficulties in communication. These tests are assumed by researchers to be the nucleus of the current urban myth.^[6]

The concept was featured in an episode of South Park (3x17: "World Wide Recorder Concert") as a sound that caused the entire population of Earth to empty their bowels uncontrollably. In the show, the "brown noise" (meaning "brown note", not actual Brown noise) was described as "92 cents below the lowest octave of E-Flat", although the pitch sounded was actually F# (46.25 Hz). Such a pitch would be well below the range of the alto recorders on which it was played in the episode.

Ben Folds performed the alleged note using a 10 Hz frequency in his 2006 tour. At the Beacon Theatre show in New York, pranksters from Improv Everywhere, in cooperation with the band, pretended to soil their pants, while another performed as an EMT, wearing a mask & gloves, and appeared to clean them up using paper towels stained with chocolate syrup.^[7]

An episode of the Canadian cartoon series Grossology (Episode 1x6: "When Ya Gotta Go") had a plot where the villain Lance Boil (in his first appearance) invented a ray gun, disguised as a violin case, which emits infrasonic waves, causing its victims to lose control of their bowels. This even affected the show's young heroine, Abby Archer, almost costing her the role of Dorothy in her school's stage production of The Wizard of Oz.

In the comic book series Transmetropolitan, the protagonist Spider Jerusalem carries a pistol called a Bowel Disruptor that has several settings of fecal torment, ranging from simple diarrhea, through complete rectal prolapse, to intestinal disruption sufficient to cause loss of consciousness or even death.

The Bowel Disruptor is also featured as a weapon in the DOS game Superhero League of Hoboken.

• Infrasound

• "Activists Preparing Against Use of ‘Brown Note’ at Dem Convention", Cristina Corbin, FOX News, June 10, 2008