[Merged] US may close Cuba Embassy over 'health attacks'

[Checkmite]

Are you interested in anything that doesn't support your preconceived conclusion there really is a sooper secret evil weapon that defies physics? Just curious.

Once again this nonsense about secret weapons defying physics. Are you interested in having a genuine conversation? I could just sit a scarecrow on a chair, and you'd be free to ascribe to him any silly thoughts or opinions you want him to have.

 

[dann]

What else is the point of the AP cricket recordings?!

 

[Checkmite]

Perhaps you should try listening to people's own descriptions of their opinions, rather than relying on your own imagination to decide what their opinions "must be".

 

[dann]

You bet!

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Once again this nonsense about secret weapons defying physics. Are you interested in having a genuine conversation? I could just sit a scarecrow on a chair, and you'd be free to ascribe to him any silly thoughts or opinions you want him to have.

Been trying to have a conversation with you all this time and so far all you've done is ignore all the medical expertise cited and not presented any evidence whatsoever of how a real weapon might work, theoretical or otherwise.

What do you have besides some BS recordings with no evidence of any connection to the symptoms and a bunch of people with internally* inconsistent symptoms.

*Internally: as in within the group.

 

[Checkmite]

You bet!

I think the sound, presuming the circumstances of its recording are accurate as reported by the Associated Press, is important. To wit: I think it's entirely possible that the sounds the diplomats and embassy staff heard were produced and aimed at them as part of a campaign of harassment. Not using some kind of "sooper secret evil weapon physics-defying" technology, but perfectly mundane sound-producing technology, of a kind that has long been even commercially available for the purpose.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I think the sound, presuming the circumstances of its recording are accurate as reported by the Associated Press, is important. To wit: I think it's entirely possible that the sounds the diplomats and embassy staff heard were produced and aimed at them as part of a campaign of harassment. Not using some kind of "sooper secret evil weapon physics-defying" technology, but perfectly mundane sound-producing technology, of a kind that has long been even commercially available for the purpose.

Evidence said 'sound' causes people physical damage and why isn't it well known already?

And if you are implying the asserted damage was unintended, what was the point of the sound? How did it bother anyone?

 

[Checkmite]

Evidence said 'sound' causes people physical damage and why isn't it well known already?

See that - one post later and you already can't help yourself. Evidence I'm contending said "sound" causes physical damage?

And if you are implying the asserted damage was unintended, what was the point of the sound? How did it bother anyone?

I already said, the point of the sound was to harass. If it existed (which I consider the records acceptable evidence of - again, assuming the AP didn't hoax them), we already know it bothered people because they have said so. If you're asking more generally "what is the point of harassing someone with sound" - there are many. When it comes to harassment with sound, irritation is often its own end. If you make peoples' lives miserable enough, it begins to impact their ability to do their jobs well, and/or might eventually force them to leave.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

See that - one post later and you already can't help yourself. Evidence I'm contending said "sound" causes physical damage?

I already said, the point of the sound was to harass. If it existed (which I consider the records acceptable evidence of - again, assuming the AP didn't hoax them), we already know it bothered people because they have said so. If you're asking more generally "what is the point of harassing someone with sound" - there are many. When it comes to harassment with sound, irritation is often its own end. If you make peoples' lives miserable enough, it begins to impact their ability to do their jobs well, and/or might eventually force them to leave.

You cannot prove the highlighted part. And why then bother with the red herring hysteria symptoms?

Is this you walking back your initial assertions without admitting this was almost certainly hysteria?

 

[Checkmite]

You cannot prove the highlighted part.

Again, this is me describing my opinion.

And why then bother with the red herring hysteria symptoms?

Is this you walking back your initial assertions without admitting this was almost certainly hysteria?

Firstly, I haven't walked back any assertions that I've actually made. (I can't speak to assertions you've mentally made on my behalf, of course).

And, I'm still not convinced the symptoms are hysteria.

 

[Sherkeu]

I think the sound, presuming the circumstances of its recording are accurate as reported by the Associated Press, is important. To wit: I think it's entirely possible that the sounds the diplomats and embassy staff heard were produced and aimed at them as part of a campaign of harassment. Not using some kind of "sooper secret evil weapon physics-defying" technology, but perfectly mundane sound-producing technology, of a kind that has long been even commercially available for the purpose.

I think you will be happy to find that there is a natural noise nearly identical and caused by a single (just one!) Cuban Ground Cricket. The sound is recorded for everyone's enjoyment. here.

It seems that the sound is temperature dependent with higher temps causing high pitch and shorter 'trill' time in the song. 5 seconds beings shortest, 30 being longest. AP recording only gives 5 seconds. Such a shame it is so short!

Compare to the AP recording here.

Open both and play at the same time. It's amazing!

Of course, if you did hear such an annoying sound in your home and then moved around or said something aloud, it would stop. Settle in again where you were and it will start back up. It will be in a very precise location.
If you have ever tried to find a cricket, you'll know that as soon as you go search for it, they shut up. Crickets know! Be quiet and still and they may resume their song. Or not. It's fairly unpredictable*.
Leave the room and I guess the attack is over. Go back in after a minute or so and you may be attacked with the annoying noise again!

So, tiny cricket that lives in the area? OR targeted electronic noise harassment that sounds JUST like it?


*I used to keep live crickets to feed my bearded dragon and they did escape their containers often enough for me to develop strategies to catch them. A bit of water in the bathtub would lure them there during the night and they could not jump out again. Gotcha!

 

[Sherkeu]

I was looking for sites specific to this cricket sound and found a random 2011 post from London saying he found the sounds of the crickets outdoors to be 'exotic'. This response was perhaps appropriate for this thread!:

"Actually, OP, crickets can and will drive one mad - especially if it's just one loud piercing high pitch sound and you can't locate the bugger. So yes, occasionally the sound of a lot of cricket outdoors is peaceful, but when they get in your home - eh. Not so much."

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

... Cuban Ground Cricket. The sound is recorded for everyone's enjoyment. here.

It seems that the sound is temperature dependent with higher temps causing high pitch and shorter 'trill' time in the song. 5 seconds beings shortest, 30 being longest. AP recording only gives 5 seconds. Such a shame it is so short!

Compare to the AP recording here.

....

Those are close enough to match. Good find.

 

[Checkmite]

So, tiny cricket that lives in the area? OR targeted electronic noise harassment that sounds JUST like it?

It doesn't sound just like it, though. The pitch is similar, but the cricket is trilling, while the AP's sound is not.

 

[Checkmite]

Tell you what, let's try a fun little experiment. Think you guys are gonna love it! All you need to do is go to the AP sound video, a link to which dann thoughtfully provided above.

Listen to the clip at full speed. You'll probably say you can hear a "trilling", although very fast, in it. You might say it sounds like the cricket recording has just been sped up, since the "trilling" in the AP video is quite noticeably "faster" than the trilling you hear in the cricket clip.

So, here's the experiment. At the bottom of the YouTube video, you'll see a little gear icon - the settings button. Click it, and you'll be able to choose the speed of the video's playback (and thus its audio). Go ahead and play the AP video at 0.5 speed, and take note of what you hear. OMG...that's weird!

And then do the opposite - play the clip at X2 speed, and take note of what you hear. Wait, what???

For those too lazy to play along (or who simply won't because they've already decided it's crickets), you may notice that if you play the AP video at half speed or double speed, the sound doesn't actually change, compared to the normal speed. At all. The sound is absolutely identical - up to and including the speed of the "trilling" you hear in it.

But how is that possible? It's possible because what you interpret as a "trilling", isn't. It's a harmonic. Now I could go into a big long description of what a harmonic is, but I'm sure you can handle looking all that up yourself if you're interested. The important thing is, this effect can't be reproduced in an audio clip of crickets (I'll let you try that part out for yourself, too). That's because cricket sound is a literal trilling; it's mechanically produced, by the cricket vibrating a dedicated body part. When you play a recording of cricket sound at half speed, the vibration happens half as fast, and there's no way to avoid hearing that. Opposite effect can be heard by playing the recording twice as fast.

Now sadly, the link dann provided did not include a YouTube video, and the soundbar on the page does not have playback settings integrated into it. So, you'll have to go to YouTube and find a clip of cricket sounds - or else download the sound from his link and try it on some software on your computer that gives you those options.

Basically, this experiment demonstrates that the sound in the AP clip isn't mechanically produced (i.e., made by a physically vibrating object in the environment).

 

[dann]

It doesn't sound just like it, though. The pitch is similar, but the cricket is trilling, while the AP's sound is not.

That is exactly what happens when a recording of something is

de-noised and filtered.

You remove the 'background noise' and in the process you also remove parts of the sound that you are trying to 'clean', i.e. the parts with the frequencies that you've removed, making it sound 'flat'!!! Whatever else they may have done with it, I don't don't know.

 

[Checkmite]

That is exactly what happens when a recording of something is You remove the 'background noise' and in the process you also remove parts of the sound that you are trying to 'clean', i.e. the parts with the frequencies that you've removed, making it sound 'flat'!!!

Ah, good. I can't wait for you to take a recording of a cricket chirping and remove the background noise, thereby making it sound like steady tones instead of a chirp.

 

[dann]

I think you will be happy to find that there is a natural noise nearly identical and caused by a single (just one!) Cuban Ground Cricket. The sound is recorded for everyone's enjoyment. here.

It seems that the sound is temperature dependent with higher temps causing high pitch and shorter 'trill' time in the song. 5 seconds beings shortest, 30 being longest. AP recording only gives 5 seconds. Such a shame it is so short!

Compare to the AP recording here.

Open both and play at the same time. It's amazing!

It is amazing!!! The AP recording has a slightly higher pitch, I think, but otherwise they sound exactly alike - to me, that is, but as mentioned several times above, my hearing isn't very good.

 

[dann]

If you have ever tried to find a cricket, you'll know that as soon as you go search for it, they shut up. Crickets know! Be quiet and still and they may resume their song. Or not. It's fairly unpredictable*.

I once had one in my room at my family's beach house when I was a kid. It proved impossible to find. For some reason, it was extremely hard to pinpoint the direction the sound was coming from. After a few days, I found it dead, probably from thirst.

Crickets know!

Does that imply that the US embassy was attacked by trained commie crickets?!

 

[dann]

Ah, good. I can't wait for you to take a recording of a cricket chirping and remove the background noise, thereby making it sound like steady tones instead of a chirp.

Sherkeu's two links, the one to actual crickets, and the AP recording, sound equally steady to me. But then again: that might be to me only! Are you saying that they aren't?!

 

[Checkmite]

Sherkeu's two links, the one to actual crickets, and the AP recording, sound equally steady to me. But then again: that might be to me only! Are you saying that they aren't?!

Yes; proving that is the entire point of the experiment I outlined. A cricket's chirp is not a steady tone; it can't be. Crickets don't stridulate fast enough to produce a steady tone.

 

[dann]

No, the sound of one cricket is not a steady tone, and apparently the recordings of several crickets aren't surroundy enough for you.

The thing about a mass of crickets though is that it sounds like a mass of crickets; that is, the sound is omnidirectional and there is a certain quality of vastness, almost like an echo, that lends the impression of a multitude of sources.

I give up!

 

[Checkmite]

I take it you're not even going to try the simple experiment, then? Disappointing, if not surprising.

 

[dann]

I take it that you'll continue to insist that one cricket should sound like a lot of crickets, which is the only reason why your "simple experiment" might work on the recording of one cricket.
And, no, I'm not going to try it - for that reason as well as for the reason that I wouldn't know how to. Somebody with more technical skills might be able to do it.

You, on the other hand, have now been presented with recordings of crickets chirping that sound just like the released AP recording, and yet you remain adamant that actual recordings of crickets don't sound exactly like being omni-directionally surrounded by crickets (no wonder!), so I suggest that you do the simple experiment of surrounding yourself with devices playing the recordings to find out if it improves the experience for you.

No, wait, that won't do any good anyway because you'll probably insist that it still sounds very different from the "de-noised and filtered" AP version, thus proving to you that this version must have originated from a super commie harassment (if I understand your latest version correctly?) device targeted on US American diplomats - approximately the same way that US American military personnel targeted prisoners at the other end of the island: Welcome to 'the disco'. Except, of course, for the fact that at Gitmo you wouldn't have the problem of having to conceal anything from the detainees.

Wonderful place, by the way, on the Cuban side of the fence. I've been there. In particular, I can recommend the Casa de la Trove to anyone who loves son cubano or changüi: Heard a lot of crickets, too!

 

[Checkmite]

I take it that you'll continue to insist that one cricket should sound like a lot of crickets, which is the only reason why your "simple experiment" might work on the recording of one cricket.

As a matter of fact, I've so far only tried it on videos where the sound is of a natural chorus of crickets, because when I did a search for "cricket sounds" those are the first several videos I found and besides, the objection you pose here was sort of foreseeable.

Even on a recording of presumably thousands of crickets, slowing the playback speed conspicuously slows the rate of the trilling the crickets make.

And, no, I'm not going to try it - for that reason as well as for the reason that I wouldn't know how to. Somebody with more technical skills might be able to do it.

I provided instructions in the post. If you can change the volume of a YouTube video using the video's own controls, you can also change the speed of playback using the steps I described. It requires no special tools or technical capabilities.

 

[calebprime]

Checkmite, I might listen to the sounds and manipulate them in my studio. If I do, I'll post the results.

Suggestions for exactly what to do -- slow down, speed up, layer, filter, etc. -- would be welcome.

I just want to make sure that I'm using the right sounds. Can you provide the links to the two sounds again?

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Tell you what, let's try a fun little experiment. Think you guys are gonna love it! All you need to do is go to the AP sound video, a link to which dann thoughtfully provided above.

Listen to the clip at full speed. You'll probably say you can hear a "trilling", although very fast, in it. You might say it sounds like the cricket recording has just been sped up, since the "trilling" in the AP video is quite noticeably "faster" than the trilling you hear in the cricket clip.

So, here's the experiment. At the bottom of the YouTube video, you'll see a little gear icon - the settings button. Click it, and you'll be able to choose the speed of the video's playback (and thus its audio). Go ahead and play the AP video at 0.5 speed, and take note of what you hear. OMG...that's weird!

And then do the opposite - play the clip at X2 speed, and take note of what you hear. Wait, what???

For those too lazy to play along (or who simply won't because they've already decided it's crickets), you may notice that if you play the AP video at half speed or double speed, the sound doesn't actually change, compared to the normal speed. At all. The sound is absolutely identical - up to and including the speed of the "trilling" you hear in it.

But how is that possible? It's possible because what you interpret as a "trilling", isn't. It's a harmonic. Now I could go into a big long description of what a harmonic is, but I'm sure you can handle looking all that up yourself if you're interested. The important thing is, this effect can't be reproduced in an audio clip of crickets (I'll let you try that part out for yourself, too). That's because cricket sound is a literal trilling; it's mechanically produced, by the cricket vibrating a dedicated body part. When you play a recording of cricket sound at half speed, the vibration happens half as fast, and there's no way to avoid hearing that. Opposite effect can be heard by playing the recording twice as fast...

I take it you're not even going to try the simple experiment, then? Disappointing, if not surprising.

I almost gave up searching. Do you know how many links Dann has provided in this thread? It's a lot. Eventually I found the link, a few pages back, in one of Alphaba's posts. http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12032861&postcount=137

There is a problem with your experiment and I'm afraid your proposed explanation makes no sense.

YouTube's speed control does not work like old analog technology. Most of us are still familiar with what a speeded up or slowed down audio recording sounds like: the pitch rises or falls accordingly. YouTube does not work like that. If you speed up the video it doesn't play the sound faster. It chops out lots of fragments and plays the remainder at normal speed. So the result is granular but not pitch-shifted. If you slow it down, it copies and repeats lots of fragments to fill the gaps that would otherwise appear. Try it with a YouTube video of speech or music. It's deliberately done that way so that users can change the speed without losing intelligibility.

Your proposed explanation makes no sense because it doesn't matter how an audio waveform was produced. Whether it was recorded from real vibrations in the air or something synthesised in a computer, if you change that waveform's playback speed, it's pitch will change. YouTube doesn't do that because it changes the waveform, not the speed.

(Might be worth saying I'm an audio engineer working in broadcasting who's spent a lot of his working life listening to audio equipment to identify flaws and trying to track down their cause.)

 

[dann]

No, no, no, Jack by the hedge! I know that you mean well, but we don't need disenchantment just yet.

If you, calebprime and Alphaba stick your heads together, I think that what Checkmite is looking for is something like what Alphaba did (twice!), and then, if you can enhance the segment at the bottom to the right, ”around the 7000 Hz peak”, and go:

"There is a maker's serial number 9906947- XB71. Not cricket. Harassment. Cubans made the sound!”

and if you could also deliver it in a Cambodian accent, that would be absolutely fantastic and might convince even me!!!

 

[Jack by the hedge]

It doesn't sound just like it, though. The pitch is similar, but the cricket is trilling, while the AP's sound is not.

The quality of the AP recording isn't great, but you're right that the trilling is pretty well imperceptible in that recording. The basic 7kHz-ish component is compellingly similar though. My opinion right now is that it's probably a poor quality recording of several crickets.

 

[calebprime]

My mad skilz are at your disposal. J-hedge is right, though.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

No, no, no, Jack by the hedge! I know that you mean well, but we don't need disenchantment just yet.

If you, calebprime and Alphaba stick your heads together, I think that what Checkmite is looking for is something like what Alphaba did (twice!), and then, if you can enhance the segment at the bottom to the right, ”around the 7000 Hz peak”, and go:

and if you could also deliver it in a Cambodian accent, that would be absolutely fantastic and might convince even me!!!

So you're proposing genetically engineered synthetic crickets, developed by the Cubans to drive people crazy? Interesting. <strokes chin> Seems to be working.

 

[calebprime]

I took the linked sound of the Cuban cricket and slowed it down a couple of ways.

Mainly, in SoundHack, I changed the sample header, so that it simply plays back very slow. Then I recorded that Systems audio.

https://app.box.com/s/2oeu3ym5q97hcz2brlmv6d675oezaynw

I imported the sound into the sampler instrument that goes with my sequencer, and played back the sound progressively lower, to give a feel for how it changes.

https://app.box.com/s/2v83j89mva6pkhnsilosw1twsvld3lvy

comments: Different chirps have different shapes overall. This one has a sort of 3-part structure.

0-40 sec quietest (2-part structure sometimes, longer-short, warble) Part 1
40-1:20 tiny bit louder (less warble, more even, moving to upward rise2) Part 2
1:30-2:25 louder (warble up by minor third max occasionally) (-2cnd down) Part 3
2:25-4:00 loudest plateau (also pitch up overall by maj 2cnd max)

eta: The "warble" is a little minor-3rd trill, mostly.


A slowed-down clean recording would show that a sound is made by an animal so it's more likely to have these kinds of small variations in structure than a machine (old-school machine, that is) would.


Attempts to get the cricket to perform the I Love Lucy theme were unpropitious.

 

[dann]

Easy now! Remember they're Cuban crickets!
You should probably go for something with Desi Arnaz:

 

[calebprime]

He has a kind of rippling grace there in the lower legs.

Anyway, now that I've studied the Cuban cricket I could recognize the difference between it and something generated electronically.

Whether I could tell the difference with a very distorted source is another question.

 

[William Parcher]

A good biological sonic weapon would be the Coqui frog, rather than a cricket. These frogs will cause suicides.

 

[calebprime]

Here it's some cicadas in the summer. I think they're tolerable for two or three reasons:

1) my most far-fetched reason: Sounds produced by insects rubbing some membrane have some natural variation, as opposed to primitive electronic sounds like sine waves. variation of some kinds makes some things more bearable. (not always.)

2) they're up in trees, so not in people's faces

3) they do it mostly in the summer when people are indoors.

4) the sound stops.

5) it's all high frequencies, so it has no penetrating power through walls.


Otherwise, what a racket!

 

[dann]

A good biological sonic weapon would be the Coqui frog, rather than a cricket. These frogs will cause suicides.

I never heard of those! They seem to be called Coqui for obvious reasons!

 

[Checkmite]

Your proposed explanation makes no sense because it doesn't matter how an audio waveform was produced. Whether it was recorded from real vibrations in the air or something synthesised in a computer, if you change that waveform's playback speed, it's pitch will change. YouTube doesn't do that because it changes the waveform, not the speed.

I wasn't talking about the pitch; in fact I didn't even mention it in my post. But, you bring up a good point about the YouTube video's speed control. Calebprime seems to have a solution along the same lines though.

 

[Checkmite]

I took the linked sound of the Cuban cricket and slowed it down a couple of ways.

Mainly, in SoundHack, I changed the sample header, so that it simply plays back very slow. Then I recorded that Systems audio.

https://app.box.com/s/2oeu3ym5q97hcz2brlmv6d675oezaynw

I imported the sound into the sampler instrument that goes with my sequencer, and played back the sound progressively lower, to give a feel for how it changes.

https://app.box.com/s/2v83j89mva6pkhnsilosw1twsvld3lvy

comments: Different chirps have different shapes overall. This one has a sort of 3-part structure.

0-40 sec quietest (2-part structure sometimes, longer-short, warble) Part 1
40-1:20 tiny bit louder (less warble, more even, moving to upward rise2) Part 2
1:30-2:25 louder (warble up by minor third max occasionally) (-2cnd down) Part 3
2:25-4:00 loudest plateau (also pitch up overall by maj 2cnd max)

eta: The "warble" is a little minor-3rd trill, mostly.


A slowed-down clean recording would show that a sound is made by an animal so it's more likely to have these kinds of small variations in structure than a machine (old-school machine, that is) would.

Okay - that's great! Now can you do the same thing with the audio in the AP's clip, and see if doing the same things to it produces identical results.

 

[calebprime]

Yeah, I have a history of careless mistakes, so I want to make sure I have the right clip for you.

Can you link me to the clip?

I'll do it tomorrow am.

-c