[Note 05/04/21: This post appears to be an entry point for many who visit On being mobbed, but the mechanics of the harassment described here are not very sophisticated and will not be particularly useful to those who are being mobbed or otherwise harassed using WiFi extenders, WiFi access points, or illicit power line connections. For better information, go to the Home page and look at more recent posts.]
Here’s something I just happened across and hadn’t heard about before. A case of using infrasonic sound to harass a neighbor, interestingly a type of sound that generates vibrations and that, according to the Instructables page that tells how to build an infrasonic speaker, can surmount obstacles that might interfere with other ranges of sound (Build an Infrasonic Subwoofer, http://www.instructables.com/id/Build-an-Infrasonic-Subwoofer/). Ultrasonic sound, used in directional speaker technologies, is an example of sound that is impeded by obstacles since it falls back into the audible range on impact, its reference beam colliding with the carrier beam.
The study of such sound waves is sometimes referred to as infrasonics, covering sounds beneath 20 Hz down to 0.001 Hz. This frequency range is utilized for monitoring earthquakes, charting rock and petroleum formations below the earth, and also in ballistocardiography and seismocardiography to study the mechanics of the heart. Infrasound is characterized by an ability to cover long distances and get around obstacles with little dissipation.
According to the Orlando Sentinal, a woman named Peggy Westby could hardly function because of the vibrating noise that turned out to be remotely controlled by smartphone.
Westby endured three months of the constant sound torture. I wish I could say the same. Unfortunately, my mobbing is moving on towards three years now and the apparent criminal ring mobbing me appears to be maneuvering to end it, before I can get an investigation, by manipulating Seattle Police into believing that I am harassing them. It’s discouragingly Kafkaesque. According to Wikipedia, accusations of harassment are a common feature of cybercrime. Perpetrators accuse their victims of harassment to control them and to manipulate authorities into believing that the victim is the criminal (“Cybercrime,” in Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybercrime). The false accusations play into the dynamic of “victim-blaming” in the mobbing style of harassment. The continual drive to enlist civil and penal authorities in punishing the victim, too, is the hallmark of mobbing.
With reference to my own situation, I have written about the likelihood of at least some remote or “call-in” harassment to a network of wired speakers shared by the north and south mobbing houses. The beauty of call-in harassment, whether over satellite phone or VoIP, is in the alibi it provides real estate mobbers (tenant relocators or criminal speculators). “Neighbor harassment” is generally expected to be performed from a neighboring house. If the neighbor or his “roomate” or “friend” is seen leaving in his vehicle, it can’t possibly be his voice that the victim hears, and if no one is home (or appears to be), it’s easily argued that the victim is “hearing voices.” Even if mobbers mix onsite harassment with remote harassment, enough confusion is likely to be introduced to discredit victim reports.
Another feature of interest is the fact that infrasonic sound is subterranean and can be conducted through earth. I have speculated about how a dipole system installed between the two houses that flank the victim house in a property mobbing, might allow for sound to be conveyed through a common concrete slab and even to run through the victim property itself. Perhaps infrasonic sound provides the right range of sound for the circumstance of shared earth.
As for detection of such methods, it’s a sad state of affairs. Today I talked to an attorney who stated the apparently common view that the Seattle Police Department (SPD) is clueless when it comes to technology crimes.
SPD has an obligation to refer such crimes to the FBI. Failure to do so should be grounds for disciplinary measures. Inaction gives criminals free rein to wage war against an isolated victim, assaulting her for as long as it takes to get what they want, and even killing her along the way.
For information about how Orlando police discovered the method of the crime, see the Orlando Sentinal article, Deputies: Woman blasted neighbor with loud music at http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/breaking-news/os-marianna-seachrist-stalking-arrest-20150709-story.html.
And while I am still free to blog and make suggestions about how police departments can step up their handling of technology crimes like the one that is doing a pretty good job of ruining my own life, I believe that police departments in major metropolitan areas should be required to routinely consult with the FBI and alert them to potential cyber-crimes, stalking crimes, and other technology-enabled crimes that should be escalated for investigation by qualified investigators. And this should be done based upon victim reports, and not on the druthers of the officer. Even if you don’t look at the technology behind the crime, if SPD would at least confer with the FBI on victim allegations of an unusual crime like the one that victimizes me, it is entirely likely that the FBI know of rings of criminals in the northwest who do precisely what has been done to me and that just a bit of description would be enough to confirm the likely presence of such criminals around me. It is for this reason that I began to write On being mobbed. This blog documents a crime in hopes that investigators will read about the crime and see the veracity of my account.
Alternately, perhaps the maverick department with appropriate funding should routinely refer complaints such as mine, complaints about crimes that are difficult to believe, to in-house forensic investigators of cyber- and technology crimes who have the requisite expertise that the cop on the street lacks.
No victim should be left to languish or even to perish in a years-long predatory crime because of a police department whose officers refuse to take a complaint, whether out of bias or out of ignorance about technology. Criminals should not be able to take advantage of the lack of knowledge police have about technology anymore than they should be able to take advantage of police bias for the statements of white men, home owners or physicians. Nor should criminals benefit from turf wars that discourage local police from asking for FBI assistance with stalking and technology crimes.
It’s not the criminals who should be protected and served.
(Addendum 01/14/19: This entry is read every day. For that reason, I wrote a follow-on piece: Remote harassment: Mobbing and the “I wasn’t there” syndrome.)
19 responses to “A case of neighbor harassment using infrasonic sound”
I found this post incredibly informing and unfortunately I believe I have been a victim of such crimes for multiple years as well.
Since this post is years old, has there been any resolution to your situation? Is there anything I can do to protect myself?
Currently I find I am too scared to even reach out to my local police department for fear that no one will believe my story.
Thanks for your comment, Nick. I started writing this blog in hopes of providing a believable account of an unbelievable crime that, at least in my case, is clearly related to real estate speculation. This blog is less than a year old, but the Florida case of infrasonic harassment is older than that. My own situation has not been resolved. I published a post last week and hope to get another post out this week. If I’m correct and the crime that has affected me is a real estate scam, it will take finding a pattern in a number of similar cases, finding a way to prove the harassment that is designed to be highly difficult to prove (for example, infrasonic sound or cyberharassment over public speakers) or a useful lead to a police department and investigation. I’m hoping that soon happens.
This is happening to my mom. She is 78 and is convinced a neighbor is attacking her with sound only she can hear. I don’t know what to do for her and at times have trouble believing her, myself (as well as friends, family, and other neighbors)
Is there any way to record this noise, as proof?
Please email me, we are both feeling desperate at this point and are considering moving entirely.
Have your mom describe to you what the sound is, when it occurs, what makes it change, what its content is, and soon. Does it happen when others are around or standing in close proximity to her or only when she is alone? Is it connected with the devices in her home, the presence of WiFi, “smart home” technology, or what. Keep in mind that many people who are your mom’s age have hearing loss . I believe that in cases where neighbors “mob,” the sound that is introduced into the environment of the victim should make sense in some way that sound heard in dementia or delusional states may not. I don’t know enough about the hearing range of the elderly or about what types of sound they might “hear” or feel despite hearing loss. It would also be useful to consider your mom’s environment, the people around her, and any events that preceded her beginning to report the harassment.
Most of all, I believe that if there are scams that involve subjecting neighbors to noise that is difficult to detect or record, they cannot be exposed and stopped until enough people report them to help investigators to recognize the crime. I believe that I would not be in the situation I am if more people had reported or written about similar scams or types of harassment and written about them in a coherent and logical fashion. That’s what needs to happen here.
I would try to reason this out and document it before considering moving.
Our home is still being terrorised by the high pitched sound, same here our neighbours think they can terrorise with no results so far from law enforcement,
Same with us the house had no current offers on it at the time and now 2 years latter after we have put all our time and money into the place to bring it back the family group think they now have the right to take it. The house get attacked all day and all night with infrasonic sound and they tell us worse as well. We live in a small community out side of they city and it’s semi rural the group demand we sell to them for well under what we paid and of course well under its value. They are told day after day we are not interested in selling and would never sell our home to them or anyone else. But so far this group who claim to be organised think they can get away with it. In my case I have made plenty of reports to law enforcements but so far no results. Can anyone suggest a sound specialist who can help us provide the proof we need to get action from law enforcement in our state. As it’s not such a large city the crime is just horrible and no one wants to believe it’s even possible that people in our area would act this way. Any assistance or further information would be of great help. Please try to contact me on the email of [withheld to protect the writer — if there are sound specialists who are aware of network tools and wireless sound and have a way to ensure that the writer’s money is not wasted, please write]
Based on an earlier message, I believe you are writing from Kangarilla, South Australia. I have amended the message to remove your email address for now, to try to prevent bogus offers of help and other forms of social engineering by criminals. If you are being monitored, WiFi extenders are being used to harassment and monitor you or other IoT is involved, it may be useless, as I have written, to have a brief sound survey done instead collecting network data over an extended period of time that includes heat maps to show where the rogue networks and access points are positioned and network frame captures that will help to map devices to networks. You should also try turning off select circuit breakers to see if the noise level is reduced — this helps to test for your electrical wiring being used by the criminals to create carrier current communication. There are recent blog entries about this. If there is carrier current communication, a power quality logging device might be able to detect the disruption to the power line but these can be expensive. I do not know if there are smart meters in Australia that can detect the presence of carrier current communications on your power lines. I was recent told that the smart meters in use in Seattle, Washington cannot although I’m not sure that there is not some IoT management software application that might register this use of the electrical service. Alternately, network security research could help us all in the long run by verifying the behavior we describe. Many sound specialists are not aware of tools to survey networks and will be seen coming onto the property. If the survey effort is detected by people who are monitoring your home, your surveys may be a waste of money. Please read the the blogs about carrier current communication and acoustic specialists.
Acoustic camera technology may be becoming more accessible. Today I found https://soundcam.com, which can apparently be used from drones as well as by hand. I don’t know how easy it will be to have the results of such cameras used in criminal or civil court at this point, however, it looks like these cameras may be rented or purchased. I did write a blog on fighting crime with acoustic cameras which offers some thoughts on how to use these cameras to document sound harassment. You would want to show direction of sound into your house, I would think, and to be mindful of public space versus private space vis-a-vis local laws. But if drones can use these, it may also be possible to quietly hire such a drone to capture the flow of sound onto your property and into your house without the survey being detected by those who might be monitoring you to protect the sound crime. You’d have to make sure that the likely sound ranges would be detected by the camera and if your communications are not subject to eavesdropping you might want to consult with an acoustic consultant. There may be other acoustic cameras available these days although you’d have to make sure the camera would provide reliable results for the application. I would use a sound camera while also performing a WiFi frame capture and with other network surveys like heat mapping that would identify the location of networks if the acoustic camera could not offer this type of data.
My question is, How do I receive help. For the Kalamazoo area law enforcement are questioning me , instead of investigating my neighbors.
First stated nine weeks ago with just very deep bass vibration played at different hertz / beats.Now after the law enforcement has been to the neighbors home. This high pitch chirping has started.
I have to wear ear plugs and now with this high pitch. I also wear noise cancelling headphone.
So where can a victim receive help. It is obvious that law enforcement lack proper education.
Please can someone help me.
Do you have witnesses? Does it stop when others are around? How far away are the neighbors’ homes? Do you have any specific reasons to suspect your neighbors are doing this? Is this Kalamazoo, Michigan or Kalamazoo, Australia?
Help is probably a matter of enough people making credible reports. But you probably need to provide more information about your situation so that others know whether their own situations might be relevant to yours.
I live in a condo and have been mobbed for over three months. Discovered last month that the person downstairs has had a person planted in their unit the entire time making the mobbing a 24 x 7 event. Last night the mobber called the police to complain about me. Victim-blaming as you stated in your blog. The police do nothing when I complain. They say I must sign a complaint and go to mediation. Whats next, wasting money on a lawyer?
Jim this is what I did, I went to the FBI web page and filed a complaint . I have been recording the different sounds. The low bass is difficult, yet sometimes it does get recorded.
The high pitch are easier, It sound like white noise.
I use ear plugs, yet sometime the bass pressure become to much. So I leave to take ear plugs out to release the pressure. The people doing it to me are about 20 feet from my east wall. So they must have bass cannons and tweeter cannons.
Wear ear plugs and keep searching for help, they will make a mistake.
Also, don’t rule out the possibility that the sound is digitally introduced into your environment. Experiment to see its behavior when household WiFi is off, when the volume is down on your devices, and when your devices are not on standby.
I agree, It also help when they jam your wifi like they where doing with mine wifi.. I have shut all power off to my home and this is how I located which direction the bass was emitting from. Also I have gone outside and moved around until I felt the strongest bass vibration.
The high pitch was more difficult to locate, yet with help of you have a bird watcher mic, I did locate two source.
Then with recording you can use audacity to review the recording.
The only problem I have found so far, is the law enforcement case judgement base on where I live. They do this act by the comment they make. So until hypocrite thinking is removed based on residential location. These people will continue to get away with these acts and this is the main reason why criminals are ten year advance. For the majority of these are done in area that people are taught to case judgement. You know like Mobile home community ( Simple mind thinker term, Trailer park)
I know for sure if I do a retaliation act, then I would be the one getting in trouble. So this article and other like this article plainly shows that U.S.law enforcement fail to have the proper education and equipment to catch these criminal. So the U.S. law enforcement are informing the public they are suppose to protect with false information on having the technology to keep up with criminals.
I have done a thorough investigation, I more thorough done by law enforcement.
Look up feonic speakers and soundlazer speakers.
I didn’t know about these and haven’t written about them. Here’s a link for more information: https://www.feonic.com/vibration-speaker-technology.
[…] So there’s not a lot on this blog that is expressly about infrasound, even though by far the entry that gets the most hits, is the blog about the Florida woman whose neighbor subjected her to infrasonic sound harassment by virtue of a series of daisy-chained speakers held to the floor and operated by a smart phone (“A case of neighbor harassment using infrasonic sound,” https://renterharassment.wordpress.com/2016/12/10/a-case-of-neighbor-harassing-using-infrasonic-soun…). […]
[…] the visual confirmation of a speaker was not required to evaluate the merit of her complaint (A case of neighbor harassment using infrasonic sound). Perhaps the problem in this Seattle enclave whose goodness has been corrupted by scheming […]
I don’t believe Feonic speakers would work since their Frequency range doesn’t fit the spectrum of infrasonic frequencies (20hz and less).
The two devices I saw sit 80hz or 100hz at the lowest.
I believe our group are a family and as a group are trying to force the sale of our land for well under it value. This is despite being told on repeated occasions that the land is not for sale.
My fiance and I are beginning mobbed also . We had never heard of this before, but it’s 100% happening more so focused on me . I have been researching for a while now ,performing several tests to narrow where and from whom the infra/ sonic frequencies of directed from.My neighbors pretend to not know anything. I have had several arguments with 2 particular neighbors and they have harrased, taunted etc.. constantly for going on 1 and a half to 2 years now that I’m aware. I’m sure they were using other passive aggressive techniques in the past. One neighbor said we stole this house when we bought it cause he had money on it. The house was free and clear when purchased. I’ve tried local law enforcement on multiple occasions, for tresspassing but no help . The officers that came out were acting as though I had done wrong since I couldn’t catch video. One officer asked, have you thought about moving. Beyond frustrated and could use assistance, please! Thank you!,for writing about this soon to be epidemic crime.