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I have written extensively on mass psychogenic illness, so my interest was piqued when I became aware of residents in the small city of Granbury, Texas, some of whom are convinced that an array of health problems that have befallen them is the direct result of noise from a Bitcoin mining operation that opened in the summer of 2022. The symptoms include tinnitus, migraines, vertigo, hearing problems—even cardiovascular issues. There are even reports that chickens have stopped laying eggs and trees are dying, all due to the new facility.
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When I read about this case, it rekindled memories of “The Hum,” a mysterious sound that has been reported in a number of places around the world and has been attributed to scores of health complaints. There is convincing evidence that “The Hum” has a strong psychogenic component (Frosch, F., 2016). There is also a long history of people claiming to have been made sick by either playing or listening to musical instruments, especially women living in the 18th and 19th centuries. During this period, women were believed to have been more susceptible to the strains of music, as it was widely thought to harm their ‘delicate’ nervous systems. While this has no scientific backing, many doctors at the time supported the notion. The power of suggestion was so great that during this period, many women reported becoming sick during concerts—sometimes fainting—attributing their condition to music. German composer Karl Leopold Röllig (circa 1754-1804) reflected this popular belief when he wrote that playing certain instruments could “make women faint; send a dog into convulsions; make a sleeping girl wake screaming through a chord of the diminished seventh, and even cause the death of one very young.” In his history of music and health, historian James Kennaway notes that “it is quite possible that many of the accounts of music causing disease refer to real physical symptoms and suffering, albeit generally with a psychosomatic rather than direct physiological explanation” (Kennaway J., 2015).
The Hum and Wind Turbines
There is a long history of acoustical scares. In Cuba during 2016 and 2017, the first group of American diplomats and intelligence officers who were suspected of having been attacked by a sonic weapon were asked to record their ‘attacks.’ Eight of the first 21 victims of ‘Havana Syndrome’ managed to do this, and their recordings were later analyzed and found to have been the sounds of crickets. It is also notable that the ‘syndrome’ consisted of a vague laundry list of symptoms, from fatigue to vision problems.
During the early 1990s, residents of Taos, New Mexico, reported feeling sick from a mysterious humming sound. Symptoms included headaches, general discomfort, and ear pain. After a government-funded study of the ‘Taos Hum’ failed to identify an acoustic origin, German auditory expert Franz Froch concluded that most of the victims were likely experiencing tinnitus.
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In some parts of the world, people have reported becoming sick from exposure to sound created by the turning blades of wind farms. Wind turbines emit low-frequency noise, including infrasound, at frequencies below 20 Hertz, below the threshold of human hearing. There is no evidence that such sounds negatively affect health. Even human respiration creates higher levels of sub-audible sounds than the turning blades. Conspicuously, people living near identical turbines where there were no concerns raised about their health impact—have not reported symptoms. An Auckland University study exposed a group of healthy volunteers to turbine sounds. Those who believed that the exposure could negatively affect their health reported a greater frequency and intensity of symptoms, and vice versa. This and other studies of wind turbines have clearly demonstrated that the symptoms associated with wind farms can be explained by mass suggestion and expectation.
Could the Bitcoin Hum Be Psychological?
The Bitcoin Hum is reported to be at between 70 and 90 decibels, which is a level that is known to adversely affect human health. Since the opening of the facility, some local doctors report an increase in patients presenting with headaches, ear infections, insomnia, and vertigo. Continuous exposure to loud noise at those levels can cause tinnitus, migraines, and sleep disturbances and lead to elevated cortisol levels, increasing the risk of hypertension and cardiovascular issues, and messing with the regulation of glucose into the bloodstream, which can increase the risk of type 2 diabetes. It can also result in cognitive impairment, such as memory and concentration issues, depression, and anxiety disorders.
The problem is, the number of residents who believe that their health issues are emanating from the Bitcoin facility is reported to be about 40, a small sample size in a city of 10,958 according to the 2020 census. Migraines, sleep disturbances, high blood pressure, and heart problems are common conditions, while ear infections are neither associated with long-term exposure to elevated sound nor with stress that could be generated by annoyance from living near the plant. They are typically caused by bacteria or viruses. Fainting is not typically associated with exposure to the decibel levels being reported and could have other origins: heat exposure, dehydration, ingesting certain medications—even standing for long periods. One couple noted that after the Bitcoin operation moved into town, their centuries-old backyard oak tree died. But prolonged exposure to noise levels of 80 to 90 decibels is not known to directly harm the health of trees, which do not have the sensory organs that would be directly affected by noise in the same way that animals do.
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We need to be cautious in attributing the sounds of the whirring fans to every ailment under the sun and mindful of the long history of acoustical scares. While we should take these claims seriously. Without further study, it is not possible to definitively link the issues in Granbury to the Bitcoin Hum.
References
Baloh, R., and Bartholomew, R. (2020). Havana syndrome: Mass psychogenic illness and the real story behind the embassy mystery and hysteria. Copernicus Books.
Chapman, S. (2017). Wind turbine syndrome: a communicated disease, paper presented to Royal Society of NSW Symposium on The Future of Rationality in a Post-Truth World, Government House (Sydney, Australia). 29 November.
Chow, A. (2024). “’We’re Living in a Nightmare:’ Inside the Crisis of a Small Texas Town.” Time (July 8).
Crichton, F., Dodd, G., Schmid, G., Gamble, G., Cundy, T., & Petrie, K. J. (2014). The power of positive and negative expectations to influence reported symptoms and mood during exposure to wind farm sound. Health Psychology 33, 1588-1592.
Crichton, F., Chapman, S., Cundy, T., Petrie, K.J. (2014). The link between health complaints and wind turbines: support for the nocebo expectations hypothesis. Frontiers of Public Health 2(220):1-8.
Finger, S. (2006). Doctor Franklin’s Medicine. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Frosch, F. (2016). Manifestations of a low-frequency sound of unknown origin perceived worldwide, also known as ‘the Hum’ or the ‘Taos Hum’. The International Tinnitus Journal 20, 59-63.
Kennaway, J. (2016). Bad vibrations: the history of the idea of music as a cause of disease. London: Taylor & Francis.
Kennaway J. (2015). Historical perspectives on music as a cause of disease. In: Alternmuller, E., Finger, S., Boller, F., editors. Progress in brain research 2016: music, neurology, and neuroscience: historical connections and perspectives. Amsterdam: Elsevier, p. 127–45.
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Publish date : 2024-07-12 15:20:27
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