Mary King's Ghost Fest 2007 - Preliminary Results
First of all, we would lilke to thank again all the visitors to Mary King's Close who so kindly participated in the Infrasound experiment. Also many thanks to the staff who were unfailingly polite and helpful (even when we broke their photocopier and their printer trying to produce enough questionnaires!). The results we present here are preliminary - there is an enormous amount of data to be "crunched", this is an overview we pulled from the data we had whilst we were still at the Close, so please bear in mind these are not conclusive (not that anything within parapsychology ever is!!).
For visitors who wish to know if infrasound was present during their tour, you can check further down this page for your answer! You will notice that all groups on a given day have the same infrasound status - this is due to the practicalities that were involved - we could not subject one group to infrasound and not the group following them, as they would both be within the Close at the same time. Please also bear in mind that the Close already has ambient infrasound present (ambient infrasound can be produced by such things as air conditioning units, traffic, weather), which has been implicated in unusual experiences, so the true conditions were more a case of "ambient infrasound only" or "ambient infrasound plus generated infrasound".
The experiment was originally designed as a double blind, with neither the experimenters (Ann and Ciaran) nor the participants knowing whether the infrasound was "on" or "off". The "on" or "off" status was decided by Steve, with a highly technical piece of equipment (well, a coin that was tossed). For those of you didn't meet Steve, he built and manages the infrasound generator and detector, and all the other clever physics stuff. However, after the first "generated infrasound on" condition on day two, it became obvious that anyone standing in the room beyond the one where we handed you the questionnaires could probably guess that the tubes were working (the shaking walls and floors were a bit of a giveaway, as the tubes were concealed behind the right hand wall, inside Chesney's House). So Ann and Ciaran did end up knowing the infrasound status, and in hindsight maybe a different place could have been found to administer the questionnaires (however, experimental conditions are never perfect "in the field", and we often have to compromise between experimental demands and the realities of a public venue).
Finally, you get to find out whether infrasound was present on your tour or not!
| Tour Date | Group | Infrasound Present |
| 13th May 2007 | A | Yes |
| 14th May 2007 | A,B,C,D,E,F | No |
| 15th May 2007 | A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I | Yes |
| 16th May 2007 | A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I | No |
| 18th May 2007 | A,B,C,D,E,F | Yes |
| 19th May 2007 | A | No |
| 20th May 2007 | A | Yes |
Obviously it takes quite a lot of time to analyse such a lot of data, but a few results stood out from a preliminary look at the data. This analysis was done on 439 questionnaire responses, there were a few more responses from the final Sunday night tour, but the preliminary analysis was conducted for a talk at the Theosophical Society on the Sunday, so these final ones were not included.
249 people experienced both ambient and generated infrasound (referred to hereafter as the "yes" condition)
190 people experienced only ambient infrasound (referred to hereafter as the "no" condition)
Number of people reporting experiences:
33.33% of people in the "yes" group
35% of people in the "no" group
Number of people reporting multiple experiences:
36% of people in the "yes" group
16.4% in the "no" group
Reports of temperature anomalies:
20% of people in the "yes" group reported a temperature rise
5% of people in the "no" group reported a temperature rise
Sample of Reports:
Feeling of being watched; Anxiety, Feeling uncomfortable; Nausea
From these preliminary results, it appears that a similar number of people reported experiences, whether the generated infrasound was on or off. However, in the "off" condition people were more likely to report just one experience, whereas in the "on" condition, people were reporting multiple experiences, up to four experiences each.
The temperature data is interesting - there are numerous anecdotal reports that the temperature appears to drop when an apparent paranormal phenomenon occurs. This is very little documented evidence of a real, physical temperature drop occurring simultaneously with an apparent paranormal occurrence, and although there is a small body of evidence to suggest a change in temperature may coincide with a perceived paranormal event, this is a widely debated yet largely unexplored area of research. Interestingly, 20% of people in the "on" condition described a rise in temperature as opposed to the drop in temperature we might expect them to report, compared to only 5% of the "off" group.
We are looking forward to analysing the rest of the data, and hope it will provide us with information that we can use to further the research into this interesting area.
If you have any questions about the experiment please email either Para.Science (click here) or Dr Ciaran O'Keeffe via his website The Parapsychologist (click here).
