page_title: Sonic weapon
section_title: Use and deployment
hierarchical_section_title: Sonic weapon / Use and deployment
caption_attribution_description: English: A New York City Police officer of the Disorder Control Unit stands ready with the Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) model 500X at an Occupy Wall Street protest on November 17, 2011 near the city hall.
context_page_description: Sonic and ultrasonic weapons are weapons of various types that use sound to injure, incapacitate, or kill an opponent. Some sonic weapons are currently in limited use or in research and development by military and police forces. Some of these weapons have been described as sonic bullets, sonic grenades, sonic mines, or sonic cannons. Some make a focused beam of sound or ultrasound; some make an area field of sound.
context_section_description: Extremely high-power sound waves can disrupt or destroy the eardrums of a target and cause severe pain or disorientation. This is usually sufficient to incapacitate a person.  Less powerful sound waves can cause humans to experience nausea or discomfort. The use of these frequencies to incapacitate persons has occurred both in anti-citizen special operation and crowd control settings.
  The possibility of a device that produces frequency that causes vibration of the eyeballs—and therefore distortion of vision—was suggested by paranormal researcher Vic Tandy in the 1990s while attempting to demystify a "haunting" in his laboratory in Coventry.  This "spook" was characterised by a feeling of unease and vague glimpses of a grey apparition.  Some detective work implicated a newly installed extractor fan that, Tandy found, was generating infrasound of 18.9 Hz, 0.3 Hz, and 9 Hz.
  The Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) produces a 30 degree cone of audible sound in frequencies within the human hearing spectrum (20 Hz - 20kHz).  An LRAD was used by the crew of the cruise ship Seabourn Spirit in 2005 to deter pirates who chased and attacked the ship.  More commonly this device and others of similar design have been used to disperse protesters and rioters in crowd control efforts.  A similar system is called a "magnetic acoustic device". The Mosquito sonic devices have been used in the United Kingdom to deter teenagers from lingering around shops in target areas. The device works by emitting an ultra-high frequency blast (around 19–20 kHz) that teenagers or people under approximately 20 are susceptible to and find uncomfortable. Age-related hearing loss apparently prevents the ultra-high pitch sound from causing a nuisance to those in their late twenties and above, though this is wholly dependent on a young person's past exposure to high sound pressure levels. 
  High-amplitude sound of a specific pattern at a frequency close to the sensitivity peak of human hearing (2–3 kHz) is used as a burglar deterrent.
  Some police forces have used sound cannons against protesters, for example during the 2009 G20 Pittsburgh summit, the 2014 Ferguson unrest, the 2016 Dakota Access Pipeline protest in North Dakota, among others.
  It has been reported that "sonic attacks" may have taken place in Cuba in 2016 and 2017, leading to health problems, including hearing loss, in US and Canadian government employees at the US and Canadian embassies in Havana. Reporting of odd sounds, later to be determined to be crickets, were attributed to symptoms suffered by US Embassy employees. Subsequent testing revealed brain lesions consistent with pesticide exposure, which was subsequently attributed to improper ventilation after fumigation of the building.
  It has also been reported that China has developed the first hand-held portable sonic gun to target protestors.
caption: An NYPD officer stands ready with the LRAD 500X at an Occupy Wall Street protest on November 17, 2011 near the city hall
exif: {"Image Make": "Apple", "Image Model": "iPhone 3GS", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "4.3.3", "Image DateTime": "2011:11:17 18:02:05", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "206", "GPS GPSLatitudeRef": "N", "GPS GPSLatitude": "[40, 4273/100, 0]", "GPS GPSLongitudeRef": "W", "GPS GPSLongitude": "[74, 7/25, 0]", "GPS GPSAltitudeRef": "0", "GPS GPSAltitude": "19437/347", "GPS GPSTimeStamp": "[23, 2, 556]", "GPS GPSImgDirectionRef": "T", "GPS GPSImgDirection": "16793/48", "Image GPSInfo": "596", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "892", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7996", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/10", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "1000", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2011:11:17 18:02:05", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2011:11:17 18:02:05", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "6745/2029", "EXIF ApertureValue": "4281/1441", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Spot", "EXIF Flash": "No flash function", "EXIF FocalLength": "77/20", "EXIF SubjectArea": "[872, 1156, 382, 384]", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1536", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2048", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "427/333", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}