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May 29, 2023: Harold Burris-Meyer and manipulative sound, feat. Ted Houghtaling

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Today: Harold Burris-Meyer and manipulative sound, feat. Ted Houghtaling

• The library at Stevens Institute of Technology, where Ted is archivist and digital projects librarian (listed on the staff page)

• Mood Music – and Mind Control?: Harold Burris-Meyer’s controlled sound research helped shape modern entertainment, work and warfare

• Video lecture by Gascia Ozounian about Burris-Meyer

• Stereophonica: Sound and Space in Science, Technology, and the Arts, by Gascia Ouzounian (MIT Press, 2021)

• Wikipedia on Harold Burris-Meyer

• The Operation Dragoon drama of Douglas Fairbanks (by David Sears, World War II Magazine, published in the Navy Times, Aug 15, 2019):

Beach Jumper Unit-1 (BJU-1), the first of nine such units the U.S. Navy organized during World War II, was officially commissioned on May 25, 1943, at Little Creek’s Camp Bradford, where Burris-Meyer established a Beach Jumper training group.

While there are several stories about the derivation of the “Beach Jumper” name—“BJ” for short—the most credible is Burris-Meyer’s oft-quoted determination to use sonic deception to “scare the be-Jesus” out of the enemy.

In a prewar staging of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Burris-Meyer had used the “BJ factor” on a theatrical audience, synchronizing visual and audio effects to dramatize the movements of the play’s ghost. Whenever the projected apparition crossed the stage, its voice eerily moved with it, thanks to a backstage technician controlling a dozen carefully placed speakers.

For his wartime work, Burris-Meyer devised portable, self-contained gear consisting of sophisticated generator-powered amplifiers and multi-directional speakers. Connected to recording and playback equipment, the units (code-named “heaters”) broadcast prerecorded noises simulating a seaborne invasion. Operating heaters from small boats offshore, Beach Jumper personnel aimed to convince enemy defenders an attack was imminent. If the “BJ factor” worked, hoodwinked enemy troops would rush to the “ghost” invasion beach, leaving the actual invasion site vulnerable.

The Mosquito or Mosquito alarm is a machine used to deter loitering by emitting sound at high frequency. In some versions, it is intentionally tuned to be heard primarily by younger people. Nicknamed "Mosquito" for the buzzing sound it plays, the device is marketed as a safety and security tool for preventing youths from congregating in specific areas.

The latest version of the device, launched late in 2008, has two frequency settings, one of approximately 17.4 kHz[2] that can generally be heard only by young people, and another at 8 kHz that can be heard by most people.

. . . The Mosquito machine was invented and patented by Howard Stapleton in 2005, and was originally tested in Barry, South Wales, where it was successful in reducing teenagers loitering near a grocery store.