The Carrier Wave

✦Description

An auditory-vibrational phenomenon at onset — a high-pitched ringing tone, droning frequency, or buzzing 'carrier wave' that resonates 'in every cell of the body,' often paired with a perceptual 'wobble' as the visual field destabilizes. McKenna heard 'a sound like the crumpling of a plastic bread wrapper... and a tone. A hummmm.'

✦Further notes from the corpus

Augment: the onset ring-tone is often experienced as an accelerating, rising vibration ('Acute Acceleration') felt through the whole body, and later couples to structured entity sound — the 'audio windup/windout' as beings arrive and depart. Strassman's volunteers add high-volume entity vocalizations layered over the tone.

✦What the sources say

'After a launch, travelers often hear a ringing tone or vibration somewhat resembling a carrier wave... resonating in every cell of the body.'

'a sound like the crumpling of a plastic bread wrapper... and a tone. A hummmmmm.'

An auditory ringing-type sound reported in ~15.4% of reports.

'Acceleration, Acute' — 'a constantly rising, accelerating vibration felt through the entire body'; carrier tone 'sometimes steady, sometimes warbling up and down like a siren.'

High-volume auditory hallucinations of entities 'chattering, twittering' layered over the onset tone.