This episode was written and produced by Galen Beebe

The Long-Range Acoustic Device, or LRAD, was developed for the military for long-range communication at sea. But this ear-splitting device has also been fired on protesters across America, resulting in lawsuits and permanent hearing loss. In this episode, we explore the history, science and effects of the so-called “sound cannon.” Featuring tech journalist Lynne Peskoe-Yang and activist Michele Lindor.

MUSIC FEATURED IN THIS EPISODE

Migration by In Passage
Lemuel by We Build With Rubber Bands
Her Caliber by The Watchmaker
Glass Obelisk by Median Point
Flatlands by Triana Short Form
Checkered Blue by Muffuletta
Glass Obelisk by Low Call
Glass Obelisk by The Onyx
David Molina by Endure
Junior State by Have I Told You
Charles Holme by Forbidden Fruit

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View Transcript ▶︎

[SFX: Protest + LRAD]

Michele: So when it first started going off, I was genuinely kind of confused, like is there like a car alarm that's malfunctioning? Is there a fire alarm in a house right now?

[SFX: LRAD way down]

This is Michele Lindor, describing her experience at a protest in Rochester, New York.

Michele: And then I saw the tanks being driven in [SFX: tank driving] and them moving that big flat platform. And I was just like, “What is that?” And my friend Gabe turned to me and he’s like “That’s an LRAD.” And I’m like, “I have no idea what that is.”

Now, Michele had been to protests before. She had been hit with pepper spray and heard flash grenades. But she had never experienced anything like this.

[SFX: LRAD back in]

Michele: It's a weird feeling, and it kind of vibrates your whole head. My friend Gabe said he could feel it in his chest almost, that it was just so heavy.

Michele was standing near the front of the crowd, about forty feet from where the sound was coming from. She thought about running away, but she fought through it.

Michele: I physically made myself plant myself in where I was. But I wanted to get away and I wanted to leave. And I held my hands over my ears a lot, or plugged my ears a lot, or tried talking while it was going on.

When the protesters refused to leave, things got even worse.

Michele: So as soon as they started using the LRAD, [SFX: LRAD fade out] and we weren't moving back, they started physically pushing our line back, and that's when the tear gas [SFX] started and the pepper bullets started. [SFX: pepper bullets]

[SFX: LRAD fade out]

Michele: The flash bangs [SFX] were really, really scary, because you couldn't really differentiate between what was what. It was terrifying. It sounded like a war zone.

This piercing sound [SFX: LRAD] kept happening, on and off, for hours. Michele stayed at the protest until about two in the morning, and when she finally left, the sound came with her. [SFX: Tinnitus effect]

Michele: I only left because I was exhausted and I was in pain.

Michele: I didn't even notice how bad it was until I was in silence. And my ears were just ringing, [SFX: ringing gets louder] I thought that something was wrong with my car. It was really bad.

Michele: I sat in my car for a good 10, 15 minutes, like “This is intense.” I had to turn my radio up to 20 [SFX: radio music], driving home, windows down [SFX: window down, traffic, wind, car], to cancel out any noise.

Michele: I couldn't sleep without something on, playing, [SFX: tv on] or a fan [SFX: fan] on to trick my mind. And it went on for a good like week, like six, seven days. [SFX: Tinnitus fade out]

You’re listening to Twenty Thousand Hertz. I’m Dallas Taylor.

[music in]

The device Michele heard that day is sometimes called a “sound cannon,” but the technical term is “LRAD.”

Lynne: So, it stands for Long Range Acoustic Device.

That’s Lynne Peskoe-Yang, a tech journalist who reports on LRADs.

Lynne: It is basically, well, it depends who you ask. If you ask a police officer or anyone from law enforcement who’s been trained on operating LRADs, they will tell you it is a very loud loudspeaker. That it's just a long range communications device, specifically. If you ask someone who has been in the direct line of an LRAD, especially at close range, they will tell you it's a sound weapon or a sound cannon.

An LRAD has two functions: The first is the voice function, which is basically a really strong megaphone that blasts a voice in one direction.

[SFX: NYC protest]

The second function is the deterrent tone, which is what Michele heard [SFX: LRAD Alarm]

Lynne: It's the same technology, it's just a really, really loud sound. That's the alarm. And that is what the LRAD is known for, and really, the deterrent tone is the focus of every controversy surrounding the LRAD. No one has a problem with long range communication.

[music out]

What’s special about the LRAD is the way it projects sound. A regular loudspeaker scatters sounds in many directions, kinda like how a lightbulb shines light everywhere. But an LRAD blasts a sound in just one direction—like a beam from a super powerful flashlight.

[music in]

Lynne: I think a flashlight is a pretty good way to think of it because what's special about it is just the casing around the flashlight, right? You can have an ordinary bulb, but in order to make the light from the bulb go in one direction, it needs to be set in something that's reflective, and will sort of squeeze the cone of energy that it's sending out until it's more narrow.

The result is a highly-concentrated beam of sound.

Lynne: Really, it's just a really simple physical design. A sound engineer I talked to called it a brute force design. It's like, how do we make this as loud and as painful as possible?

The sound is loudest directly in front of it, but it can easily be moved around. Michele discovered that pretty quickly.

Michele: I kept moving within the crowd. [SFX: crowd, LRAD] So as soon as I moved to the left, and they were all the way to the right, I didn't hear a thing. [SFX: pan and fade LRAD] It was insane. And then as soon as they pulled it towards the middle, it was very slight. [SFX: light LRAD] And then obviously, right direct to me, it was deafening. [SFX: loud LRAD] So I was pretty disgustingly impressed with that machine, I was just like, that's pretty genius, if you think about it.

[music out]

LRADs were first developed for the US military, after an attack on the USS Cole. This is from a special on CNN:

[SFX Clip: CNN: October 12, 2000, the Cole was attacked as it ported in Yemen. The suicide mission using a small boat and hundreds of pounds of explosives. 17 sailors died, 39 injured.]

In response to the attack, the Navy wanted a tool that would allow them to better communicate with approaching vessels.

[music in]

Lynne: So the idea is to communicate at such a distance that you would be able to send a clear message, and then judging by the response of the potential enemy, you would know whether to fire.

A company called the American Technology Corporation supplied the answer: the long-range acoustic device, or LRAD. Here’s an LRAD representative describing how it works in an AOL segment called “Digital Justice.”

[SFX Clip: Robert Putnam: So it stays focused in a 30-60 degree beam, and by allowing us to do that, the people at the other end absolutely understand the instructions that are being given them and we can give them the instructions in any language.]

As intended, the LRAD was perfect for communication at sea. It could transmit sound over two miles across the water, so ships could hear it even without a working communication system.

[SFX clip: AP: This is a Naval exclusionary zone. Please back away from this area.]

But the designers quickly realized that LRADs could be useful in other situations, and started selling them for a range of uses. Some fire departments use LRADs as a mass notification system during wildfires. A few years ago, after a deadly wildfire in California, some towns bought LRADs to replace their air raid sirens. This is from an ABC special.

[SFX Clip: ABC 10: Mill Valley is upgrading all five of its sirens to LRAD technology this year, complete with battery backups and satellite communication so they can work even if a fire burns the phone lines.]

LRADs can be useful in all kinds of natural disasters. They can be used to send shelter in place or evacuation orders, to communicate with people who are stranded, and to help find people in search and rescue situations.

[SFX clip: Robert Putnam: Because it can broadcast effectively up to two miles away and very powerfully, you can mount it on helicopters, fly over, and be able to broadcast messages to hopefully the people that you're trying to find.]

Of course, When we need to spread critical information, volume is a good thing—as long as the people hearing it aren’t too close. But when law enforcement uses the LRAD’s deterrent tone for crowd control, many of the people who get hit are just a few feet away. And that is what's so dangerous.

[music in]

Volume is measured in decibels. A normal conversation is about 60 decibels. A loud motorcycle [SFX: motorcycle] might be around a hundred decibels. An important thing to note here, is that on the decibel scale, the loudness doubles approximately every 10 decibels. So 70 decibels is twice as loud as 60 decibels, 80 decibels is twice as loud as 70, 90 is twice as loud as 80. Any sound over 120 decibels can cause pain and hearing loss.

The smallest LRAD model, the 100X, can go a full twenty decibels higher than that, to 140 decibels. That’s as loud as a jet taking off from hundred feet away. [SFX: jet] The largest LRAD can be as loud as 160 decibels. That’s about one thousand and twenty four times as loud as a normal conversation. To put it another way, that’s like standing on the edge of the launch pad while the space shuttle takes off. [SFX: rocket takeoff + music out].

Not only does that level of sound cause permanent hearing damage, it’s also really physically painful.

[music in]

Lynne: People who have witnessed that, witnessed people being too close to one, say that some people just fall down because they're in so much pain. If you’re in the line of fire, it can be so disorienting that you forget how to problem solve. You forget which direction you should go. So in that sense, if you just fall down where you are and are screaming in pain, that’s not crowd control. That’s not a deterrent. That’s just an injury.

And injuries like this have led to legal action. After suffering permanent hearing damage from LRADs, some people have taken US cities to court. Meanwhile, many police departments argue that LRADs can’t be considered weapons. That’s coming up, after the break.

[music out]

MIDROLL

[music in]

The Long Range Acoustic Device, or LRAD, was first released in the early 2000s. The US Navy bought LRADs to use on ships, but they weren’t the only customer. Other countries started buying them too, and so did US cities, fire departments, and police departments. The police eventually started using the LRADs built in “deterrent tone” for crowd control, and by 2020, these devices had been used on protesters in at least nine states.

People in favor of LRADs argue that it lets officers communicate, and clear out crowds without using lethal force. Here’s an officer in Columbus, Ohio, describing his thoughts on the LRAD to NBC News.

[SFX Clip: NBC4 Columbus: A lot of people think this is some space-age device where you’re going to curl up and start bleeding from your ears and eyes and all that, but it’s not. It’s just what I would refer to as an annoying rhythmic or pulsating-type tone.]

But this tone is more than just annoying—it can cause migraines, nausea, vertigo, confusion, and permanent hearing loss.

[music out]

When police officers use an LRAD, they sometimes just use the voice function… which again, no one really takes issue with.

[SFX Clip: San Diego PD: I command all those assembled at 500 Harbor Drive to immediately disperse. If you do not do so, you will be arrested.]

Other times, they combine it with the deterrent tone.

[SFX Clip: NYC PD: You must not interfere with vehicular traffic. You must remain on the sidewalk. If you do, you will be placed into custody.]

That sound is meant to cause enough discomfort that it breaks up crowds, kind of like auditory tear gas. But just like tear gas, bystanders can be vulnerable, too.

[music in]

In 2009, a professor from the University of Missouri named Karen Piper was at a park in Pittsburgh. The park was filled with people protesting the nearby G20 summit, but Karen wasn’t protesting—she was there to take some photos for a book she was writing. Without warning, the Pittsburgh police fired an LRAD into the crowd, and Karen was caught in its beam. Here she is describing the experience to the ACLU:

[SFX Clip: Piper: It was almost like you could feel the sound going through you. And I immediately felt a pain in my ears and I ran away. And then I just felt dizzy and nauseous and I felt this horrible headache and one of my ears was worse than the other, and there was fluid coming from it I noticed. And so I sat down and felt like I couldn’t breathe or catch my breath and I just sat there for I’m not sure how long.]

As a result, Karen suffered permanent hearing damage, and decided to file a federal lawsuit. The judge ruled that Pittsburgh PD used excessive force, and awarded her $72,000 in damages.

[music out]

A similar case happened in New York. After being hit with an LRAD at a protest, six people sued the New York Police Department. The city of New York attempted to have the case thrown out. They argued that since the LRAD only uses sound, it can’t be excessive force—in fact, they say it’s not a force at all.

[music in]

According to the NYPD, quote, “the LRAD is not an instrumentality of force, but a communication device,” and “the officers’ creation of a sound that plaintiffs happened to hear cannot be considered ‘physical contact.'”

But the physics, and common sense, say otherwise.

Lynne: Sound is movement, so if you hear a sound, that means something in your inner ear is moving because of the movement of molecules in the air. So the danger with any exposure to overly loud sounds is that those inner ear parts, which are extremely sensitive and delicate and really difficult for the body to repair, will be permanently damaged by that movement. That they'll move so quickly and with such energy that they'll essentially break.

The higher the volume, the more force is hitting your eardrums, and the more quickly it can cause damage. But hearing damage can be hard to prove.

Lynne: Some of the dangers of loud noises are not things that are visible to doctors, [SFX: tinnitus sfx] including tinnitus, which is when you hear that ringing in your ear, but a medical case of tinnitus would be something that lasts much longer [SFX: tinnitus fade out]. So it's something that can be really distressing, but is totally internal on a physical level, which means, it's easier for people to argue that it's not real, which definitely works in favor of people who would like the LRAD to not be regulated like a weapon.

[music out]

The LRAD is just one of many controversial military weapons that police use. Flash grenades produce a blinding flash of light, and a sound of up to 170 decibels [SFX]. That’s even louder than the strongest LRAD, though it only lasts for a split second. All of this leaves a lot of people asking how and why police have access to things that are designed for use in war.

[music in]

Lynne: So the “why” is hard to answer. The “how” is a little bit easier. The ways that police get access to military technologies are numerous. One of the most famous is the Federal 1033 Program, which basically lets police just sort of lease, or buy for a low cost, or sometimes just receive for free, surplus equipment from all branches of the military.

The 1033 Program was created in the 90s, to get rid of extra military equipment, and to help police departments fight the war on drugs. Weapons that can be transferred through this program include bayonets and grenade launchers. Over the years, the program has been rolled back, then reinstated, then rolled back again. But even if this program gets completely eliminated, it won’t stop police departments from getting LRADs.

Lynne: LRADs are sold directly to departments by sales representatives who are really numerous, and many of whom seem to be military themselves, or ex-military.

Today, it’s not clear exactly how many police departments in the US have LRADs, but they seem to be getting more and more common.

Lynne: When it comes to militarization, one of the reasons that the prevalence of LRADs worries me so much is that to me, it's a sign that the escalation can continue.

Lynne: Every new advanced weapon that police get leads to escalation in their riot control methods, so I guess the answer to “why” is because no one has said no yet. No one has prevented it yet, or regulated that option away from law enforcement.

Michele: If we continue to use LRAD, where are we going to draw the line?

[music out]

While lawmakers haven’t done much about LRADs, many doctors and experts have come out strongly against them.

The Acoustical Society of America said that LRADs are quote “capable of delivering dangerously high sound levels when employed at shorter ranges. ”

The Academy of Doctors of Audiology called the use of LRADs for crowd control quote “unacceptable and inhumane.”

The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association said that the LRAD’s volume is quote, “capable of causing not only permanent hearing loss, but also migraine, vestibular, and other auditory symptoms.”

The group Physicians for Human Rights said that there are quote, “serious concerns about the high potential of acoustic weapons to cause serious and permanent injury.”

[music in]

Our ability to hear the world around us is an incredible gift, and no one has the right to take that away from us. and it doesn’t matter if you’re protesting, counterprotesting, or just walking through a public park—your hearing should never be considered expendable.

Now, as a long-range communication tool, LRADs can be really useful, even lifesaving. But when the LRAD’s deterrent tone is being used as a method of crowd control, it can do irreversible damage.

I’m not here to cast blame on the specific officers who’ve used LRADs, or even the precincts they belong to. The police have a really tough job to do, and they’re not trained in audiology. The problem isn’t any single person, it’s a system that allows a military-grade sonic weapon to be used on its citizens.

Lynne: I'm really stuck on this topic because the difference between how essential this information is to the safety of Americans, and how much they know about it is really enormous and untenable. So my motivation, I guess, is just to expose how these things work and what they mean so that the public can confront it. And maybe it turns out most Americans don't care if their police forces have LRADs, but they should know. They should know so they can decide whether they care.

[music out]

[music in]

Twenty Thousand Hertz is produced out of the sound design studios of Defacto Sound. Find out more at Defacto Sound dot com.

This episode was written and produced by Galen Beebe, and me Dallas Taylor, with help from Sam Schneble. It was story edited by Casey Emmerling. It was sound designed and mixed by Soren Begin and Joel Boyter.

Thanks to our guests, Michele Lindor and Lynne Peskoe-Yang. You can read Lynne’s work at lynne peskoe yang dot com, which we’ve linked in the show description.

What do you think about LRADs? You tell us on Facebook, Twitter, on our subreddit, or at hi@20k.org.

Thanks for listening.

[music out]