In 1980, Vic Tandy was an experimental officer and part-time lecturer in the school of international studies and law at Coventry University in the UK. He was working alone late one night in a lab, which has a reputation for being haunted. He reported feeling anxious and claimed he could see dark objects out of the corner of his eye, but when he turned to face the grayish blob, there was nothing there.

The next day, the researcher noticed what some might describe as poltergeist activity. He was working on his fencing sword, which is made of a lightweight, flexible metal. He had the handle of the foil held in a vice on his desk when he noticed that the blade started vibrating, even though nothing was touching it.

Tandy realized that it was a specific frequency of infrasound in his lab that was being produced by a fan that was causing...