MythBusters

Do not try what you're about to see at home.

We consult with experts, we take every precaution,

and we have years of experience in dangerous situations.

On this horrifying episode of "MythBusters"...

Aah! Here's Adam!

...there's thrills...

Oh, it's burrowing! Ohh!

...spills...

Who talked me into this?

...and spine-tingling chills...

for the hair-raising Halloween special.

First, Adam and Jamie go bump in the night...

Yes, we're staring at you. We're all staring at you.

...finding out if the science of sound...

These ain't no boom boxes.

...could explain reports of paranormal activity.

Then, it's a grave concern...

Are you ready for the horror? Dun dun dun!

...testing the movie myth

that moving a dead body is dead easy.

Meanwhile, Kari, Tory, and Grant take fright...

Breathe. Just breathe.

Yeah, breathe.

...and work up a cold sweat...

Help me!

...finding out if there really is a smell of fear.

Oh, yeah.

Whew! Thank God that's over.

Who are the MythBusters?

Science is dangerous!

Adam Savage...

Hi, mom.

...and Jamie Hyneman.

Bye-bye!

Between them, more than 30 years of special-effects experience.

Together with Kari Byron..

Face the arachnichair.

...Grant Imahara...

Something just touched me!

...And Tory Belleci.

It's a cute little bug... of death!

They don't just tell the myths.

What more do you need to know?

They put them to the test.

MythBusters 11x04 - Fright Night Original air date October 28, 2012

Aah!

Children of the night, prepare to be terrified,

for it is time for the "MythBusters" Halloween special!

Do you have a costume for me?

Would you even wear one?

No.

Then we don't.

So, what's on the roster for the Halloween special?

I'm glad you asked.

First up, we have the myth called the frequency of fear.

There is apparently a certain frequency of sound

that people can't hear but they can sense it,

and it makes people feel spooked,

and it might be an explanation

for why people think certain places are haunted.

I like that.

And, you know, I also want to try

dealing with disposing of bodies.

Really?

Yeah, you know, in the movies,

they're always slinging them around like they're easy,

but there's a reason they call it dead weight.

That's great! It sounds positively ghoulish!

Here we go.

Yep. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Because Adam and Jamie have doubled the dread

for a duo of disturbing myths,

and first up is an audio anomaly.

There's no shortage of folks

reporting that they see dead people.

But science suggests that this paranormal activity

could all be down to inaudible sounds.

Could the vibration of household appliances

at the supposed "freaky frequency"

really make you see a ghost?

So, what's the plan for frequency of fear?

Well, the specific frequency turns out to be 19 hertz.

It's subaural, which means you can't hear it.

But to give ourselves the best chance

that someone might be able to sense it,

I think we need a big, fat speaker stack

that can generate 19 hertz at a fairly high intensity.

Sounds good.

So we can be scientific and all,

why don't we get, say, four separate cottages

that are already a little spooky?

Ah! And we'll only play the sound in one of them!

Yeah, and if they're already a little spooky,

maybe the tone will send them over the edge.

Oh, that's terrific. All right, let's do it.

And deep in the backwoods,

the MythBusters have found the perfect location

to set the, uh, tone.

Where's Jamie?

Aah!

Little spooky here, isn't it?

I think it's plenty spooky.

Now, because this is a Halloween episode,

we wanted the location we came to, to be good and spooky.

Oo-oo-ooh!

But not so spooky

that it would actually skew the control of our test...

testing spookiness.

And about 2 1/2 hours north of the MythBusters shop

in Northern California, in the Redwoods,

we found this fantastic club resort,

and no one's been here in almost 15 years.

It was once beautiful,

but now it's simply perfect for us.

They're perfect for our purposes

because, despite small cosmetic differences,

each of our four cabins has a nearly identical layout.

We will, however, only be applying

our infrasound treatment to one of the four cabins,

and we'll be trying to find out

if there's any meat to this myth...

I.E. does a statistically significant majority

of our volunteers

find that cabin to be the haunted one?

Perfect.

Indeed. And to generate that hum...

These ain't no boom boxes.

...Jamie's tracked down a supersized stack of speakers.

It's equivalent to the sound

that you might have coming out of a large rock concert.

It's about 40,000 watts,

or, you know that home-theater system you have?

Well, it's about 400 of those.

Yep, cabin number 3 has a sound system to die for.

But for this test, they're pumping the volume... down?

These speakers are clearly capable

of making the whole building vibrate and the windows shake,

which is what they're doing now.

And we can't actually have any sounds

that the test subjects can hear

because that would skew the results.

We've got an upper limit on the amount of volume

that we can pump out of those speakers.

So we're gonna have to tune this back just to the point

where there's nothing audible, including rattling,

and we'll work with that.

With the volume dialed down from 11,

Jamie goes for a test run.

Hmm.

This is interesting. I can't hear anything out of the ordinary.

I do feel like there's something going on in me.

It feels like I have butterflies in my stomach

or I'm really tired but I've had too much coffee.

It's... it's sort of anxiety-producing.

I don't know about fear, but it's unnerving.

Next up, the MythBusters are on the scent.

All right, so this is a classic for the Halloween special.

What is it?

- The smell of fear. - What about it?

Well, the fans want to know, is it just a Hollywood tagline...

the smell of fear!...

or is there a detectable scent that humans give off

when they're scared?

That means we're gonna have to get scared for this, doesn't it?

You betcha.

Ugh.

So not looking forward to this.

This is a myth straight out of schlock horror.

But does the sticky sweat of fear

really have an aroma of anxiety?

And would that stink be whiffy enough

for a human nose to sniff it out?

So, if there is a smell of fear,

it must be something secreted in sweat.

Exactly. So why don't we set up an experiment

where we're collecting normal sweat

as we're exercising as a control.

And then we'll collect more sweat while we're being scared.

Then we take those samples, bring in some volunteers,

and see if they can smell the difference

between fear and non-fear sweat.

Cool. But you know what that means.

It means we're gonna have to devise some kind of torture

for our fear-sweat samples.

Well, you remember cold feet?

How could I forget?

Well, apparently, our fans are demented,

and they want to torture us with more creepy crawlies,

so they've come up with a list of things, we're gonna pick three,

and then each of us will pick one out of a hat.

Sort of like a sick and twisted lottery

where none of us really wins?

Great. I can hardly wait.

But before we get to that,

we should get out the treadmills

so that we can get our control samples.

Good idea... stall as long as we can.

Yeah.

Yep, it's time

to get a little steamy and sweaty for science.