Sonic weapons and their shocking health toll: What doctors should know

By Claire Wolters | Fact-checked by Davi Sherman

Published March 28, 2025

Key Takeaways

Industry Buzz

"Sonic weapons use sound waves to incapacitate, disorient or harm individuals by harnessing acoustic energy, causing both physical and psychological effects. [It's] like a sound from hell." — NPR

People in Serbia are calling for an independent investigation into whether security forces used a military-grade sonic weapon on crowds at an anti-corruption rally in Belgrade.^[] According to the Associated Press, Serbian officials have denied that such a weapon was used to disperse protestors.^[]

The AP also reported that the weapon in question is widely banned and works by emitting “a targeted beam to temporarily incapacitate people.”

Health impacts of a new type of weapon

Acoustic weapons emit loud noises over long distances and can cause severe or long-term injury to people within their range. According to Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), sound amplifiers have been used for centuries, but their use as crowd-control weapons began in the early 1990s.^[]

There are various types of acoustic weapons that can harm humans. These include:

The Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD): This is an acoustic weapon that can emit sound over long distances—up to 8,900 meters “for intelligible speech.”^[]
“The Mosquito”: This is an acoustic weapon that is audible to—and painful for—people under the age of 30 but does not tend to affect people over 30.
Infrasonic weapon: This is a newer acoustic weapon that delivers low-frequency sounds that cannot be heard by the human ear but can still produce pain, disorientation, nausea, and potentially long-term hearing loss.

Medical research on how acoustic weapons impact human health is limited. However, over the years, case reports have found that sound attacks can result in symptoms such as hearing loss, ear pain, and tinnitus in some individuals.^[]

Symptoms explained

According to the AP, symptoms that can arise from exposure to sonic weapons include:

Sharp ear pain
Disorientation
Panic
Ruptured eardrums
Irreversible hearing damage^[]

Symptoms may be more likely to occur in people who experience prolonged exposure to these weapons. The extent to which acoustic weapons may affect other parts of the body, such as the brain and heart, remains unclear.