Chapter 8

To most people, microwaves are associated with a quick and convenient form of cooking (and we took a brief look at microwave ovens on p.45), but there is a lot more to them than that.

       Microwave frequencies are high up in the electromagnetic spectrum, just below infra-red and visible light. There is a small amount of natural microwave radiation, originating in the Sun, which normally does not cause us any problems. In a way which must be becoming familiar to you by now, it is not the naturally occuring variety, but the massive intensity of man-made microwaves that poses the perceived threats to our wellbeing.

        With frequencies of between ten and a hundred thousand million (10'° and 10")Hz (which means that their wavelengths are measured in centimetres or millimetres), microwaves have some rather special properties. Provided there are no physical obstructions, such as buildings, a narrow, focused microwave beam can be transmitted over tens of kilometres with relatively little loss of strength and without 'scattering' in the way which lower frequencies do. So a microwave beam can be sent out from one tower and be accurately received on a dish on a distant tower. This makes microwaves very useful as carriers of information, and they are used for inland transmission of telecommunications, radio programmes and so on. They are also widely used for air traffic control, and other civilian and military applications, including surveillance (Early Warning) systems.

        Amongst the earliest commercial microwave installations was a radio transmitter on the roof of the Empire State Building in New York in the 1950s. The workers looking after the installation there discovered some of the less pleasant properties of microwaves. They found that if they put a hot-dog sausage on a stick in front of the transmitter dishes it was rapidly heated. This is of course the principle behind microwave ovens, which work because the high frequency oscillations agitate the water molecules in the food very rapidly and the resultant friction produces heat. Unfortunately the workers went on to use the heating effect in another way — to warm themselves on cold nights by standing in front of the dishes. At the time it no doubt seemed fun and a bit of a party trick. However, it all turned sour when, years later, most of fthe workers started to develop and (in many cases die from) a variety of cancers. It is now recognised that exposure to microwave radiation is potentially very dangerous and has to be carefully monitored and limited.

        We have looked at the safety of microwave ovens as far as their ; electromagnetic emissions are concerned in Chapter 6, but what about ['the food?  Most people would probably be surprised at any sugges-' tion that food cooked in such an oven is not perfectly safe, except that it can go on 'cooking' for some minutes after leaving the oven with a consequent risk of burns to the mouth.  However, people working in this area have long felt uneasy about the effect of subjecting our food to strong magnetic forces and have wondered whether there could be some permanent and potentially injurious changes to its very nature. Now there is research which has shown that food cooked in a microwave oven can have a significantly higher proportion of compounds called free radicals, compared to food cooked in the conventional way with radiant or convected heat — and free radicals are acknowledged to be potentially cancer causing.1
 

It is quite a leap from cooking food to problems with the ears, but it appears that microwaves may have some other unwelcome effects. Tinnitus is a most unpleasant affliction, commonly called 'ringing in the ears' since the classic form is said by sufferers to be like eternally listening to a clanging bell. However the noise that the sufferer hears, often every waking hour of the day, can take an almost infinite variety of forms, from bells to buzzers and beyond. Classical tinnitus can be caused by many things, from physical damage to poor blood supply and most forms are considered to be effectively incurable.

        Tinnitus is nothing new, mainly afflicting the middle-aged and elderly, but in recent years there have been increasingly numerous reports of a particular variant of the complaint, christened 'the hum' by many of its victims. It is always difficult to produce hard and fast proof of the origin of this phenomenon and there is as yet no certain explanation of the cause. However, many sufferers believe that its roots lie in the microwave radiations used for some types of communications and in particular by military installations designed for aircraft guidance and early warning systems.

        This was originally suggested when it was noticed that the hum seemed to be reported more often in those parts of the UK with the greatest concentration of military airfields and defence installations and was also more common near civilian airports. There have also been anecdotal reports of a sudden upsurge in both the number of reported cases and the intensity of the noise experienced by sufferers during the late 1980s when, it is believed, the power of the UK's early warning system was stepped up. This is difficult if not impossible to prove as defence matters are all subject to the Official Secrets Act.

        Menieres Disease, which severely affects the sense of balance, also seems to be on the increase. We usually keep our balance thanks to the vestibular apparatus in the inner ear and in particular the cochlea (snail-like, fluid-filled coils). The tubes are lined with tiny hairs — the cilia — which move in the fluid and effectively amplify the effects of any movement. Quite why this mechanism should cease to function has yet to be adequately explained by medical science and there is no reliable treatment.
 

A persuasive explanation of the way in which both of these afflictions could be caused has been put forward by a German researcher Volkrodt. He believes that the growing intensity of microwave radiations will cause the cilia in the cochlea to resonate. The cilia are short, only a few millimetres long, and this size is close to the wavelength of some microwaves commonly used for communications, especially by the military and emergency services.

        To understand Volkrodt's theory, you will need to know a little about two basic principles of physics: resonance and harmonics. A steady musical note will tend to cause a wire or fibre of the appropriate length to vibrate in sympathy with it. This is termed resonance, which is exemplified by the middle C string on a piano vibrating when a tuning fork of the same note is struck and held near to it. However, if you try this yourself, you will find that the other C strings on the piano will also vibrate, although they will do so less strongly the further they are above or below middle C.

        The reaction of these other notes is an illustration of the second principle: harmonics. The wavelength of the C above middle C is half that of middle C. Every C has a wavelength half that of the C below it and twice that of the C above. The same applies to all other notes, of course. When a tuning fork sounds middle C it will also produce harmonics which are notes with wavelengths twice, four times, etc, as well as one-half, one-quarter, and so on, of the main note. The harmonics are weaker the further they are from the main note but they will still have a similar effect, which is why more than one C string responds.

        Finally, the frequencies at which two strings made of the same material resonate is related to their length; a string half the length will vibrate naturally at twice the frequency (half the wavelength) and so on.

        Frequencies higher than those of audible sound can have similar effects; the tuning of a radio receiver or TV relies on similar principles of resonance and harmonics although achieved electrically.

        Considering these facts, Volkrodt postulates that the cilia in the cochlea will tend to resonate with waves of the same length or a harmonic of that length. Because of their mass, small as it is, it is not physically possible for cilia to vibrate at microwave frequencies. There will also be the 'damping' effect of the fluid surrounding them. However they could vibrate at much lower harmonics, which could feasibly give rise to a low frequency hum. While there is, as yet, no experimental support for Volkrodt's theory no-one has so far produced anything else which gives a convincing explanation of the hum.

Volkrodt also believes that microwaves provide a major clue to the dying of the conifer forests of Germany and other parts of central Europe as well as Scandinavia.2 This serious problem (called Waldsterben in German) has generally been blamed on acid rain resulting from the sulphurous emissions from power stations and other industrial users of large amounts of fossil fuels. It is suggested that the acid pollution acts mainly as a result of concentrations building up in lakes and water-courses, although direct fall-out in rain will also have an effect.

        Although the acid rain theory has been widely accepted it does not really explain all the facts. For instance, some of the worst affected areas are furthest from the industrial complexes said to be responsible for acid fumes. A particular case is that of the forests in centra! Germany along the line of the old East-West border. These are very badly affected, even though Germany has had a strict policy to control harmful emissions from both industrial and domestic sources for many years. While pollution carried on air currents from countries (such as the UK) with less rigorous controls could be part of the cause of the dying forests of Scandinavia, the pattern of prevailing winds suggests that this is less likely to be the case in Germany. Even more significantly, wind-borne effects would scarcely be likely to show up as a narrow band as along the border.

        Volkrodt himself lives in Germany on a ridge in the mountains not far from the old East-West border. He has observed that trees he planted on the side of the ridge facing the east have always failed to grow well, whereas those on the western slope have flourished. Climatic factors, exposure to acid rain and other such variables are clearly not going to change much over a small area such as this.

        However, a feature for many years of the German forests and those in Sweden and Finland was (and to a large extent is still) a high volume of microwave traffic since these areas were in the front line of the defence and surveillance systems of the Eastern and Western blocs. Volkrodt's land looked down into a valley which bristled with military equipment emitting microwave radiation. While his sickly trees received the full force of this radiation, the healthy ones were protected by the ridge. Volkrodt asserts that all of the worst affected forests are victims of microwaves and that this is the major factor causing their destruction.

        His explanation of how this comes about again relies on the idea of resonance. The worst affected conifers are all of the type with relatively short needles, around 10mm long on average. As with the cilia in the ears, this corresponds closely with the typical wavelength of microwave broadcasts from military installations. The illustration (fig.7} shows there is a disquieting similarity between the appearance of a conifer twig and a typical aerial used to receive very short wave transmissions. This would make the twigs very efficient receivers of the defence transmissions.

        The effect of resonance would, Volkrodt suggests, be similar to that used in a microwave oven. That is to say, the water molecules will tend to vibrate at high speed causing a heating or cooking effect. This certainly accords well with the scorched, dried appearance of branches on affected trees. Another fact that supports this theory is that it is usually the tops of the trees which are worst affected and the microwaves (which travel in straight, pencil-like beams) are transmitted just above the line of trees and other obstructions.

        The microwave theory also explains better than acid rain why it is that deciduous trees in the forests are not so badly affected as conifers even though they are exposed to the same air, water and ground conditions. While it is true that these trees do not have needles, the tracery of veins which carry water to the leaves, once again resembles some types of aerial, so a similar 'receiver' mechanism could apply. Because broad-leaved trees do not growvas fast or as high as pines they will usually be well below the line of the microwave transmissions and of course they lose their leaves and so will be unable to receive the microwaves for half of every year. Taken together these facts could explain why deciduous trees are not suffering to anything like the same extent as conifers.

Fig.7: Tree leaves and needles as microwave receivers?

Finally, we are likely to hear more of the possible danger of microwaves in relation to 'secret' defence installations. As this book went to press microwave radiations from the missile firing range and tracking installation on the Hebridean island of Benbecula were being considered as the cause of a ten-fold increase in cancers, rather than the politically more acceptable scapegoat of caesium fallout from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

NOTES
1. Yashida, H. et al, "Effects of microwave cooking on the molecules of seeds of a species of pumpkin": Nutri.Rep.int 37 (1988), pp.259-268.
2.  Volkrodt, Wetter, Boden, Mensch, 1988, vol 24, p.2453ff.

Click on Following Chapters to Read or Download:-

Electrostress-
Chapter 01 Disease
Chapter 02 Vibrations
Chapter 03 Facts and Figures
Chapter 04 Bedtime Story
Chapter 05 Around the House
Chapter 06 Power Lines
Chapter 07 Computers

Chapter 09 Some Solutions
Chapter 10 The Positive Side?

11  Earth Stress, Earthquakes, Earth Sensitives
12 History of Ley Lines, Ionization Under Cancer Beds, Scientific Measurements
13 How to Use Divining Rods, Protect Yourself, Allergies
14 Unhealthy Earth Energies, The Hartmann Net and Curry Grid
15 Black Spirals, Crop Circles, Demons, Oscilloscope Measurement
16 Crossing Leys, Ion Effect, Allergic to Microwave Ovens, Graveyards, Quarries
17 Natural and Man-made Sources of Unhealthy Energies
18 Imprinting Your Own Energy
19 Eliminating Unhealthy Earth Energy
20 Cup-marked Stones or Petroglyphs
21 Human disease and Mother Earth

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