Operation Wandering Soul (Ghost Tape Number 10)

Also known as “Ghost Tape Number 10“ was an audio mix the US military used for psychological operations in the Vietnam War against the North Vietnamese. It played deeply on the Vietnamese belief of ancestor worship, spirits and the afterlife. The Wandering Soul was played on loudspeakers installed on helicopters, PCF boats or by infiltrating infantry ’loudspeaker teams’ on known enemy areas usually at night deep within the jungle. Audio credit: Robert B. Shirley @ Testimonials in quotes from “The damn reverb effect of the recording is eerie. I saw and picked-up leaflets and once heard Funeral Music played over the valleys around Landing Zone Mary Ann. A Kit Carson Scout told me what the music was. This was a ghostly sound. Hell, listening to that made me want to Chieu Hoi myself. It must have been effective as hell in the jungle at night.“ - Unnamed 1st Infantry Division sergeant 1968-1970 “You know what we did on Nui Ba Den Mountain in 1970? The 6th PSYOP got an Air Force pilot to fly to Bangkok, to get an actual recording of a tiger from their zoo. We had a Chieu Hoi (rallier to the national government from the enemy ranks) come down the mountains and tell of a tiger that was attacking the Viet Cong for the past few weeks. So, we mixed the tiger roar onto a tape of 69-T, ’the wandering soul’, and a 2-man team got up on the mountain, played the tape and 150 Viet Cong came off that mountain...“ “It exploited the belief among many of the Vietnamese people that once a person is dead the remains must be placed in an ancestral burial ground or that person will forever wander aimlessly in space. The tape was so effective that we were instructed not to play it within earshot of the South Vietnamese forces, because they were as susceptible as the Viet Cong or North Vietnamese Army. Wandering Soul’ broadcasts of eerie sounds intended to represent the souls of enemy dead who have not found peace (i.e. by being buried in the village family plot)...the idea was that the sounds would at least get a Communist soldier to think about where his soul would rest in the likely event of his being killed far from home.“ - LTC Raymond Deitch, 6th PSYOP Battalion Commander