# Serbian authorities used an illegal sonic weapon against a silent vigil at the March 15, 2025 Belgrade protest

**No verdict.** A real, video-documented panic swept a silent crowd of hundreds of thousands on March 15, 2025, and thousands reported a strange, violent sound. Beyond that the evidence is genuinely split: the government, the device's manufacturer, and a Russian FSB report say no acoustic weapon was used, while an independent audio-forensics group judged an attack 'highly likely.' No credible, independent investigation with full access has resolved what happened, so the specific claim that a sonic weapon was deliberately deployed remains unproven.

Category: Government & Intelligence · Era: 2020s · First circulated: March 2025 · Believed by: Widely alleged by opposition figures, Serbian rights groups, and a petition signed by more than half a million people
URL: https://theconspiratory.com/theory/serbia-sonic-weapon

## Summary
During a 15-minute silence at one of the largest protests in modern Serbian history, a sudden, jarring sound tore through the crowd on a central Belgrade boulevard and set off a stampede. Opposition politicians and rights groups say security forces fired an illegal acoustic weapon, most likely a Long-Range Acoustic Device, at peaceful demonstrators. The government flatly denies it. The core events are real and documented; the cause of the sound is not established, and the competing expert findings do not agree.

## The claim
That on March 15, 2025, during a silent vigil at a mass anti-government protest in Belgrade, Serbian security forces deliberately deployed a directional acoustic or 'sonic' weapon (an LRAD sound cannon or a comparable device) against the crowd, producing the sudden sound, the physical symptoms attendees reported, and the panicked surge that followed.

## Origin and timeline
- 2024-11-01: A concrete canopy at the newly renovated railway station in Novi Sad collapses, killing 15 people (a death later rose to 16). Blamed on corruption and shoddy oversight, the disaster ignites months of mass anti-government protests across Serbia.
- 2025-03-15: An estimated 300,000 people gather in Belgrade for one of the country's largest-ever demonstrations. At around 7 p.m. the crowd falls into a planned 15-minute silence to honor the Novi Sad dead.
- 2025-03-15: Mid-silence, a loud, jarring sound sweeps a section of Kralja Milana Boulevard. The densely packed crowd parts and surges toward the sidewalks in seconds. Attendees report fear, racing hearts, trembling, nausea, and a sensation of heat or pressure.
- 2025-03-17: Opposition figures and rights groups allege an LRAD or similar acoustic weapon was fired at the crowd, a use that would be unlawful in Serbia. Calls mount for an independent investigation.
- 2025-03-19: Genasys, the U.S. maker of LRAD devices, states that the audio and video reviewed so far does not support the use of an LRAD during the March 15 incident.
- 2025-03: After first denying the state possessed such devices, Interior Minister Ivica Dacic acknowledges police bought LRAD units from the United States in 2021, insisting they were acquired only to relay verbal messages and were not used against protesters.
- 2025-04: President Aleksandar Vucic says Russia's FSB, invited to help investigate, concluded the police's acoustic devices were not used, and suggests the panic was staged. He also says U.S. FBI investigators would come; the U.S. Justice Department does not comment.
- 2025-04-29: The European Court of Human Rights issues an interim measure in Dorovic and Others v. Serbia, telling the state to prevent any crowd-control use of sound devices. The Court stresses it takes no position on whether a weapon was actually used on March 15.
- 2025-06: Earshot, a UK audio-forensics nonprofit, publishes an investigation drawing on 19 videos, thousands of written accounts, and earwitness interviews, and concludes it is 'highly likely' the crowd was hit by a highly directional acoustic weapon.

## The evidence, claim by claim
- Claim: Thousands of people felt a violent, unnatural sound and pressure wave, which points to a directed acoustic weapon.
  Evidence: The sudden surge is real and captured on many videos, and the volume of reports is large: a group of six NGOs logged around 500 citizen testimonies, and Earshot aggregated more than 3,000 written accounts. But the descriptions vary widely by location: a Formula One roar to some, a low-flying airplane or an MRI machine to others, an emergency vehicle or a car crash to still others. Consistent panic and inconsistent descriptions are compatible with a directed weapon, but also with a loud, confusing sound of another origin amplified by a crowd already braced for danger.
- Claim: The police owned LRAD sound cannons, so they had the means, and their shifting story is suspicious.
  Evidence: Officials did first deny possessing such devices, then Interior Minister Ivica Dacic confirmed LRAD units were purchased from the U.S. in 2021. Possession and an initial denial are real and reasonably raise suspicion. They do not establish use: having a device present at a rally is not evidence it was fired, and police say the units were meant for voice announcements.
- Claim: An independent forensic analysis found an acoustic-weapon attack 'highly likely,' which supports the allegation.
  Evidence: Earshot's June 2025 report reaches that conclusion and floats specific candidates, an LRAD 450XL or an experimental vortex ring gun. It is a serious independent effort. It is also a probabilistic finding built largely on witness audio and testimony rather than a recovered device or an admitted deployment, and it directly conflicts with the manufacturer's read of the same kind of evidence.
- Claim: The government's denial, and the Russian FSB report clearing it, settle that no weapon was used.
  Evidence: Vucic cited an FSB report concluding the police's acoustic devices were not used and implying the incident was staged by 'black-clad' provocateurs. But the FSB is neither neutral nor independent, and the Serbian government is the party under accusation; a denial from the accused and a report from a close ally are not an impartial investigation. Genasys, the manufacturer, separately said the evidence did not support LRAD use, a more disinterested view but still not a full forensic inquiry with access to the scene and the devices.
- Claim: The Council of Europe's top court intervened, which shows an acoustic attack occurred.
  Evidence: The European Court of Human Rights did issue an interim measure ordering Serbia to prevent crowd-control use of sound devices, a notable first for acoustic weapons. But the Court expressly said the measure implies no finding that any such weapon was used on March 15; it obliges the state to prevent a future harm and to investigate the allegations, not a ruling that the event happened as alleged.

## Why people believe it
- The trigger event is undeniably real. People did not imagine the stampede; hundreds of thousands felt or saw a crowd break in panic, so the search for a cause starts from a genuine, shared, frightening experience rather than a rumor.
- The government's credibility was already low with protesters, and its handling did not help: an initial denial of even owning the devices, later contradicted, reads to skeptics as a cover-up in miniature, whatever the truth about deployment.
- The state's chosen investigators undercut trust. Turning to Russia's FSB, and threatening critics with prosecution, looks to opponents like a verdict written in advance, which makes the official 'no' easy to discount.
- There is real expert support for the claim. Earshot's 'highly likely' finding lets believers point to independent analysis rather than only to feeling, even though other experts read the same material differently.
- The device is plausible and evocative. LRAD sound cannons exist, are used for crowd control elsewhere, and produce exactly the kind of disorienting, painful sound people described, so the story fits a real technology rather than a fantastical one.

## Open questions
- What actually produced the sound has never been established by a neutral forensic body with access to the scene, the crowd audio, and the police's own devices. The competing analyses, Earshot on one side, the manufacturer and the FSB on the other, cannot both be right, and no independent investigation has adjudicated between them.
- If it was not a weapon, what was it? The mundane explanations on offer (a stampede touched off by student stewards removing their vests and running, a passing vehicle, mass panic feeding on itself) are plausible but have not been demonstrated to have caused the specific sound thousands describe, leaving a real gap.
- Would a genuinely independent inquiry even be possible now? Serbia has resisted outside investigation, launched prosecutions of those alleging a sonic attack, and leaned on an allied intelligence service, so the physical and testimonial evidence may degrade before any impartial body can weigh it.

## Sources
- 'Sonic Weapon' Mystery Unsolved, One Year After Panic at Serbian Protest, Balkan Insight (2026): https://balkaninsight.com/2026/03/13/sonic-weapon-mystery-unsolved-one-year-after-panic-at-serbian-protest/bi/
- Government denies using 'sonic cannon' at Serbia protests, BBC News (2025): https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqjdpy8dyzzo
- Calls in Serbia for independent investigation into claims of a sonic device attack at peaceful protest, CNN (2025): https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/17/europe/serbia-protests-sonic-device-claims-intl-latam/index.html
- 'Like a sound from hell:' Was an illegal sonic weapon used on protesters in Serbia?, NPR (2025): https://www.npr.org/2025/03/26/nx-s1-5341198/sonic-weapon-serbia-belgrade-protests
- Serbia Says Russian Investigators Found That Sonic Devices Were Not Used in Belgrade Protests, Associated Press (via U.S. News & World Report) (2025): https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2025-04-16/serbia-says-russian-investigators-found-that-sonic-devices-were-not-used-in-belgrade-protests
- Sonic Attack on a Silent Vigil, Earshot (2025): https://www.earshot.ngo/investigations/sonic-attack-on-a-silent-vigil
- ECtHR grants interim measure concerning Serbia: Controversies in the possible use of sonic weapons against protesters, EJIL: Talk! (2025): https://www.ejiltalk.org/ecthr-grants-interim-measure-concerning-serbia-controversies-in-the-possible-use-of-sonic-weapons-against-protesters/
- Vucic announces that experts from Russian FSB arrived to investigate the use of a sonic weapon, European Western Balkans (2025): https://europeanwesternbalkans.com/2025/03/31/vucic-announces-that-experts-from-russian-fsb-arrived-to-investigate-the-use-of-a-sonic-weapon/
- Guest post: Bill Boothby on 'Are sonic weapons legal?', Duke University, Lawfire (2025): https://sites.duke.edu/lawfire/2025/03/20/guest-post-bill-boothby-on-are-sonic-weapons-legal/

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