The Shepard tone was created in 1964 by cognitive scientist Roger Shepard as a demonstration of an endlessly ascending pitch, later refined by Jean-Claude Risset into a continuous glissando. It entered mainstream film culture through Hans Zimmer's score for Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk in 2017, where the rising tones mirrored the film's mounting tension. Gamers also know it from the famously endless staircase in Super Mario 64. Since then it has become a staple of memes and video edits that need a feeling of infinite escalation.
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The Shepard tone is an audio illusion of a pitch that rises forever without ever getting higher. Creators use it to build tension in edits, memes and videos.
The Shepard tone is an auditory illusion made of layered sine waves stacked in octaves, each fading in and out so the overall pitch seems to climb endlessly without ever reaching a top. To the ear it feels like a staircase that keeps rising, smooth and hypnotic, with a faint shimmering quality as the higher frequencies dissolve and the lower ones take over. Played under a video it creates a creeping sense of urgency and inevitability, like something big is about to happen, and listeners feel their anticipation tighten the longer it runs.
