Electronic voice phenomenon
Electronic voice phenomena (EVP) are electronically captured sounds that resemble speech, but are not the result of intentional voice recordings. Common sources include static, stray radio transmissions and background noise. Some people claim these sounds are of paranormal origin, while there are natural explanations such as apophenia (finding significance in insignificant phenomena), auditory pareidolia (interpreting random sounds as voices in their own language), equipment artefacts, or simple hoaxes. Recordings of electronic voice phenomena are often created from background sound by increasing the gain (i.e. sensitvity) of the recording equipment.
According to parapsychologist Konstantin Raudive, who popularized the idea,[2] EVP are typically brief, usually the length of a word or short phrase.
History
As the Spiritualism religious movement became prominent in the 1840s–1920s with a distinguishing belief that the spirits of the dead can be contacted by mediums, new technologies of the era including photography were employed by spiritualists in an effort to demonstrate contact with a spirit world. So popular were such ideas that Thomas Edison was asked in an interview with Scientific American to comment on the possibility of using his inventions to communicate with spirits. He replied that if the spirits were only capable of subtle influences, a sensitive recording device would provide a better chance of spirit communication than the table tipping and ouija boards mediums employed at the time. However, there is no indication that Edison ever designed or constructed a device for such a purpose.As sound recording became widespread, mediums explored using this technology to demonstrate communication with the dead as well. Spiritualism declined in the latter part of the 20th century, but attempts to use portable recording devices and modern digital technologies to communicate with spirits continued.
Early interest
American photographer Attila von Szalay was among the first to try recording what he believed to be voices of the dead as a way to augment his investigations in photographing ghosts. He began his attempts in 1941 using a 78 rpm record, but it wasn't until 1956, after switching to a reel-to-reel tape recorder, that he believed he was successful.[6] Working with Raymond Bayless, von Szalay conducted a number of recording sessions with a custom-made apparatus, consisting of a microphone in an insulated cabinet connected to an external recording device and speaker. Szalay reported finding many sounds on the tape that could not be heard on the speaker at the time of recording, some of which were recorded when there was no one in the cabinet. He believed these sounds to be the voices of discarnate spirits. Among the first recordings believed to be spirit voices were such messages as "This is G!", "Hot dog, Art!", and "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all". Von Szalay and Bayless' work was published by the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research in 1959. Bayless later went on to co-author the 1979 book, Phone Calls From the Dead.
In 1959, Swedish painter and film producer Friedrich Jürgenson was recording bird songs. Upon playing the tape later, he heard what he interpreted to be his dead father's voice and then the spirit of his deceased wife calling his name. He went on to make several more recordings, including one that he said contained a message from his late mother.Raudive voices
Konstantin Raudive, a Latvian psychologist who had taught at the University of Uppsala, Sweden and who had worked in conjunction with Jürgenson, made over 100,000 recordings which he described as being communications with discarnate people. Some of these recordings were conducted in an RF-screened laboratory and contained words Raudive said were identifiable. In an attempt to confirm the content of his collection of recordings, Raudive invited listeners to hear and interpret them.He believed that the clarity of the voices heard in his recordings implied that they could not be readily explained by normal means. Raudive published his first book, Breakthrough - An Amazing Experiment in Electronic Communication with the Dead in 1968 and it was translated into English in 1971. Phone calls from the dead
Phone calls from the Dead is an alleged paranormal phenomenon in which people receive telephone calls that they claim are from the deceased. People have reported receiving telephone call from deceased relatives, friends, or even from someone not directly known by the recipient in life. The communication is usually simple and brief, and is usually a one-time occurrence. Spiricom
In 1980, William O'Neil constructed an electronic audio device called "The Spiricom". O'Neil claimed the device was built to specifications which he received psychically from George Mueller, a scientist who had died six years previously.At a Washington, DC, press conference on April 6, 1982, O'Neil stated that he was able to hold two-way conversations with spirits through the Spiricom device, and provided the design specifications to researchers for free. However, nobody is known to have replicated O'Neil's results using their own Spiricom devices. O'Neil's partner, retired industrialist George Meek, attributed O'Neil's success, and the inability of others to replicate it, to O'Neil's mediumistic abilities forming part of the loop that made the system work. Modern era (1980s-present)
In 1982, Sarah Estep founded the American Association of Electronic Voice Phenomena (AA-EVP) in Severna Park, Maryland, a nonprofit organization with the purpose of increasing awareness of EVP, and of teaching standardized methods for capturing it. Estep began her exploration of EVP in 1976, and says she has made hundreds of recordings of messages from deceased friends, relatives, and other individuals, including Konstantin Raudive, Beethoven, a lamplighter from 18th century Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and extraterrestrials whom she speculated originated from other planets or dimensions.
The term 'Instrumental TransCommunication (ITC)' was coined by Ernst Senkowski in the 1970s to refer more generally to communication through any sort of electronic device such as tape recorders, fax machines, television sets or computers between spirits or other discarnate entities and the living. One particularly famous claimed incidence of ITC occurred when the image of EVP enthusiast Friedrich Jürgenson (whose funeral was held that day) was said to have appeared on a television in the home of a colleague, which had been purposefully tuned to a vacant channel. ITC enthusiastists also look at TV and video camera feedback loop of the Droste effect.In 1997, Imants Barušs, of the Department of Psychology at the University of Western Ontario, conducted a series of experiments using the methods of EVP investigator Konstantin Raudive, and the work of "instrumental transcommunication researcher" Mark Macy, as a guide. A radio was tuned to an empty frequency, and over 81 sessions a total of 60 hours and 11 minutes of recordings were collected. During recordings, a person either sat in silence or attempted to make verbal contact with potential sources of EVP.Barušs stated that he did record several events that sounded like voices, but they were too few and too random to represent viable data and too open to interpretation to be described definitively as EVP. He concluded: "While we did replicate EVP in the weak sense of finding voices on audio tapes, none of the phenomena found in our study was clearly anomalous, let alone attributable to discarnate beings. Hence we have failed to replicate EVP in the strong sense." The findings were published in the Journal of Scientific Exploration in 2001, and include a literature review.
In 2005 the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research published a report by paranormal investigator Alexander MacRae. MacRae conducted recording sessions using a device of his own design that generated EVP.In an attempt to demonstrate that different individuals would interpret EVP in the recordings the same way, MacRae asked seven people to compare some selections to a list of five phrases he provided, and to choose the best match. MacRae said the results of the listening panels indicated that the selections were of paranormal origin.
Portable digital voice recorders are currently the technology of choice for EVP investigators. Since these devices are very susceptible to Radio Frequency (RF) contamination, EVP enthusiasts sometimes try to record EVP in RF- and sound-screened rooms. Nevertheless, in order to record EVP there has to be noise in the audio circuits of the device used to produce the EVP. For this reason, those who attempt to record EVP often use two recorders that have differing quality audio circuitry and rely on noise heard from the poorer quality instrument to generate EVP.
Some EVP enthusiasts describe hearing the words in EVP as an ability, much like learning a new language. Skeptics say that the claimed instances are all either hoaxes or misinterpretations of natural phenomena. EVP and ITC are seldom researched within the scientific community and, as ideas, are generally derided by scientists when asked.Explanations and origins
Most explanations of EVP can be categorised as either paranormal, explaining the source of the voice, or non-paranormal. Explanations of the latter kind usually posit (except in the case of hoaxes) that there is actually no 'voice' at all, merely the illusion of a voice due to various effects.
Paranormal explanations
A number of paranormal explanations have been suggested for the origin of EVP.Common explanations include living humans imprinting thoughts directly on an electronic medium through psychokinesis and communication by discarnate entities such as spirits, nature energies, beings from other dimensions, or extraterrestrials. Natural explanations
There are a number of simple scientific explanations that can account for why some listeners to the static on audio devices may believe they hear voices, including radio interference and the tendency of the human brain to recognize patterns in random stimuli.Some recordings may be hoaxes created by frauds or pranksters. Psychology and Perception
Auditory pareidolia is a situation created when the brain incorrectly interprets random patterns as being familiar patterns.In the case of EVP it could result in an observer interpreting random noise on an audio recording as being the familiar sound of a human voice.The propensity for an apparent voice heard in white noise recordings to be in a language understood well by those researching it, rather than in an unfamiliar language, has been cited as evidence of this,and a broad class of phenomena referred to by author Joe Banks as Rorschach Audio has been described as a global explanation for all manifestations of EVP.
Skeptics such as David Federlein, Chris French, Terrence Hines and Michael Shermer say that EVP are usually recorded by raising the "noise floor" - the electrical noise created by all electrical devices - in order to create white noise. When this noise is filtered, it can be made to produce noises which sound like speech. Federlein says that this is no different from using a wah pedal on a guitar, which is a focused sweep filter which moves around the spectrum and creates open vowel sounds. This, according to Federlein, sounds exactly like some EVP. This, in combination with such things as cross modulation of radio stations or faulty ground loops can cause the impression of paranormal voices.The human brain evolved to recognize patterns, and if a person listens to enough noise the brain will detect words, even when there is no intelligent source for them.Expectation also plays an important part in making people believe they are hearing voices in random noise.
Apophenia is related to, but distinct from pareidolia. Apophenia is defined as "the spontaneous finding of connections or meaning in things which are random, unconnected or meaningless", and has been put forward as a possible explanation. Physics
Interference, for example, is seen in certain EVP recordings, especially those recorded on devices which contain RLC circuitry. These cases represent radio signals of voices or other sounds from broadcast sources.Interference from CB Radio transmissions and wireless baby monitors, or anomalies generated though cross modulation from other electronic devices, are all documented phenomena.It is even possible for circuits to resonate without any internal power source by means of radio reception.
Capture errors are anomalies created by the method used to capture audio signals, such as noise generated through the over-amplification of a signal at the point of recording.
Artifacts created during attempts to boost the clarity of an existing recording might explain some EVP. Methods include re-sampling, frequency isolation, and noise reduction or enhancement, which can cause recordings to take on qualities significantly different from those that were present in the original recording.
The very first EVP recordings may have originated from the use of tape recording equipment with poorly aligned erasure and recording heads, resulting in previous audio recordings not being completely erased. This could allow a small percentage of previous content to be superimposed or mixed into a new 'silent' recording. Sporadic meteors and meteor showers
For all radio transmissions above 30MHz (which are not reflected by the ionosphere) there is a possibility of meteor reflection of the radio signal. Meteors leave a trail of ionised particles and electrons as they pass through the upper atmoshere (a process called ablation) which reflect transmission radio waves which would usually flow into space.] These reflected waves are from transmitters which are below the horizon of the received meteor reflection. In Europe this means the brief scattered wave may carry a foreign voice which can interfere with radio receivers. Meteor reflected radio waves last between 0.05 seconds and 1 second, depending on the size of the meteor
Organizations
There are a number of organizations dedicated to studying EVP and instrumental transcommunication. Individuals within these organizations may participate in investigations, author books or journal articles, deliver presentations, and hold conferences where they share experiences.In addition organizations exist which dispute the validity of the phenomena on scientific grounds.
The American Association of Electronic Voice Phenomena (AA-EVP) averages around 500 members in 47 USA states and 22 countries including the USA (current: 2007)."and the International Ghost Hunters Society, conduct ongoing investigations of EVP and ITC including collecting examples of purported EVP available over the internet. The Rorschach Audio Project, initiated by sound artist Joe Banks, which presents EVP as a product of radio interference combined with auditory pareidolia and the Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Biopsychocybernetics Research, a non-profit organization dedicated studying anomalous psi phenomena related to neurophysiological conditions.According to the AA-EVP, it is "the only organized group of researchers we know of specializing in the study of ITC."
Spiritualists, as well as others who believe in Survivalism, have an ongoing interest in EVP.Many Spiritualists believe that communication with the dead is a scientifically proven fact, and experiment with a variety of techniques for spirit communication which they believe provide evidence of the continuation of life.According to the National Spiritualist Association of Churches, "An important modern day development in mediumship is spirit communications via an electronic device. This is most commonly known as Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP)".An informal survey by the organization's Department Of Phenomenal Evidence cites that 1/3 of churches conduct sessions in which participants seek to communicate with spirit entities using EVP.
The James Randi Educational Foundation offers a million dollars for proof that any phenomena, including EVP, are caused paranormally. The prize remains uncollected.
[edit] Cultural impact
The concept of EVP has had an impact on popular culture. It is popular as an entertaining pursuit, as in ghost hunting, and as a means of dealing with grief. It has influenced literature, radio, film and television.
Paranormal groups and ghost hunting
Investigation of EVP is the subject of hundreds of Internet message boards, regional, and national groups.According to paranormal investigator John Zaffis, "There's been a boom in ghost hunting ever since the Internet took off." Investigators, equipped with electronic gear such as EMF meters, video cameras and audio recorders, scour reportedly haunted venues, trying to uncover visual and audio evidence of hauntings. Many use portable recording devices in an attempt to capture EVP. Radio, film and television
* The Sixth Sense, a 1999 film starring Bruce Willis. The main character, a psychologist, realizes that audiotapes of his former patient interviews include the voices of dead people, who have been haunting the patient.
* Ghost Whisperer, 2005 TV series. In the episode "Voices", a dead woman tries to reach her son using EVP.
* Supernatural, a TV series launched in 2005 which draws from many legends and paranormal phenomena, frequently uses EVP as a plot device.
* White Noise, a 2005 film starring Michael Keaton, focuses exclusively on the phenomenon of EVP and the main character's attempts to contact his recently deceased wife through it. The filmmakers assert at the end of the film that 1 in 12 EVP messages received is threatening in nature, a figure disputed by many in the field.
* Bad Manners, a 1997 film in which a musicologist (played by Saul Rubinek) claims, to the suspicion of those around him, that a fragment of a medieval hymn can be found in a randomly generated work of contemporary classical music.
* In the 1979 film "The Changeling", John Russell, the main character played by George C. Scott, hires a psychic to perform a seance at his house, haunted by a long dead child. In a chilling scene he discovers that the reel-to-reel tape recorder used during the session picked up the ghost-child's voice.
* in 1979 the BBC TV series The Omega Factor episode "Visitors" centers around a potential EVP manifestation
* Coast To Coast AM hosts George Noory and Art Bell have explored the topic of EVP with featured guests such as Brendan Cook and Barbara McBeath of the Ghost Investigators Society, and paranormal investigator and demonologist Lou Gentile.
* Lost Souls, a made-for-tv movie that uses an EVP to communicate with the spirits of 2 murdered children.
* The SciFi Channel's Ghost Hunters TV series often features EVP as part of investigations conducted by Atlantic Paranormal Society members.
* The Spirit of John Lennon, a pay-per-view seance broadcast in 2006, in which TV crew members, a psychic, and an "expert in paranormal activity" claim the spirit of former Beatle John Lennon made contact with them through what was described as "an Electronic Voice Phenomenon (EVP)".
* In 2008, the History Channel television series MonsterQuest picked up two EVPs in the Lizzie Borden house, said to be the most haunted house in America.
* An episode of Secret Saturdays had EVPs as a major plot point (Though at the end it was shown they were faked).
Literature
* Legion, a 1983 novel by William Peter Blatty. Written as a sequel to his 1971 novel The Exorcist, Legion contains a subplot where Dr. Vincent Amfortas, a terminally-ill neurologist, leaves a "to-be-opened-upon-my-death" letter for Lt. Kinderman detailing his accounts of contact with the dead, including the Dr's recently deceased wife, Ann, through EVP recordings. Amfortas' character and the EVP subplot do not appear in the film version of the novel, Exorcist III.
* Pattern Recognition, 2003 novel by William Gibson. The main character's mother tries to convince her that her father is communicating with her from recordings after his death/disappearance in the September 11, 2001 attacks.
* The Ghost of 29 Megacycles, 1985 book by John G. Fuller. A technician contacts a deceased Physics Professor using EVP techniques.
As the Spiritualism religious movement became prominent in the 1840s–1920s with a distinguishing belief that the spirits of the dead can be contacted by mediums, new technologies of the era including photography were employed by spiritualists in an effort to demonstrate contact with a spirit world. So popular were such ideas that Thomas Edison was asked in an interview with Scientific American to comment on the possibility of using his inventions to communicate with spirits. He replied that if the spirits were only capable of subtle influences, a sensitive recording device would provide a better chance of spirit communication than the table tipping and ouija boards mediums employed at the time. However, there is no indication that Edison ever designed or constructed a device for such a purpose.As sound recording became widespread, mediums explored using this technology to demonstrate communication with the dead as well. Spiritualism declined in the latter part of the 20th century, but attempts to use portable recording devices and modern digital technologies to communicate with spirits continued.
Early interest
American photographer Attila von Szalay was among the first to try recording what he believed to be voices of the dead as a way to augment his investigations in photographing ghosts. He began his attempts in 1941 using a 78 rpm record, but it wasn't until 1956, after switching to a reel-to-reel tape recorder, that he believed he was successful.[6] Working with Raymond Bayless, von Szalay conducted a number of recording sessions with a custom-made apparatus, consisting of a microphone in an insulated cabinet connected to an external recording device and speaker. Szalay reported finding many sounds on the tape that could not be heard on the speaker at the time of recording, some of which were recorded when there was no one in the cabinet. He believed these sounds to be the voices of discarnate spirits. Among the first recordings believed to be spirit voices were such messages as "This is G!", "Hot dog, Art!", and "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all". Von Szalay and Bayless' work was published by the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research in 1959. Bayless later went on to co-author the 1979 book, Phone Calls From the Dead.
In 1959, Swedish painter and film producer Friedrich Jürgenson was recording bird songs. Upon playing the tape later, he heard what he interpreted to be his dead father's voice and then the spirit of his deceased wife calling his name. He went on to make several more recordings, including one that he said contained a message from his late mother.Raudive voices
Konstantin Raudive, a Latvian psychologist who had taught at the University of Uppsala, Sweden and who had worked in conjunction with Jürgenson, made over 100,000 recordings which he described as being communications with discarnate people. Some of these recordings were conducted in an RF-screened laboratory and contained words Raudive said were identifiable. In an attempt to confirm the content of his collection of recordings, Raudive invited listeners to hear and interpret them.He believed that the clarity of the voices heard in his recordings implied that they could not be readily explained by normal means. Raudive published his first book, Breakthrough - An Amazing Experiment in Electronic Communication with the Dead in 1968 and it was translated into English in 1971. Phone calls from the dead
Phone calls from the Dead is an alleged paranormal phenomenon in which people receive telephone calls that they claim are from the deceased. People have reported receiving telephone call from deceased relatives, friends, or even from someone not directly known by the recipient in life. The communication is usually simple and brief, and is usually a one-time occurrence. Spiricom
In 1980, William O'Neil constructed an electronic audio device called "The Spiricom". O'Neil claimed the device was built to specifications which he received psychically from George Mueller, a scientist who had died six years previously.At a Washington, DC, press conference on April 6, 1982, O'Neil stated that he was able to hold two-way conversations with spirits through the Spiricom device, and provided the design specifications to researchers for free. However, nobody is known to have replicated O'Neil's results using their own Spiricom devices. O'Neil's partner, retired industrialist George Meek, attributed O'Neil's success, and the inability of others to replicate it, to O'Neil's mediumistic abilities forming part of the loop that made the system work. Modern era (1980s-present)
In 1982, Sarah Estep founded the American Association of Electronic Voice Phenomena (AA-EVP) in Severna Park, Maryland, a nonprofit organization with the purpose of increasing awareness of EVP, and of teaching standardized methods for capturing it. Estep began her exploration of EVP in 1976, and says she has made hundreds of recordings of messages from deceased friends, relatives, and other individuals, including Konstantin Raudive, Beethoven, a lamplighter from 18th century Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and extraterrestrials whom she speculated originated from other planets or dimensions.
The term 'Instrumental TransCommunication (ITC)' was coined by Ernst Senkowski in the 1970s to refer more generally to communication through any sort of electronic device such as tape recorders, fax machines, television sets or computers between spirits or other discarnate entities and the living. One particularly famous claimed incidence of ITC occurred when the image of EVP enthusiast Friedrich Jürgenson (whose funeral was held that day) was said to have appeared on a television in the home of a colleague, which had been purposefully tuned to a vacant channel. ITC enthusiastists also look at TV and video camera feedback loop of the Droste effect.In 1997, Imants Barušs, of the Department of Psychology at the University of Western Ontario, conducted a series of experiments using the methods of EVP investigator Konstantin Raudive, and the work of "instrumental transcommunication researcher" Mark Macy, as a guide. A radio was tuned to an empty frequency, and over 81 sessions a total of 60 hours and 11 minutes of recordings were collected. During recordings, a person either sat in silence or attempted to make verbal contact with potential sources of EVP.Barušs stated that he did record several events that sounded like voices, but they were too few and too random to represent viable data and too open to interpretation to be described definitively as EVP. He concluded: "While we did replicate EVP in the weak sense of finding voices on audio tapes, none of the phenomena found in our study was clearly anomalous, let alone attributable to discarnate beings. Hence we have failed to replicate EVP in the strong sense." The findings were published in the Journal of Scientific Exploration in 2001, and include a literature review.
In 2005 the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research published a report by paranormal investigator Alexander MacRae. MacRae conducted recording sessions using a device of his own design that generated EVP.In an attempt to demonstrate that different individuals would interpret EVP in the recordings the same way, MacRae asked seven people to compare some selections to a list of five phrases he provided, and to choose the best match. MacRae said the results of the listening panels indicated that the selections were of paranormal origin.
Portable digital voice recorders are currently the technology of choice for EVP investigators. Since these devices are very susceptible to Radio Frequency (RF) contamination, EVP enthusiasts sometimes try to record EVP in RF- and sound-screened rooms. Nevertheless, in order to record EVP there has to be noise in the audio circuits of the device used to produce the EVP. For this reason, those who attempt to record EVP often use two recorders that have differing quality audio circuitry and rely on noise heard from the poorer quality instrument to generate EVP.
Some EVP enthusiasts describe hearing the words in EVP as an ability, much like learning a new language. Skeptics say that the claimed instances are all either hoaxes or misinterpretations of natural phenomena. EVP and ITC are seldom researched within the scientific community and, as ideas, are generally derided by scientists when asked.Explanations and origins
Most explanations of EVP can be categorised as either paranormal, explaining the source of the voice, or non-paranormal. Explanations of the latter kind usually posit (except in the case of hoaxes) that there is actually no 'voice' at all, merely the illusion of a voice due to various effects.
Paranormal explanations
A number of paranormal explanations have been suggested for the origin of EVP.Common explanations include living humans imprinting thoughts directly on an electronic medium through psychokinesis and communication by discarnate entities such as spirits, nature energies, beings from other dimensions, or extraterrestrials. Natural explanations
There are a number of simple scientific explanations that can account for why some listeners to the static on audio devices may believe they hear voices, including radio interference and the tendency of the human brain to recognize patterns in random stimuli.Some recordings may be hoaxes created by frauds or pranksters. Psychology and Perception
Auditory pareidolia is a situation created when the brain incorrectly interprets random patterns as being familiar patterns.In the case of EVP it could result in an observer interpreting random noise on an audio recording as being the familiar sound of a human voice.The propensity for an apparent voice heard in white noise recordings to be in a language understood well by those researching it, rather than in an unfamiliar language, has been cited as evidence of this,and a broad class of phenomena referred to by author Joe Banks as Rorschach Audio has been described as a global explanation for all manifestations of EVP.
Skeptics such as David Federlein, Chris French, Terrence Hines and Michael Shermer say that EVP are usually recorded by raising the "noise floor" - the electrical noise created by all electrical devices - in order to create white noise. When this noise is filtered, it can be made to produce noises which sound like speech. Federlein says that this is no different from using a wah pedal on a guitar, which is a focused sweep filter which moves around the spectrum and creates open vowel sounds. This, according to Federlein, sounds exactly like some EVP. This, in combination with such things as cross modulation of radio stations or faulty ground loops can cause the impression of paranormal voices.The human brain evolved to recognize patterns, and if a person listens to enough noise the brain will detect words, even when there is no intelligent source for them.Expectation also plays an important part in making people believe they are hearing voices in random noise.
Apophenia is related to, but distinct from pareidolia. Apophenia is defined as "the spontaneous finding of connections or meaning in things which are random, unconnected or meaningless", and has been put forward as a possible explanation. Physics
Interference, for example, is seen in certain EVP recordings, especially those recorded on devices which contain RLC circuitry. These cases represent radio signals of voices or other sounds from broadcast sources.Interference from CB Radio transmissions and wireless baby monitors, or anomalies generated though cross modulation from other electronic devices, are all documented phenomena.It is even possible for circuits to resonate without any internal power source by means of radio reception.
Capture errors are anomalies created by the method used to capture audio signals, such as noise generated through the over-amplification of a signal at the point of recording.
Artifacts created during attempts to boost the clarity of an existing recording might explain some EVP. Methods include re-sampling, frequency isolation, and noise reduction or enhancement, which can cause recordings to take on qualities significantly different from those that were present in the original recording.
The very first EVP recordings may have originated from the use of tape recording equipment with poorly aligned erasure and recording heads, resulting in previous audio recordings not being completely erased. This could allow a small percentage of previous content to be superimposed or mixed into a new 'silent' recording. Sporadic meteors and meteor showers
For all radio transmissions above 30MHz (which are not reflected by the ionosphere) there is a possibility of meteor reflection of the radio signal. Meteors leave a trail of ionised particles and electrons as they pass through the upper atmoshere (a process called ablation) which reflect transmission radio waves which would usually flow into space.] These reflected waves are from transmitters which are below the horizon of the received meteor reflection. In Europe this means the brief scattered wave may carry a foreign voice which can interfere with radio receivers. Meteor reflected radio waves last between 0.05 seconds and 1 second, depending on the size of the meteor
Organizations
There are a number of organizations dedicated to studying EVP and instrumental transcommunication. Individuals within these organizations may participate in investigations, author books or journal articles, deliver presentations, and hold conferences where they share experiences.In addition organizations exist which dispute the validity of the phenomena on scientific grounds.
The American Association of Electronic Voice Phenomena (AA-EVP) averages around 500 members in 47 USA states and 22 countries including the USA (current: 2007)."and the International Ghost Hunters Society, conduct ongoing investigations of EVP and ITC including collecting examples of purported EVP available over the internet. The Rorschach Audio Project, initiated by sound artist Joe Banks, which presents EVP as a product of radio interference combined with auditory pareidolia and the Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Biopsychocybernetics Research, a non-profit organization dedicated studying anomalous psi phenomena related to neurophysiological conditions.According to the AA-EVP, it is "the only organized group of researchers we know of specializing in the study of ITC."
Spiritualists, as well as others who believe in Survivalism, have an ongoing interest in EVP.Many Spiritualists believe that communication with the dead is a scientifically proven fact, and experiment with a variety of techniques for spirit communication which they believe provide evidence of the continuation of life.According to the National Spiritualist Association of Churches, "An important modern day development in mediumship is spirit communications via an electronic device. This is most commonly known as Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP)".An informal survey by the organization's Department Of Phenomenal Evidence cites that 1/3 of churches conduct sessions in which participants seek to communicate with spirit entities using EVP.
The James Randi Educational Foundation offers a million dollars for proof that any phenomena, including EVP, are caused paranormally. The prize remains uncollected.
[edit] Cultural impact
The concept of EVP has had an impact on popular culture. It is popular as an entertaining pursuit, as in ghost hunting, and as a means of dealing with grief. It has influenced literature, radio, film and television.
Paranormal groups and ghost hunting
Investigation of EVP is the subject of hundreds of Internet message boards, regional, and national groups.According to paranormal investigator John Zaffis, "There's been a boom in ghost hunting ever since the Internet took off." Investigators, equipped with electronic gear such as EMF meters, video cameras and audio recorders, scour reportedly haunted venues, trying to uncover visual and audio evidence of hauntings. Many use portable recording devices in an attempt to capture EVP. Radio, film and television
* The Sixth Sense, a 1999 film starring Bruce Willis. The main character, a psychologist, realizes that audiotapes of his former patient interviews include the voices of dead people, who have been haunting the patient.
* Ghost Whisperer, 2005 TV series. In the episode "Voices", a dead woman tries to reach her son using EVP.
* Supernatural, a TV series launched in 2005 which draws from many legends and paranormal phenomena, frequently uses EVP as a plot device.
* White Noise, a 2005 film starring Michael Keaton, focuses exclusively on the phenomenon of EVP and the main character's attempts to contact his recently deceased wife through it. The filmmakers assert at the end of the film that 1 in 12 EVP messages received is threatening in nature, a figure disputed by many in the field.
* Bad Manners, a 1997 film in which a musicologist (played by Saul Rubinek) claims, to the suspicion of those around him, that a fragment of a medieval hymn can be found in a randomly generated work of contemporary classical music.
* In the 1979 film "The Changeling", John Russell, the main character played by George C. Scott, hires a psychic to perform a seance at his house, haunted by a long dead child. In a chilling scene he discovers that the reel-to-reel tape recorder used during the session picked up the ghost-child's voice.
* in 1979 the BBC TV series The Omega Factor episode "Visitors" centers around a potential EVP manifestation
* Coast To Coast AM hosts George Noory and Art Bell have explored the topic of EVP with featured guests such as Brendan Cook and Barbara McBeath of the Ghost Investigators Society, and paranormal investigator and demonologist Lou Gentile.
* Lost Souls, a made-for-tv movie that uses an EVP to communicate with the spirits of 2 murdered children.
* The SciFi Channel's Ghost Hunters TV series often features EVP as part of investigations conducted by Atlantic Paranormal Society members.
* The Spirit of John Lennon, a pay-per-view seance broadcast in 2006, in which TV crew members, a psychic, and an "expert in paranormal activity" claim the spirit of former Beatle John Lennon made contact with them through what was described as "an Electronic Voice Phenomenon (EVP)".
* In 2008, the History Channel television series MonsterQuest picked up two EVPs in the Lizzie Borden house, said to be the most haunted house in America.
* An episode of Secret Saturdays had EVPs as a major plot point (Though at the end it was shown they were faked).
Literature
* Legion, a 1983 novel by William Peter Blatty. Written as a sequel to his 1971 novel The Exorcist, Legion contains a subplot where Dr. Vincent Amfortas, a terminally-ill neurologist, leaves a "to-be-opened-upon-my-death" letter for Lt. Kinderman detailing his accounts of contact with the dead, including the Dr's recently deceased wife, Ann, through EVP recordings. Amfortas' character and the EVP subplot do not appear in the film version of the novel, Exorcist III.
* Pattern Recognition, 2003 novel by William Gibson. The main character's mother tries to convince her that her father is communicating with her from recordings after his death/disappearance in the September 11, 2001 attacks.
* The Ghost of 29 Megacycles, 1985 book by John G. Fuller. A technician contacts a deceased Physics Professor using EVP techniques.
BUILT IN 1711
IN JANUARY, 2007, the Central New York Ghost Hunters (CNYGH), based in Syracuse, New York, were invited to investigate an old hotel in upstate New York. (The owners of the hotel have asked to keep its location confidential.) The investigation proved to be one of the most intensely active the group has ever encountered, and produced an EVP – an electronic voice phenomena recording – that is remarkable not only for its length, but also for its terrifying content.
It may well be the most intense, frightening EVP ever recorded.
THE INVESTIGATION
On that weekend in January, CNYGH founder Stacey Jones and several members of the group went to the hotel on an overnight stay for what they thought would be a routine investigation. They had no idea what they were in for.
Originally built in the late 1800s, the building was in its colorful history the site of some nefarious activity, a fact that might be key to what is heard in the EVP.
On Friday night, Stacey and her group set up their equipment – audio recorders, video recorders and other electronics – and settled in, hoping to document some evidence for the haunting the owners had claimed. Most investigations are relatively quiet, but this night was filled with paranormal activity, including muffled voices of unknown origin, footsteps from unseen bodies and more. Members of the group I spoke with confirmed that it was the most active haunting they had personally experienced.
The real shocker came the next day. On Saturday afternoon at about 3 p.m., two female CNYGH investigators and a member of the owner's family (also a female) sat on the staircase of the hotel with a digital voice recorder, intending to capture some EVP. They chose the stairway because they had heard soft conversations and footsteps on the floor above, although no one was up there.
When they later played the recording back, however, what they heard were not soft voices and footsteps, but something totally unexpected and completely terrifying.
THE EVP: WHAT YOU'LL HEAR
Stacey Jones describes what you'll hear on the recording:
"You can [faintly] hear the three females talking throughout the recording. You will hear a female – the family member – say, 'Hello, baby,' and another long conversation. Those are all human voices. But what sounds like a struggle or attack is going on as well.
"The male [voice] you hear was not present at the hotel. You will hear a cuckoo clock (which was not present) a ticking of a hall clock (which was there); you will hear what sounds like the microphone being moved (which was not touched) and then the sound becomes clearer.
"You will hear a creaking door and slamming of the door, which is real. Then you will hear a [unknown] woman say, 'Get off me,' and what sounds like the woman being attacked. The struggle continues for awhile, and during the EVP you can hear some of my investigators' conversations. After interviewing my investigators, they said they went and sat on the stairs of this hotel, because they heard from an above floor, what sounded like footsteps and conversations, not what you hear on this recording. When the noises stop, you hear the investigators participate in a lulled conversation. They stated that they started to talk when the noises stopped. In their conversation, you will hear a male voice say, 'Help me' several times."
The Most Horrific EVP Ever Recorded
