EVP: What is it really?

[PPI Karl]

I have an open mind about today's application of the scientific method to the study of the paranormal and the ghost phenomenon, but I get a little concerned sometimes that science is used to rationalize and reify a belief, rather than as a means of testing evidence--kind of the same way self-styled biblical enthusiasts call themselves "scholars" and try to prove that, because certain historical details of the bible are accurate, the mystery of the Christ is an irreproachable truth).  EVPs are a really good example of this in the paranormal science.

The assumption for many, and especially for the overly zealous, is that, because a recording device has, figuratively speaking, "captured" something, it therefore literally shows the existence of a spirit to be true.  I don't discount the possibility that it does, but I'm a little uncomfortable with the suggestion that a recording of an unexplained sound or voice is direct evidence of a ghost.  At best, it can only ever be indirect evidence because it's a recording, just as a photograph is.  However,  photography more easily avails itself to rigorous testing for forgery and misinterpretation.  (We have the UFOlogists to thank for that, I believe.)  The study of EVP, however, has not withstood the same rigorous scrutiny it seems, nor the same degree of skeptical inquiry.  If orbs can be explained in some (many???) cases by moisture and dust unseen by the eyes but "captured" in the sensitive aperture of the camera, cannot some sounds recorded on tape or digitally also be explained in a similar way?  Are there artifacts of the recording process itself to consider?  (I'm reminded of the poor chump whose internet site about civilizations on Mars I visited last month:  he'd interpreted the mapping markers from a Mariner image as craters of equal distance and size that formed an impressive star pattern on the martian landscape once the "dots" were connected.  I didn't have the heart to write him and tell him otherwise.  As Edgar Guest has said, "Keep your dreams.  They're better far / Than facts discovered are." )

I was curious what people's opinions of EVP as a form of evidence are, and what you all thought should be a methodology for establishing their validity, both going into an investigation and afterwards in the examination of evidence?

[dwalters]

Very nice, I love different views on common topics. Although I may not be able to word my opinions as well as you can, I'll just type up some garble, shoot it out there and see what comes back (just kidding). I have some of my own beliefs on how science is used to define EVPs as evidence of the paranormal. What I think happens when you use "science" to back up the existence of a spirit through EVP, is actually a catch 22. Let me try to explain, it will be tough though. If you were alone in a room with a "sensitive", and you were fully aware that there was absolutley nobody present in the house other than you and the medium in this house. The room you are in is completely sealed because you made sure that the windows were shut with no drafts coming through, the door was closed with a towel covering the crack between the carpeted floor and the bottom of the door. You happen to know that there isn't another house around for at least 3 miles and the nearest road with a decent amount of traffic is at least 10 miles away. So here you are in this room, that's in an empty house and it's just you and your medium friend...and you are not hearing a thing, not one squeal from a mouse, not one crack in the house, no wind from the outside...complete silence. All of a sudden your medium friend tells you that you're not alone and that there's a spirit in the room. You can't believe it because you can't hear or see it, there's nothing going on...no movement of objects, no coldspots, NOTHING...you'll begin to question the validity of your medium friend because you can not sense anyone else in the room and there is no audio or visual proof of it's existence. THIS SUCKS, is what you begin to think...and your friend is just saying, "dude, take my word for it...there is a spirit in the room". Well, forget about it...it's good for nothing to you, you can't prove a thing. SOOOOO, take that exact same scenario, but this time put a tape recorder in your hand...and when your buddy starts to tell you that you're not alone, you hit record on your recorder, and you start asking questions...but you hear no response at all...but you keep asking questions. When you're done, you go home, put on your earphones, crank up the volume and BOOM, there's a third voice RIGHT there in the room, you can't explain it...your buddy said that there was an entity in the room with you, you didn't believe him, you started recording, you were there...you didn't hear any response to your interview with an invisible being...there's no way you can even begin to explain it, but you know it's true, because you were there. You know inside, that you caught a disembodied voice on your recorder. But now, nobody believes you because they weren't there...that's the catch. You didn't believe your buddy when you didn't have the recorder, and now people don't believe you because they weren't there....there will always be people that will never except any sort of evidence no matter how powerful it is, simply because it didn't happen to them. The only reason why we call EVPs scientific, is because it uses modern technology as it's medium.

With all that being said, I just want to let everyone know that we don't go around and say, "listen to this EVP, it's a GHOST dude, they exist, I have the proof....you're stupid for not believing in them". I won't even try to turn non-believers into full fledged believers, because it just won't happen. Instead, what I'm trying to do is go out there, and really try to get some evidence that's above the norm, some evidence that makes people say..."hmm, that's pretty crazy, that could be a ghost" the magic word is "could", if I can give anyone any shred of evidence that might make them start to sway, even a little....then I'm good, I've done my job. I am not a medium or a sensitive, or anything like that, but I use the tools from science to conduct my investigations...because those are the tools that I have, and those are the only tools that I find to be creditable, it's a very small form of proof in my opinion. Of course there's always going to be an explaination for every bit of evidence you provide...I spend my entire evidence review trying to shoot down any possibility that it was a ghost, or something supernatural...but when I can't come up with any logical explaination...I have to present it to the client and tell them that I can't explain it, and that it's paranormal. Paranormal literally means "Beyond the range of normal experience or scientific explanation", it doesn't mean that it was a ghost...it's just something that's above the range of normal.

I would never go into a house without equipment and try to tell someone that it was haunted..."man, look at my notes, it's haunted....look at 10:20 a door closed all by itself and it opened all by itself at 11:20, just look at my notes if you don't believe me".....now, if I had my DVR system set up, and it caught the door close at 10:20 all by itself, then open all by itself, and it also showed that we were all in another area of the house at 10:20 or 11:20, and it showed that nobody opened any doors in the house to cause suction draft....that's something I can show, and say...."DAMN, THAT'S PARANORMAL!, you guys have got some strange s**t going on!", that's picture proof of something paranormal, and that's all my team and I set out to do.

When we record our audio, we stay as silent as possible, nobody is allowed to whisper...if you talk you must talk in a natural tone, you must have a full stomach so that there's no growling and we give an audio baseline before every EVP session, we'll bang on walls, walk as loud as we can, caugh, burp, fart, yell, open cabinets....we cover every possible noise we could make so that we will have it in the beginning of the session....if we catch something during our session that we can't explain, that isn't one of our voices, or that wasn't in our baseline session...we call it evidence, and run it through a series of filters and try to determine what it is, or what it's saying. We can even look at the audio spectrum to see how close it was to the mic. I don't like using analog recorders because it picks up the sound of the gears rotating...with a digital recorder it's crisp and clear all the way through.

There's a boatload of more information at the American Association Electronic Voice Phenomena (AA-EVP) here's a link to their site http://www.aaevp.com also, there's a fantastic site about an extremely similar phenomena at World ITC, this is just some amazing stuff and the link to that site is http://www.worlditc.org I hope you all can check these two sites out when you get a moment...they are simply unbelievable.

So that's all

[PPI Karl]

Thanks, David, for the care and time you put into that amazingly detailed response; links were very helpful as well.  It was much appreciated, and enlightening--and well written; go to the head of the class, young man.  

I dwell on EVPs to some extent because, despite my skeptically inquisitive nature, I do put stock in a lot of them as strong evidence, particularly since most of them show some sort of contextual interaction between the voices and the people in the room.  They do seem as though there is a very basic attempt to converse.  The fact that voices recur, too, with identical inflection, tone, and vernacular is impressive to me.  More than anything, though, what wows me about them is that the results can be repeated:  other investigators can go into the same sites later and retrieve recordings of the same voices.  Amazing!  However. . . .

In my reading up on the phenomenon on-line for the last couple of years I've never encountered a clear explanation of why investigators do not as a matter of course use two digital recorders, perhaps taped to one another, to corroborate the results.  If the source of the voice is external and "in the room," then wouldn't capturing it on two or more recording devices provide a more reliable way to authenticate the sound?  Also, remember the days when you'd be recording an album on a cut-rate solid state "sound system" and you'd end up momentarily capturing some taxi dispatcher in the middle of your recordings?  What precautions are taken (or can be taken) to rule out radio interference (just ignoring for now the otherwise convincing character of these recordings as discreet and individual human-sounding responses, and not, say, rap lyrics or a radio advertisement for Dr. Scholles Comfort Gel Insoles, or something like that)?  In the first episode of Ghost Hunters, for example, those impressive EVPs of a child saying "They don't want us here," have always made me wonder whether or not some baby monitor at the house next door wasn't the culprit.  Of course, investigators cannot act like police detectives and go rapping on the neighbors' doors at night to ask if they're using sound devices.  That places the burden on the investigator to use equipment whose integrity can be safeguarded and whose reliability can be validated apart from whatever attempts have been made to guarantee an uncompromised environment. 

I really do apologize if these questions seem pestering and respect any response you can offer.  Looking forward to them.  Cheers!

[dwalters]

Thank you Karl, I?m glad my many years of experience can pay off at times ☺

PPI?s investigators are all required to have their own recorders so we can cross reference, so that is a prerequisite to joining up with PPI as an investigator. It comes in very handy, and debunks many of the sounds and voices we do catch as EVP. Our cameras have mics on them as well, so any noises made in a room we can catch on video and on audio?just another massive benefit to using modern day technology. It sure makes evidence review a big pain in the rear, but the payoff is worth it when you catch something you can not explain.

The sound systems of the past all had FM/AM transmitters on them, so at any given moment you could have a frequency jump in and mess with your recordings, you can get static, conversations of truck drivers, drive throughs?so many possibilities. However, the recorders we use do not have any radio frequency transmitters or receivers on them, there is no interference, it?s not a two way radio with radio waves?it?s only a sound recorder that imprints natural audio waves on tape or digital media. Many times, if we catch a sound that we classify as an EVP, we will ask for a secondary investigation to see if we can somehow recreate the sound, if we can catch a sound that?s even remotely similar?we debunk it as a natural sound, and it is no longer in our evidence library.

No apology is needed Karl, this topic and all of the topics on the paranormal are very controversial and will never be completely agreed upon. Like my team and I always say, there are NO professionals in this field, it?s all based on experience and interpretation.

I hope this helped out a little bit at least.

[PPI Karl]

Brilliant!  Thanks so much, David.  That helps a lot.

[dwalters]

dang, that was a quick reply  I didn't even know you were logged on LOL.

[Joshua]

David...you make me sooooo proud...sob, sob.

[dwalters]

David...you make me sooooo proud...sob, sob.

Joshua, I hope you know that I wouldn't have been able to start my own group, if you didn't let me in your regional group so long ago! I thank you for that oppurtunity. I am forever in your debt! I looked and looked for a group to join back then...and the only one that I found that seemed great at that time was the group you pretty much formed. Thank you for accepting me. We just need some investigations in the Los Angeles area so we can work together on an investigation!

[Brian JohnsonPPI]

I honestly think its like Dave said it takes years of expeirence until you can defrentiate (spelling??) between an EVP and natural sound. You just have to have an ear for it.

[PPI Karl]

I bow to your wisdom.  I'm certainly looking forward to hearing your insights about these in future.  Like I said, this is one of those areas of the research that really has my undivided attention--and, I promise, not in that hyperbolic, angsty Michael Keaton sort of way.  (I thought it was hilarious how every EVP in the film sounded like it was being tuned in on a shortwave radio. :)

[asmith]

EVPs, in my opinion, should not be used alone as evidence and they should be agreed upon by more then one person. There are too many variables involved and it is all based on personal perception of the recording. It does, however, help to make a case stronger when used in collaboration with other evidence; such as pictures, video, or personal experiences.

White noise is a funny thing. I had gone camping in the Shasta area up north by a loud rushing river. At times, I could swear I heard a symphony orchestra playing.
When I find what I think are EVPs, I play it for as many people as I can. Without telling them what I think I hear, I allow them to tell me what they think. If no one else hears it, then I have to throw it out and move on. This leads to the cream of the crop for EVPs. As a group we are able to debunk, analyze, and collaborate our findings. Doing so, we are left with the best evidence available.  8)

[holzer]

i definately agree evps alone are not signs of an haunting, but used with other pieces of evidence,it can help,and white noise is just not very solid for me,just like orbs,way too many possibilities to explain what you are hearing....

[PPI Brian]

Hey Karl,

No one has posted on this thread for a while, so I thought I might throw my two cents in.

I have been fascinated with EVP for years. I grew up with a strong music background, and I spent several years in the distant past studying commercial music, electronic music and acoustic theory, and I worked for a brief stint in a recording studio. I can accept the fact that ultra sound and infra sound exist, because I have generated these sounds on synthesizers and observed them on an osciliiscope. I beleive that people interpret stimuli in their environment in ways that make sense to them personally, (apophenia, etc.) because that is simply human nature.

But what exactly are EVPs? I understand how cameras, both film and digital, are able to detect "light" above and below the range of human perception (ultra violet and infra red). I have captured swirls of heat above buring candles with my digital camera but my film cameras failed to record the the heat turbulence on film. I have captured the colors of the Great Orion Nebula with a 35mm film cameraon a tripod, but my digital camera set up in a similar way failed to pick up any color. That can be easily explained by the sensitivity thresholds of 35mm film vs. the CCD chip of my digital camera. But do the same sensitivity variables exist for common recording devices available today? I don't believe so.

Although a recording device, either digital or analog, is capable of recording acoustic energy above and below the range of human perception, most microphones are designed with a sensitivity range that is only within the human range of hearing. One common demoninator in EVP capture is that the researcher did not percieve the EVP at the time of the recording. From a physical standpoint, the EVP can not be acoustic energy above or below the human range of hearing, because the mic wouldn't be able to record it, and even if it did, we wouldn't be able to hear it on play back. So what the heck is Electronic Voice Phenomena? Is it really acoustic energy, or is it something else entirely?

This is why I believe a researcher should methodically re-investigate a site to determine if there is any explainable source for the EVP in question. If none is found, then perhaps it's safe to call it "unexplained". But do EVPs prove a haunting? What if you capture five or six Class A's in an investigation, and everyone who hears the EVP clearly hears the same thing. What if these EVPs are percieved as something trying to converse with the researcher in "real time"? Hmmm...

It is possible to record infra sound and ultra sound, and then modify the pitch and play it back so that we humans can hear it. Elephant resarches have been doing this for years. Do you know if any paranormal reasearch group has used such a technique to capture EVPs?


Regards,

Brian Miller

[Renae]

I honestly think its like Dave said it takes years of expeirence until you can defrentiate (spelling??) between an EVP and natural sound. You just have to have an ear for it.

I realize you posted this @ 10 months ago, but my curiosity is piqued. Do you think some EVPs might be audoi matrixing? I can imagine thye sounds from my washing machine sound like words. and there are parts of our brains that are dedicated to undersanding random noises that might be speach, it's part of learning hot to talk, and also part of teaching out children how to talk, and why we sometimes imagine that cats and dogs sometimes "say" words. that a human might understand. (I firmly believe animals do have language, and are capable of interspecies comunications, I just don't believe that when a cat says "Hello" it means the same thing as when a human being who speaks English says "Hello")

Renae

[lkasak]

Renae, I agree with you to a certain extent. I have heard many things that have been labled EVP's that, to me, just sound like random noise. When the interpretation states that a muffled sound is actually "I want candy" (for example) I have come away with a different interpretion of what was supposed to be said, let's say "Are you Sandy?", or just random noise. I agree that the human brain has adapted and evolved to the point that people try to distinguish language from sound just as people have adapted to recognize faces in random patterns. It is all an adaptive, evoluntionary strategy to increase communication and make sense of a random world. Additionally, I think a lot of people are quick to jump on the EVP band wagon due to the increasing popularity of them in pop cultural (thanks to such movies as Whitenoise and shows like Most Haunted) as well as their eagerness to "prove" they have a haunting.

But, then the are the EVP's that most definitely are language. Those leave me scratching my head...

[dwalters]

A "matrixing" factor takes place with EVP as well as with photograhps. Your mind will make voices out of ordinary sounds. If you put your recorder next to an aquarium filter while it's running, and then play it back. I promise you, you will here the sounds of kids talking and laughing. Your mind takes familiar noises and puts images and identifiable sounds to them.....matrixing. Another downfall aobut EVP is...everyone together now..."Power of Suggestion". If someone comes to you with an EVP and says "Hey Dave, check this out...I got this crazy EVP you just have to listen to. It's my best one yet...you say 'can you let me know that you are here with us' and it says 'yeesssss'...you just have to check it out". So I take the EVP and check it out...and sure enough I hear "yeessss" and it blows me away. Well, I was told what to listen for....he suggested I listen specifically for that and I did and I heard it. The problem was...it was a toilet flushing in an upstairs restroom. So, matrixing and power of suggestion are two major elements you have to be aware of when reviewing EVP.

[trdbrglr]

I actually just posted in the evidence forum about some EVP's from this site that I ran through some filters here at work.  I've been working with audio through several broadcast media for about 10 years now.  There are a few factors with EVP that need to be taken into account.  First is the quality of the microphones, as with every other tech device (cameras, phones, etc..) microphones on recorders are getting more powerful.  Depending on how good the mic is, you can possibly pick things up from different rooms.  Sound can travel through a lot of different things, not just through the air...that's why I'm always skeptical of this sort of stuff, If I don't know all the variables of the recording, first hand, I'm not quick to rush to judgement(the whole "I wasn't there" thing).  This is one of the reasons why recording studios have sound proofed rooms, with floating cielings, foam on the walls, and vacu-sealing doors.  To elliminate interference from people wlaking down the hall outside.  If I turn my mic up at work, I can actually hear conversations of the engineers downstairs because of poor insulation in one square foot of one wall in the recording booth. 

The second factor is that most of these EVP's seem to be recorded at the same frequency and volume as the room and tape noise.  That "Hiss" you hear when you turn up a recording of general room sound is there when you are recording, you just generally don't notice it while you are there.  (if you are recording onto tape, it's worse, because the tape itself has hiss on it).    These EVP's seem to be at the same frequency as the room noise.  That is one of the reasons it's so hard to single the "voices" out.  When you filter out room noise, you are also filtering some "voice" as well.  I do this a lot for my job, it is VERY frustrating! 

As far as the metaphysical aspects of this stuf...I don't know.  Is it possible that stuff gets recorded that you can't hear in person? Sure.  Could these be ghosts?  Why not.  At the very least, they make for some fun campfire stories!   

[PPI Karl]

Tons of thanks.  These are all good reservations to place on EVPs that are less than Class A, and they are also excellent criteria to factor into the evaluation of Class A EVPs.  I'd like to piggy-back on something you said at the very last in your post, about good campfire stories.  In addition to the problem of matrixing recognizable voices out of the noise, humans also have a tendency to matrix stories out of the utterances they believe they are hearing in the EVP.  In hindsight, I have certainly been guilty of this, and I try to remain objective about them.  By contrast, many EVP hobbyists enjoy capturing EVP because they receive a sentimental pleasure out of constructing a folktale around the EVP that allows them to relate to the "other side" in the same way they connect to the characters on Friends--they extrapolate a few seconds of barely discernible noise into a melodrama.  (How many times, for example, does Derek Acorah on Most Haunted mention the word "murder"?  It's the fastest and cheapest way to drum up a bit of soap opera about something that is, for the most part, inordinately mundane if all that one does is treat it as noise.)  Just as it's in our nature to put visual or aural patterns to use and matrix them into words, it's also in our nature to put words to use and weave them into stories.  And that, unfortunately, extends into the entire business of paranormal investigation.  It makes objective analysis of any paranormal case impossible because we have to rely on the stories initially to select a case, but the stories immediately bias us to look at the case as an autonomous work of folklore--one we want secretly to relate to and participate in by substantiating it.  Point of fact, "ghost hunting" is, for many people, the equivalent of a campfire experience.  And EVPs are just one more way that people exercise their starved imagination and fill their desperate need to participate in an otherwise spiritually craven culture.

(Not that I have an opinion about this .)

[trdbrglr]

Yeah, I actually caught myself doing that with the EVP's I was playing with today(the ones I talked about in the evidence forum), When I made the decision on what it said, I thought about the circumstances regarding the supposed haunting and thought "OK that makes sense".  Maybe it's a symptom of having too many CSI shows on TV, I keep wanting to put the pieces together to make it all make sense!  I do truly believe that if you go somewhere WANTING to see a ghost, or WANTING to hear a ghostly voice on tape, you probably will...whether or not there is actually anything there.  The human mind is a powerfull thing.  That's probably why I like TAPS' show.  They seem to go out of thier way to disprove stuff, lending a bit more sensible credibility to anything they find out of the ordinary.  Unlike that hokey-ass british show where every episode is full of mediums having full conversations with ghosts and "scary" stuff happening all the time.

[dwalters]

OH my God...that hokey ass british show is just too much to handle. They investigated a place in California....a place we investigated as well....and we pretty much debunked most of the stuff they found. Their best evidence on that show was this EVP they got after they started playing "Dixie" on the piano. This EVP they caught had an english accent. WTF!!!! An english accent in california in a civil war training facility? I don't think so....possibly, yet HIGHLY unlikely! We did capture some amazing EVPs there...none of which had an english accent. I'd say it's our best collection of EVP's to date!

[Renae]

Renae, I agree with you to a certain extent. I have heard many things that have been labled EVP's that, to me, just sound like random noise. When the interpretation states that a muffled sound is actually "I want candy" (for example) I have come away with a different interpretion of what was supposed to be said, let's say "Are you Sandy?", or just random noise. I agree that the human brain has adapted and evolved to the point that people try to distinguish language from sound just as people have adapted to recognize faces in random patterns. It is all an adaptive, evoluntionary strategy to increase communication and make sense of a random world. Additionally, I think a lot of people are quick to jump on the EVP band wagon due to the increasing popularity of them in pop cultural (thanks to such movies as Whitenoise and shows like Most Haunted) as well as their eagerness to "prove" they have a haunting.

But, then the are the EVP's that most definitely are language. Those leave me scratching my head...

Thanks for the reply.

I have never personally gotten an EVP. I have recorded static, and "White noise, but necer gotten anything that was most definitly language.
I do a lot of audio matrixing though. I also do a lot of visual matrixing, I regulary look at a blank canvas and "see" an image. Usually I paint it, bask in compliments when people tell my how much they like the painting. but it's nothing supernatural, it's matrixing.

Renae

[Renae]

A "matrixing" factor takes place with EVP as well as with photograhps. Your mind will make voices out of ordinary sounds. If you put your recorder next to an aquarium filter while it's running, and then play it back. I promise you, you will here the sounds of kids talking and laughing. Your mind takes familiar noises and puts images and identifiable sounds to them.....matrixing. Another downfall aobut EVP is...everyone together now..."Power of Suggestion". If someone comes to you with an EVP and says "Hey Dave, check this out...I got this crazy EVP you just have to listen to. It's my best one yet...you say 'can you let me know that you are here with us' and it says 'yeesssss'...you just have to check it out". So I take the EVP and check it out...and sure enough I hear "yeessss" and it blows me away. Well, I was told what to listen for....he suggested I listen specifically for that and I did and I heard it. The problem was...it was a toilet flushing in an upstairs restroom. So, matrixing and power of suggestion are two major elements you have to be aware of when reviewing EVP.

I kind of thought that. The difference between being nuts and being sane is knowing that if you hear your washing machine reprat "Zane Grey is in the yard"you are matixung and can "hear" anything you want.

But no one has EVER come to ME with an EVP and said "Hey Dave, check this out..." and if they did I might look ascance at them and walk away ...
real fast. Actually the ONLY EVPs I have ever heard were on television with subtitles.

Renae

[PPI Brian]

A "matrixing" factor takes place with EVP as well as with photograhps. Your mind will make voices out of ordinary sounds. If you put your recorder next to an aquarium filter while it's running, and then play it back. I promise you, you will here the sounds of kids talking and laughing. Your mind takes familiar noises and puts images and identifiable sounds to them.....matrixing. Another downfall aobut EVP is...everyone together now..."Power of Suggestion". If someone comes to you with an EVP and says "Hey Dave, check this out...I got this crazy EVP you just have to listen to. It's my best one yet...you say 'can you let me know that you are here with us' and it says 'yeesssss'...you just have to check it out". So I take the EVP and check it out...and sure enough I hear "yeessss" and it blows me away. Well, I was told what to listen for....he suggested I listen specifically for that and I did and I heard it. The problem was...it was a toilet flushing in an upstairs restroom. So, matrixing and power of suggestion are two major elements you have to be aware of when reviewing EVP.

I kind of thought that. The difference between being nuts and being sane is knowing that if you hear your washing machine reprat "Zane Grey is in the yard"you are matixung and can "hear" anything you want.

But no one has EVER come to ME with an EVP and said "Hey Dave, check this out..." and if they did I might look ascance at them and walk away ...
real fast. Actually the ONLY EVPs I have ever heard were on television with subtitles.

Renae

Hooray! I can post in the public forum again! Has it really been this long since the last reply to this thread? Well then it's time to breathe some life into this stale old thread once again. 

As a life-long EVP enthusiast, I spent many sleepless hours listening to white noise and pink noise sources, with and without recording equipment. I totally agree with you; after a while, the sounds begin to blend together until you start hearing "voices". This is not EVP, it is pareidolia --  a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant. Because I am aware of this effect, I have become somewhat of an EVP "purist"; I prefer to record only in areas where environmental noise is at a minimum, and of course prefer indoor sessions to outdoor sessions.

Working in such controlled settings have produced some very interesting results. It is much easier to isolate anomalous sound clips, loop them, filter them, amplify them and determine their source and/or origin. This method, a simplistic as it may appear, makes it easier to debunk many of the anomalous sounds I capture. But it has also left me with some anomalous audio I cannot explain...

[PPI Brian]

Those who know me know that I am fascinated by the subject of EVP.

The American Association of EVP is a wonderful resource for serious EVP researchers, and as such I offer this article entitile "Hearing With Templates".

http://www.aaevp.com/articles/articles_hearing_with_templates.htm

This article is worth reading.

Regards,

Brian Miller

[Method]

Just thought I would defer to the experts on this old thread. On electronic devices, we typically see stickers that have one conformance or another to FCC regulations. This, I assume, is to limit the potential for interference with other electronic devices. The old hair-drier/ television snow storm comes to mind. What level of scrutiny are electronic devices really  put through? Working in manufacturing I see corners cut all the time that wont necessarily affect any one, working within normal parameters that is. Could using a recording device outside of its intended design invite susceptibility to perfectly natural phenomenon (ever point a video camera at the sun, or hold a cell phone next to a speaker?)  Radio waves, satellite transmissions, and other types of broadcasts flood our surroundings...Carrying with them voices of all types. Could a tiny amount of random leakage give us the impression of disembodied voices every now and then? Leakage within FCC standards that are only heard if you really search for it OR leakage from non conformance to FCC standard? Typically they are so muffled and static filled that one has to wonder. I guess one way to test this theory out is to do EVP sessions at the base of a broadcast antenna (cell phone tower, radio, TV?)

Just wondering what you thought.

[dwalters]

good points Method! We are aware of interference in fact one of our cases had some speakers all over the place and PA equipment (it was a theater) and we had to throw out the EVP we caught there due to this. However, when we do consider an EVP as evidence, the first rule we refer to for it's validity as an actual EVP is it's intelligence. If it is a direct response to a question, or if it definatley communicating with our conversation. EVP does not deem a place haunted by any stretch of the means, and we don't rely on EVP as proof of a "ghost", it's just another avenue we use to gather evidence of something paranormal.

[Method]

Very true, direct responses are very fascinating and hard to explain away. Do you guys use any specific software for audio cleanup that you deem better than another?

[PPI Brian]

Very true, direct responses are very fascinating and hard to explain away. Do you guys use any specific software for audio cleanup that you deem better than another?

Hi Method,

There is such a wide selection of top-notch audio software available today that it's hard to pick one above the other. It's all a matter of personal preference. I have been using Audacity for quite some time, and I have been satisfied by its performance. Personally I believe EVP should recieve only minimal filtering and amplification. No magic filters yet exist that can make a Class C EVP a Class A EVP; basically, what you get is what you get. As Dave said, all of our possible EVP evidence must withstand a critical peer review process before it is deemed worthy enough to be included in a case file as bona fide evidence. And when all is said and done, no matter how compelling an EVP may be, unless it is supported by additional evidence that can withstand additional critical peer review, EVPs are insufficient to declare a venue as "haunted".

Truth be told, we don't say the "H" word very much around here. 

Regards,

Brian Miller

[Method]

Thanks for the reply Brian, you bring up great points. I don't much use the "H" word either, same with the "G" word