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Weird Phenomenon: Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP)

June 7, 2011

Featured Content, Weird Phenomena

Is it possible to talk to the dead? Many people have tried to achieve this feat by performing séances, or by using an Ouija board or medium. Some paranormal researchers, however, are convinced that Electronic Voice Phenomena, recording the voices of the deceased, is the method to communicate with the dead.

EVP involves recording white noise with recording equipment or other magnetic devices and examining those recording to see if there are any discrete messages from spirits.  EVP investigators clean up the white noise in the recordings with computer software in order to make the voices easier to hear.  Since recording equipment uses magnets to record sound, anything that would disturb its magnetic field, such as paranormal activity, could be recorded on tape.

Who is to be credited with discovering the EVP technique is up for debate.  Legend has it that Thomas Edison himself worked to develop a EVP device, a device he called the “psychic telephone”.  In 1920, the magazine Scientific American asked Edison if he thought it would be possible to contact the dead.

Nobody knows whether our personalities pass on to another existence or sphere but it is possible to construct an apparatus which will be so delicate that if there are personalities in another existence or sphere who wish to get in touch with us in this existence or sphere, this apparatus will at least give them a better opportunity to express themselves than the tilting tables and raps and Ouija boards and mediums and the other crude methods now purported to be the only means of communication.

In the 1950′s, psychic Attila von Szalay was known for his ability to hear voices that others could not.  Szalay, along with psychologist Raymond Bayless, began researching ways to record the phenomena.  They began their attempts using a 78 RPM Pack-Bell record cutter.  This proved to be a disappointment. Next, they constructed a box-like device consisting of a microphone set inside a speaking trumpet, placed inside a wooden cabinet.  Almost immediately they began recording strange voices.

Sarah Estep claims to have heard the voice of her late husband on Teac reel-to-reel tape recordings she made in the 1970′s.  She founded the Association TransCommunication (previously the American Association of EVP), and ever since, interest in EVP in the US has increased greatly.  You can find tons of examples of EVP recordings here, including images.

I tried to find an interesting video that showcases this method, but unfortunately Youtubers have mostly shared very over the top, horror-like videos which in my opinion aren’t really a good example. If you want to hear examples, definitely visit the Association TransCommunication site.

You might also recognize EVP from the movie White Noise (2005), which in my opinion wasn’t a very good movie :p.

So what do you think? Is EVP real? Do they actually record voices of deceased people, or is it just people’s (sometimes wild) imagination?

This is also another Flash Fiction Challenge! Write a story of a 1000 words, max. You have until next week – please do share your stories, I love to read them :D

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About Manon Eileen

Dutch 23-year-old SF/F YA writer, BSc in Psychology and soon MA in Global Criminology. She is creative, easily bored, and craves tea all the time. Also: "science isn't about why, it's about why not" - Cave Johnson.

View all posts by Manon Eileen →
  • http://twitter.com/CMStewartWrite CMStewart

    I find it a bit odd that the “spirits” of the dead, assuming they exist, would communicate as if they still had physical bodies- voices, clothed bodily images, etc. Maybe after physical death, a “spirit” becomes so powerful and resourceful that doing voices and images is easy . . but of course, that begs the question of  “Why aren’t these voices and images clearer and stronger?”

    Here’s a resource page about related “life before life” and “life after life” studies: http://www.medicine.virginia.edu/clinical/departments/psychiatry/sections/cspp/dops/

    • http://www.manoneileen.com Manon Eileen

      Maybe because they’re on a different plane of existence? A parallel universe of sorts? 

      (I’m not saying I believe in this stuff, btw… I just find it interesting!)

      Thanks for the article, I’ll definitely dig into it.

      Thanks for stopping by!

  • PW Creighton

    As an investigator myself I’d have to say absolutely. We’ve recorded voices that are direct responses to our questions while we have a camera on them and know that there is no one in the vicinity aside from the investigators. Those voices are coming from somewhere.

    • http://www.manoneileen.com Manon Eileen

      I was hoping to hear from someone with experience! Thanks for sharing, @google-97be09a5cb1efc0a6ef679657685c364:disqus !

  • Angela

    This totally freaks me out, I have to say. I love the show Paranormal State, and they have caught some weird-ass stuff on tape.

    Angela

    • http://www.manoneileen.com Manon Eileen

      To be totally frank, I didn’t listen to any of the soundbites of the Association’s website… Simply because I would be afraid to go around my house (which is from 1869 and no doubt crazy stuff has happened here – or in any other house in my street, houses that are up to 400 years old :p)

      Thanks for stopping by! :D

  • Piper Bayard

    Interesting concept, but sure. Why not? I’d say there’s more that we don’t know than that we know so anything’s possible. 

    Perhaps some mediums really are communicating with the dead, too, and perhaps they are able to do so because of their personal magnetic fields. My granny was a gifted psychic. Something she never wanted to be. And she also had a very different magnetic. She used to magnetize watches. For that matter, so did my aunt, and so do I. That was back when watches had gears. Could be related.

    Thanks for your post.

    • http://www.manoneileen.com Manon Eileen

      I was surprised by the response you and I got about my post, from this guy. Some people discard things like this very easily, even if there is at least some proof. I’m always a skeptic (which is something I inherited from my scientific studies), but I do remain open for things that might not fit our original ideas of our world. I’m all for finding out what’s out there!

      In my family there has also been some interest in the spiritual (I don’t like the word occult). I think I might have the ability to “feel” when there are things there, but at one point it started to scare me so much that I put a sort of bubble around me. It fueled my skepticism however, maybe I was just imagining things (I am a writer, after all). Anyway, I recognize the magnetic field thing, electronic devices do break around me more often than they do around others. It’s highly annoying, actually :p.

      Thanks for stopping by!!

  • http://twitter.com/GeneLempp Gene Lempp

    “Ghost Hunters” love using EVP. Personally, I don’t believe in ghosts . However, it is an interesting concept, thinking that in moments of intensity we can leave an energy behind that will resonate through time.  It makes for fun story and television to be sure.

  • http://brettjamesirvine.wordpress.com Brett Irvine

    I once read that ghosts are not “entities” as such, but are more like recordings of traumatic events in a specific area, kind of like the magnetic disturbance or whatever being trapped. The article (or book, whatever it was) suggested that limestone traps these vibrations, and so if a traumatic event like a murder were to happen in a place near to high amounts of limestone, the event might be “recorded” and it would be possible to see the recording, which we might call ghosts. Perhaps it’s a similar thing with EVP. I’m not sure how much of that I believe to be accurate, but I like to think there’s a little truth in all theories. It certainly makes for interesting discussions :)

  • Kazuma

    I am an atheist. When it comes matters such as these, my mind is clouded by doubt. For instance the whole ‘otherside’, ‘spirits’, ‘EVP’, ‘interacting with the dead’ thing seems totally absurd and dubious to me. But in the past, I’ve always rejected the offer from a certain friend to mess around with an Ouija board. Now why am I worried about the Ouija board when I think it’s an absurd thing? I think deep down I believe that all these things which I classify as dubious now, might actually be anything but. I’m not sure though.

    I would like to share a personal incident which I haven’t shared with a lot of people for the fear of being labelled a ‘liar’, ‘story teller’, ‘weirdo’ and etc etc. It happened when I was in the 7th grade…

                                                                                       **

    Late evenings meant only one thing for a seventh grade student: Study time. I was alone in my bedroom, sitting at my study table and reading a school book as usual. The rest of my family were in the apartment’s living room, watching something on the television. I was bored as hell and needed a break so I decided to risk watching the TV silently from the background. I turned off the light and tip-toed my way towards the other end of the gallery where it opened into the living room. I hid behind the curtains and peeked at the TV, all the while being careful not to make any sound. The sight of the news channel on display repulsed me, and cursed the heavens for not making my parents like cartoon channels. Nevertheless, the boring news channel was any day more interesting than the boring chemistry book I was reading not long before.

    After some time, I left the curtains and dared to come out slightly more in order to lean back on the wall. I was now standing partly IN the living room, exposed by its bright lights. Few more minutes passed without anything happening. It was then I heard a sound coming from the inner rooms. I turned my head towards the sound, but dismissed it just as quickly, thinking it was either the TV’s audio or my own imagination. After a brief lull, I heard the sound again, but this time I TRIED to listen to it. I wasn’t able to discern what it was  so I decided to walk towards it. The further I walked, the clearer the sound became. It came to a point where I realised the sound was actually a person’s voice; a person I was familiar with.

    The voice was my late grand mother’s.

    And the word she was saying was the name which she always used to call me by.

    I quickly turned around and ran for my life.

                                                                                    **

    Next day, I only told my Ma about what had happened. She didn’t worry too much and tried to soothe my mind by saying it was only the imagination of a tired mind. I bought her reasoning and believed it for a while. But what I wasn’t able to fathom back then (and still can’t ) was why did I WALK towards the sound ? The inner rooms were totally dark, and back then I never used to go in a dark room after getting spooked. Heck! back then I would even go complaining to my mom whenever my sister used to hum the theme music of popular horror shows on television coz it used to scared the shit out of me. Get my point?

    But I still walked into the darkness as if I was Harry Potter or something.

    And the voice? I still can’t decide whether it was my imagination or something real. It sounded just like hers…calling me like she used to when she was alive.

     Anyways…

    The bottom line is that all this ‘EVP’, ‘white noise’ thing is still dubious to me, but like I said before, I’m not totally against it either. It’s all a matter of proof in my opinion. Proof that I’d very much like to see with my own eyes coz ‘Seeing is Believing’.

    And maybe even hearing.                                                                               

     

    • Yoshi a.k.a Kazuma

      Hi,

      It’s actually me, Yoshi, who wrote the above comment. Posted it under my alternate pseudonym.

      Tc

      Yoshi

    • http://www.manoneileen.com Manon Eileen

      Wow, thanks for sharing that, Yoshi… The only thing I ever eperienced was …

      I was home alone with my younger brother. He was taking a shower, while I sat behind a computer in the room next to the bathroom. All of a sudden, I heard a baby crying, very loudly. Now, this house we lived in was only a year old with all of the newest isolation tech, so we never heard anything from outside or our neighbors. I froze, because I realized clearly there were no babies in the house. Then, I heard people run up our stairs, although there were no people to be seen (I could see the stairs from where I sat). I jumped up and slammed the bathroom door where my brother was and asked if he had heard it too, he said he had. We were both absolutely terrified, although we didn’t hear anything again until my parents returned home. And there have never been any more incidents like that.

      I’ve lived in a different house that’s from the 1500s and have felt strong presences in that house. 

      Stuff like that has made me doubt my ideas and convictions too – although my mother is a strong believer of ghosts and the afterlife and what not. I think she sort of influenced me, hehe.

      I do try to stay away from everything that might prove it though, ouija boards (if they’re not fake :p) or EVP or any such tech. It scares me out of my mind – especially since I saw Sixth Sense, lol.

      Thanks again for stopping by :)

      • Yoshi

        Wow! your supernatural experience was freaky, to say the least. I wonder what I would’ve done in your place. It’s kinda strange that you and your bro didn’t go through the same experience again, like they show in the movies. Hmmm…good thing you didn’t.

        Did any other family member or any friend of your felt the same strong presence in the house like you did? Just asking.

        I have a friend who gets pretty scared while watching horror movie, and I make it a point to always watch one whenever he comes here. One time, while watching ‘The Exorcism Of Emily Rose’, I slowly turned my hear towards him and stared at him for 5/6 minutes. At first, he didn’t notice (probably coz of the dark room), but eventually he turned to look at me, and freaked out. Haha!  After another 30 minutes, during the movie, I got up and slowly walked towards the corner of the room and crouched below. I covered my face with my hands and acted as If I was sobbing. Soon sobbing gave way to ‘evil laughter’, followed by whispers like “I’m going to feast on your blood tonight” n “Die, die, kill, kill, blood, meat, eat,eat” said with a rasping voice :)    This act made my friend run for his life.

        Man! I love scaring the crap out of him.

        Do you get scared while watching horror movies?

        • http://www.manoneileen.com Manon Eileen

          Yeah it was definitely very freaky. No one else ever felt or heard or saw anything in that house though! It was a very odd experience.

          Lol at scaring your friend, that’s pretty awful :p Hope you didn’t scar him for life :p. 

          I’m not at all into horror movies, mostly because I do get scared, hehe. Luckily the people I usually watch movies with don’t like horrors either so I never have to watch them :D