Electronic Voice Phenomenon - Voices From Beyond the Veil

Still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.--Paul Simon, "The Boxer"

Satan "can remain hidden, or speak in different languages, transform himself or appear to be agreeable." --Gabriele Amorth, 85, who has been the Vatican's chief exorcist for 25 years.

Electronic voice phenomena (EVP) are recordings of voice or voice-like sounds that are not audible to the human ear. The frequencies of these sounds are reportedly well below the range of sounds that can be perceived by the human ear. Typically, but not always, they are short having a length of only one word or a short phrase.Common sources of EVP include static, stray radio transmissions, and background noise.

Interest in the subject normally surrounds claims that EVP are of paranormal origin, though 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 which are offered to explain them. Recordings of EVP are often created from background sound by increasing the gain (i.e. sensitivity) of the recording equipment.

History & Earlier Interests:

Ever since the invention of electronic recording devices people have found strange voices appearing on their recordings, sometimes speaking directly to them, even though no one was present but themselves. The Electronic Voice Phenomena or EVP has been raising controversy as to what it is they are capturing on tape. Could it be the voices of souls who have "passed on" and wish to speak to loved ones left behind or is it an elaborate hoax meant to deceive the gullible?A great deal of study has gone into EVP since the 1920's.

Even Thomas Edison, when interviewed, stated "it is possible to construct an apparatus which will be so delicate that if there are personalities in another existence ... this apparatus will at least give them a better opportunity to express themselves". 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.

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. 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 oure 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 oure such messages as "This is G!", "Hot dog, Art!", and "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to we 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.

Other early pioneers include Friedrich Jürgenson and Konstantin Raudive. If what Raudive thinks he was hearing oure indeed voices from dead people, it confirms the findings of other spirit scientists like Gary Schwartz that the dead have very little of interest to say to us. Raudive would hear things like "I follow we tonight," "please interrupt," and "might be Mary-bin." David Ellis investigated Raudive's and Jürgenson's claims and published his results in The Mediumship of the Tape Recorder: A Detailed Examination of the (Jurgenson, Raudive) Phenomenon of Voice Extras on Tape Recordings (1978). Ellis was not convinced. In 1997, psychologist Imants Barušs conducted a series of experiments attempting to replicate Raudive's work. His results oure published in 2001 in the Journal of Scientific Exploration. Barušs concluded that "none of the phenomena found...was clearly anomalous, let alone attributable to discarnate beings."

Explanations and Origins:

Quite a bit of study has gone into figuring out how these voices manifest. Since we create sounds on the physical plane by passing air through our throat and mouth to create the sound frequencies our ears can perceive, it has been tested to determine how a non-physical entity can produce the frequencies on tape that we can hear. More and more it is shown that the reason the EVP researchers don't hear the voices directly is because whatever is causing the sounds are having to manipulate existing sound frequencies at the point in the machine where the processing of the analog sound to a digital format for storage is taking place.

Paranormal explanations for EVP generally assume production of EVP by a communicating intelligence(including 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) through means other than the typical functioning of communication technologies.

Scientific 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.

Human Brain Physiology:

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.

The Cocktail Party Effect

Imagine we are at a noisy party with loud music and everyone talking. We're not paying any attention to the hubbub which is too difficult to listen to anyway. Then we hear our name mentioned. We look up and see it is someone we know on the far side of the room talking about we. The fact that we can suddenly hear our name among the din shows that hearing is something that happens not in our ear but in our brain. Our brain filtered out our name from the noise because it was relevant to we. This is the Cocktail Party Effect. It is significant here because people quickly get used to background sounds (even in noisy factories) so that they don't hear them any more - because the sound is not relevant.

The same can happen on vigils. Just because we don't remember hearing a weird sound during a vigil, we shouldn't be surprised that an audio recorder picked it up. A sound recorder is a neutral instrument that records everything within its capabilities without discrimination. It never gets used to background noises, like squeaky chairs and creaking floorboards. In addition, the recorder may actually be more sensitive to quiet sounds than the investigator. Many microphones are strongly directional so that they pick up sounds from one particular direction preferentially (more strongly than humans) while ignoring others. So a sound recorder may pick stuff we didn't hear and could also miss things we heard. In neither case does it mean the sound was necessarily paranormal, it is just that recorders work differently to human hearing.

Another interesting point arises from the Cocktail Party Effect. Different people will get used to background noises at different rates. That means that some people may hear a sound whereas others don’t (because only some are already not hearing such noises)! Needless to say, if this happens many people will claim that the sound must be paranormal as only some people heard it! This sort of thing is frequently reported on vigils!

Given that we can routinely demonstrate these sit is only parsimonious to suggest that what people hear with EVP is also the product of their own brains, and their expectations, rather than the voices of the dearly departed or the intelligent beings Given that we can routinely demonstrate this effect, it is only parsimonious to suggest that what people hear with EVP is also the product of their own brains, and their expectations, rather than the voices of the dearly departed or the intelligent beings from other dimensions.

Physics Behind:

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 poour 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 oure present in the original recording.

For all radio transmissions above 30 MHz (which are not reflected by the ionosphere) there is a possibility of meteor reflection of the radio signal due to sporadic meteor shoours. Meteors leave a trail of ionised particles and electrons as they pass through the upper atmosphere (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. 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.

How to Record Electronic Voice Phenomenon:

Most people, when they learn about Electronic Voice Phenomenon, are very interested in trying to make their own recordings to capture ghost voices. While it is true that there are advantages to be had in using expensive and sophisticated recording devices it is possible to capture EVPs using standard tape or digital recorders. When we try experimenting with EVP recordings make sure that we are using new tapes to avoid interferences associated with previous recordings.

Electronic Voice Phenomenon have been captured in all sorts of places. We do not have to be in a grave yard or a haunted house to get these eerie voices on tape or digital media.Be sure to carefully document everything about the place and the environmental conditions where we make our recordings. Also include a list of all people who are present. Remember that we may record for hours without getting the strange voices so be patient. Also, realize that in most cases the voices are not heard until after we play back the recordings.

Dos & Donts:

Don't edit our recordings: Once we have a sound recording containing apparently anomalous sounds, make copies of it and keep it safe. It could be valuable evidence. Very importantly,don't 'enhance', edit, improve or manipulate our recording in any way. Some people 'tidy up' or 'enhance' their recordings but this has several serious side effects: (a) it removes vital evidence of context, (b) it can make later analysis impossible, (c) it can 'create' false sounds (see Audio Editing Software below) and (d) it can look bad to people who wish to dismiss our possibly paranormal recordings out of hand. If we wish cut out a section of our recording to show a suspected paranormal sound to others, leave a few seconds before and after the event as well. These are important to establish to context of the suspected paranormal bit. If we just play people the sound itself they have no idea of the context. For instance, is the anomalous sound one of many previous similar sounds? Is it loud or soft (many apparently paranormal sounds are very faint) compared to the ambient sounds? Is there any 'build up' to the sound or does it just suddenly appear? All these points could provide clues to the sounds origin that cannot be picked up by listening to the sound alone.

Audio editing software: Audio editing software is easily available nowadays, some of it very cheap indeed (like shareware or freeware). It is tempting to use such software to 'enhance' apparent voices or other paranormal sounds. However, there is a serious problem with this approach. While it is true that we can remove background noise from a recording, the process is not perfect and it inevitably alters the recording permanently, including the bits we are interested in. If there is a ordinary real human voice in a noisy recording, audio editing software may well clarify it (though it is also likely to alter it). If, on the other hand, there is a random noise that sounds like a voice, but isn't one, repeated use of noise removal, filtering, etc, could make the noise sound more like a voice. We could end up listening to an artifact of the overuse of audio enhancement rather than a real voice. If we really must use audio editing software on our paranormal recordings, never apply more than one or two 'enhancements' per sample and apply exactly the same process to ALL our recordings. If we apply different types of 'enhancement', to different degrees, to each recording, then we will not be able to objectively compare samples. In some noise reduction processes we have to nominate an area of the recording as noise so that it can then be removed from the sample we are interested in.

Obviously, this selection is subjective so, again, the results will vary from sample to sample. Most audio editing software is designed to edit and enhance sound clips with a reasonable signal to noise ratio. It is not usually designed to recover faint signals from significant ambient noise, which is a typical scenario in paranormal sound recording. For this reason, the tools provided in non-specialist audio editing software, such as noise removal, may be too aggressive for use with paranormal sound recordings.This is why, ideally, we should aim to avoid all such audio enhancement, otherwise we could be left with software artifacts rather than paranormal evidence. We should, at the very least, always keep an unedited copy of our original recording for comparison.

Consider The Context: Background noise is important! It provides an audio context and reassures the listener that the recording has not been manipulated. It can also provide clues to any possible natural explanations for apparently paranormal sounds. For instance, is the paranormal sound louder than the ambient background noise, about the same level or fainter?If the sound is louder than the background noise then there is the possibility that it is a real sound that was not noted at the time or was forgotten. It is also possible that the microphone was directional and happened to be aimed at a sound source that no one noticed at the time.

It could also be radio or electrical interference. If the apparently paranormal sound (APS) sound is at the same level as, or fainter than, the background ambient noise, then it could be a chance effect. Background noise is, typically, random and unpredictable. We might think it unlikely that we could pick up a sound fainter than the background noise. However, if it contains apparently meaningful information, like a voice, it could be the Cocktail Party Effect.

Auto gain circuit: While listening to the recording, we should note if the background noise appears to fade drastically when a real, loud sound is picked up. This means that our recorder probably has an auto-gain circuit(AGC) whose job is to keep sound levels roughly constant. Most voice recorders have AGC and it usually can't be switched off. The problem is that the AGC turns to high gain during quiet periods(amplifying background noise) and low during noisy ones (when the background apparently fades away). This can make it difficult to judge the relative loudness of different sound sources from the recording. It also tends to exaggerate background noise which can produce false APSs. In addition, the AGC affects the very part of the recorder (the microphone input and lead which can act as an antenna) that is most susceptible to radio interference. In addition, the AGC can give normal recordings a 'weird' feel. The unnatural way in which the background sound can vanish and re-appear around normal sounds can feel quite spooky. Sadly, it's just normal operation for the AGC which is designed primarily for 'average' applications where there are not usually long silent periods.

Outdoors: There are special considerations when looking at recordings made out of doors. For one thing, the wind can affect the microphone, producing loud sounds that drown out others. We can buy microphone wind screens to stop these problems. We also need to be aware that ambient background sound levels out of doors are likely to be higher than indoors. Also, the wind can affect sound so that it can carry further than usual as well as producing other odd effects. In particular, real voices (or fragments of conversations) might appear on recordings made outside.

Analysis:(Some Stages in EVP)

Listening: The most obvious way to analyse a sound recording is to listen to it, though it is also the most subjective. Indeed, scientists have discovered that more of the process of hearing happens in the brain than in the ears.

It is important to listen to large sections of the recording at any one time so that we become accustomed to the context (see above), particularly the ambient background sound level and other natural sounds. Listening to small sections can leave we with a false impression of the occasion and any anomalies found. Were there, for instance, lots of sounds similar to the APS or was it unique?

Waveforms: It is called the 'speech detection problem' and is still being actively researched. Once we have detected speech, there is another hard problem, to understand precisely what is being said (everyone's speech sounds slightly different). This is the 'speech recognition problem'. Both problems are central to the idea of apparently paranormal voices. Are the sounds recorded really voices and, if they are, what exactly are they saying?

In detecting human speech, an important concept is the idea of 'voiced' sounds. These are sounds (like vowel sounds) that involve the use of the larynx - they are called 'voiced' sounds. If we put our hand over our larynx (at the base of our throat) we can feel it vibrates when we make 'voiced' sounds. Some sounds, like 's' (as in 'less') or 't' (as in 'let') are not voiced - they require only lips and tongue to produce. Also, if we whisper, we do not voice sounds. This 'voicing' sound is called the fundamental frequency.

Voiced sounds are so common that exist in almost all words. So any fragment of speech of more than a syllable or two should include at least one voiced section. This is useful to know because voiced sounds have recognisable characteristics. The sound the larynx makes is low frequency and usually at a higher volume than unvoiced sounds. Individual distinct sounds are called 'phonemes'. Some phonemes are composed of multiple letters (like 'ph' being pronounced as 'f'). Phonemes are generally reasonably distinct from each other when shown as waveforms. If we cannot see obvious transitions between phonemes, in what is supposed to be a word, then it probably isn't normal human speech. If, on the other hand, we can see typical sections of low frequency, high volume interspersed occasionally by high frequency, low volume bits, it probably is normal human speech.

Frequency: In the next stage of analysis we will be able to resolve that vexed question - what exactly is being said? In simple speech recognition software, frequency analysis is used to determine what each of the phonemes actually is.

Here to keep the discussion simple some stages are presented for a curious reader.

Detailed voice recognition can be found in any text book on speech processing & voice recognition.

Thus, searching for paranormal voices, or EVP, is more difficult than it might at first seem. As well as eliminating real voices, unheard or forgotten at the time of recording, there are other, more insidious, natural causes to consider. It is perfectly possible to hear 'words', that are not really there, in certain forms of noise, because of the way the brain interprets speech. Sine wave speech demonstrates that all that is necessary to understand words is the relevant formants. The phoneme restoration effect demonstrates that when certain sounds within words are missing, and their place taken by noise, the brain will 'insert' the appropriate missing sound to make sense of a word. The result will sound like real speech.

The Most Horrific EVP Ever Recorded:

IN JANUARY, 2007, the Central New York Ghost Hunters (CNYGH), based in Syracuse, New York, oure 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.

More details on the incident can be accessed at: http://paranormal.about.com/od/ghostaudiovideo/a/aa101507.html

Curious readers can also visit http://www.trueghosttales.com/evp/evp-aimee.php for more stories.

Paranormal groups and ghost hunting groups investigating into EVP:

Investigation of EVP is the subject of hundreds of regional and national groups and Internet message boards.Paranormal investigator John Zaffis claims, "There's been a boom in ghost hunting ever since the Internet took off."

Investigators, equipped with electronic gear—like EMF meters, video cameras, and audio recorders—scour reportedly haunted venues, trying to uncover visual and audio evidence of ghosts. Many use portable recording devices in an attempt to capture EVP.

The steampunk Ghostbusters parody troupe The League of STEAM send up the concept of capturing EVPs: one of their members, ostensibly a disciple of Thomas Edison, carries a backpack with a large phonograph horn on it, which supposedly can capture EVPs and record them onto wax cylinders.

Suggested Further Readings:

1) Baruss, Imants (2001), Failure to Replicate Electronic Voice Phenomenon,Journal of Scientific Exploration, V15#3, 0892-3310/01

2)Raudive, Konstantin (1971). Breakthrough: An Amazing Experiment in Electronic Communication With the Dead (Original title: The Inaudible Becomes Audible). Taplinger Publishing Co.. ISBN 0800809653.

3)Senkowski, Ernst (1995). "Analysis of Anomalous Audio and Video Recordings, presented before the "Society For Scientific Exploration" USA – June 1995". Retrieved 2007-09-18.

4)Bander, Peter (1973). Voices from the tapes: Recordings from the other world. Drake Publishers. ISBN ASIN: B0006CCBAE.

5)MacRae, Alexander. "A Bio-electromagnetic Device of Unusual Properties". www.skyelab.co.uk. Retrieved 2007-03-27.

6) "AA-EVP:Electronic Voice Phenomena and Instrumental TransCommunication". Retrieved 2007-09-22.

7)EVPs - Questions & Ansours

8)"TV psychics claim Lennon contact". BBC News. 2006-04-25. Retrieved 2007-09-19.

Author:

Anuj Srivastava

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