Imagine for a moment beginning your daily routine by
stuffing ear plugs in your ears, putting on a blindfold,
strapping on a tape recorder and hitting the record button.
Then, somewhat at random during the day, you ask questions
hoping that answers just might be recorded for you to hear later
that night after you take the ear plugs out and listen to the
recording. Seems like a pretty silly scenario doesn’t it? Yet,
that is almost exactly the present situation in regard to
Electronic Voice Phenomena.
The basic philosophy of Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP) is
that spirits or ghosts can somehow affect electronic recording
instruments in a way that allows their voices to be recorded.
It appears that this phenomena was born in 1959, when a Swedish
artist and filmmaker, Friedrich Jorgenson recorded the faint
voice of his dead mother while trying to record bird songs in
the Swedish countryside. However, as pointed out repeatedly by
EVP researchers, the voices are never directly heard by the
person making the recording as the recordings are being made.
That is, somehow the ghosts, spirits or whatever they are manage
to have their voices stored on the recording media (tape or
digital) even though no sounds were actually being heard at the
time. While this seems a little contradictory it is not all
that implausible.
When I first moved to Phoenix I lived right next to an Air
National Guard facility. My apartment was literally right
across the street. One day as I was listening to my stereo
receiver at a relatively high volume I was treated to a distinct
but brief bzzzt sound. I thought that was rather odd, but then
it repeated a few seconds later. Thinking my stereo was acting
up I tried another channel only to be treated to the same bzzzt
sound for about a second every 15 seconds. I was perplexed for
a time as to what might be causing this. Then I opened the
drapes covering my patio door and noticed the radar dish at the
Air National Guard facility. Sure enough, every time it swung
around in my direction the stereo went bzzzt. Yes there was a
very definite bzzzt sound coming out of my stereo, but there
truly was no bzzzt “sound” going into any microphone anywhere.
The “sound” was created as a result of a fast pulsing
electromagnetic signal coming from the radar dish that was
directly interacting with the electrical circuits in my stereo.
EVPs may be similar to my stereo radar experience. EVPs
are possibly electromagnetic signals that are simply picked up
by the recording electronics and transferred to the tape or
digital recording media. In the October 30, 1920, issue of
Scientific American, Thomas Alva Edison is quoted as saying:
“If our personality survives, then it is strictly
logical and scientific to assume that it retains
memory, intellect and other faculties and
knowledge that we acquire on this Earth.
Therefore, if personality exists after what we
call death, it is reasonable to conclude that
those who leave this Earth would like to
communicate with those they have left here… I am
inclined to believe that our personality
hereafter will be able to affect matter. If this
reasoning be correct, then, if we can evolve an
instrument so delicate as to be affected or moved
or manipulated… by our personality as it survives
in the next life, such an instrument, when made
available, ought to record something.”
Edison was not the only researcher with such ideas. It is
reported that both Marconi and Tesla had similar views of what
might be possible in regard to communicating with the dearly
departed. Yet to this day Electronic Voice Phenomena is little
more than the hit and miss process described earlier.
For over fifty years, tape delayed broadcasting of live
events has been a relatively standard practice with the notable
exception of a certain recent Super Bowl half time broadcast.
In fact, back in 1952 radio station WKAP, Allentown,
Pennsylvania, introduced a tape delay system consisting of an
external playback head which was spaced far enough away from the
record head to allow for a 5 second delay. In this manner
recorded audio could actually be played back from the recorder
before the tape was wound onto the take-up reel. This avoided
the problems associated with the fact that the FCC would not
allow live telephone conversations to be broadcast directly over
the air. The reason for this rule became apparent during that
infamous Super Bowl XXXVIII half time broadcast.
These days there are a variety of delay mechanisms
available to the broadcast industry, but essentially they all
work on a very similar principle. Now the information is
recorded onto some type of digital media. This is generally a
hard disk drive or Random Access Memory (RAM). The recorded
data is then played back a short interval after it is recorded
in a manner not terribly unlike the tape delay described
earlier. This is the same principle that is used by the Tivo
system to allow pausing a live broadcast and then continuing to
watch after having un-paused it. A “poor man’s” audio version
of Tivo can be made with a simple free-ware mp3 recorder
combined with a suitable mp3 player program on a computer. By
starting the player a few seconds after starting the recorder,
the player will be playing back audio that was recorded only
seconds earlier while the recorder continues to record.
In some cases, EVP only becomes sufficiently audible after
significant filtering and signal processing to allow the EVP to
be understood. However, it is not all that rare to have EVPs be
understandably audible without doing anything more than simply
listening to the raw recording. There are many internet sites
that give examples of easily understood EVPs. So, this leaves
open a distinct possibility. If something akin to a broadcast
delay system was used to record EVPs a researcher could actually
hear the EVPs in near-real-time. A researcher could ask for a
name of the EVP source, a few seconds later hear the name in
response and then ask for a clarification or ask a follow-up
question. This may turn out to result in some interesting
results. Imagine being able to ask an EVP who it is, then ask
why it is there, and follow up with what it wants all while
being able to hear the answers on the spot. Conversation. What
a concept!
In the TV show “Ghost Whisperer” the spirits tend to become
rather persistent in trying to make contact once they discover
the main character, Melinda Gordon, can see and hear them.
Apparently, they have become rather used to being ignored
although they don’t like it, and they rather quickly notice when
someone makes eye contact with them or they notice they are
actually being heard. Along this line of thought, is it
possible that, if spirits realize that an EVP researcher can
understand them in real-time, they might indeed become rather
persistent and develop the ability to communicate more
effectively and clearly rather than in brief snippets of just a
few words? Might they actually flock to the researcher in an
effort to make themselves understood?
Edison was not very impressed by the methods in use back in
1920 when he further said:
"Certain of the methods now in use are so crude,
so childish, so unscientific, that it is amazing
how so many rational human beings can take any
stock in them. If we ever do succeed in
establishing communication with personalities
which have left this present life, it certainly
won't be through any of the childish contraptions
which seem so silly to the scientist."
Essentially the same can still be said today despite 86
years of scientific advancement.
