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Electronic Voice Phenomena ('EVP')

Wasn't it? I especially liked the Winston Churchill clip where he says his name, even if it didn't sound completely like him it was a great find. Not sure about the bloke who makes words by playing dogs barking forwards and backwards, there's a lot of the Rorshach test about it as they say. Except with sound, obviously.
 
Is anyone asking the obvious questions?

Sorry if this has been covered before but I have a few questions concerning EVP.

Is there any research where the person asking the questions tried to ascertain if the voices are from actual identifiable dead people? Are they being asked are they dead, how they died, what existence is like for them currently?

I've read a lot about people hearing snatches of words but it all seems to be very vague.
 
Re: Is anyone asking the obvious questions?

kaisen said:
Sorry if this has been covered before but I have a few questions concerning EVP.

Is there any research where the person asking the questions tried to ascertain if the voices are from actual identifiable dead people? Are they being asked are they dead, how they died, what existence is like for them currently?

I've read a lot about people hearing snatches of words but it all seems to be very vague.
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From what I've read/heard, the answers to direct questions are pretty vague, stuff like "We are on the death ship" and so on, and as a whole the phenomenon can be fuzzy-sounding enough to sound like anything you want. The Winston Churchill messages mentioned above are a case in point: very convincing if you want to believe, stray radio signals that sound nothing like the old fellow if you don't.
 
The Huffington Post (of all places) has an article about a team from a specialty acoustics equipment company accidentally recording what seems to be EVP: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/2 ... 59324.html

The article includes actual sound clips, so you can decide for yourself if it's a publicity stunt or something more compelling.

These May Be The Sounds Of Ghosts In An Abandoned Insane Asylum

When Ryan Schimmenti, Mesta Bish, Vito Finamore and Eric Farahani played back their first recording of the abandoned Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, they couldn't believe what they were hearing. An out-of-tune piano, being played in a building where no piano was to be found. The voice of a little girl, talking to someone in an asylum that's been closed since 1994.

"I've never actually heard anything in real-time that sounds funky," said Schimmenti.

Calling themselves Acoustic Archives, Schimmenti and his team travel the United States recording the sound of abandoned buildings. Specifically, they enter spaces and use a technique called convolution reverb to record and preserve the building's "audio imprint."

"Humans hear from 20 hertz to 20 kilohertz. So you take that frequency sweep, play it from a speaker at a pretty decent volume and record it. And you take that sound, plug it into a variety of different programs, and then you can replicate the sound of that room."

These replications of certain places' sounds, called "plug-ins," can then be used by musical artists and audio engineers to create unique recording effects: An amateur singer with the right plug-in can sound like she's singing in the Sydney Opera House -- or, with one of the plug-ins made by Acoustic Archives, like she's singing inside an abandoned mental asylum.

The Huffington Post got a chance to interview Schimmenti just in time for Halloween.

So, first off -- what's your take on the ghost noises you recorded at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum?

You know, I don’t believe in ghosts. I’m an atheist. But we picked up some stuff that was just absolutely some of the strangest sh*t I’ve ever seen ... People whispering, a little girl's voice, somebody playing a piano in a 5000-square-foot building that doesn’t have a piano. You know, really bizarre stuff.

How did you and your team get onto archiving the acoustics of abandoned buildings?

It started back in April. Mesta and Vito were working on a record together [Kaley Victoria Rose's "The Garden And The Liddle Girl"] and they wanted to work in an asylum because the record they were working on was an experimental record based on mental illness and a girl losing her mind. They asked [me and Eric] to come along and help, and I thought it was a kooky idea -- we were going to drive all the way to West Virginia to record the tonal qualities of an abandoned mental hospital. I thought this was crazy. So that’s how the whole thing started.
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This is rum: is Robin Williams really communicating from beyond?

'Robin Williams' speaks via EVP


Messages from Robin Williams? Maybe, hear it for yourself.

I have been a huge Robin Williams fan for most of my whole life. I grew up with Robin’s TV show (Mork and Mindy) and all of his movies, yep, I have seen them all.

I love “The World According to Garp” and “What Dreams May Come” the most but I really enjoyed all of his work.

The day he passed was a sad day indeed. Later in that day I was doing a spirit box session and heard his voice come through after I asked for him. For the following week I was able to connect with, what I feel, is the spirit of Robin.

Of course, it may not be but some of this REALLY sounds like him, and the last message I was able to receive about the light and being with his Dad was very emotional for me when it came in. After that last message nothing else came in.

That was it and for me it sounds like he has crossed over, and I feel 100% that he has.

It was funny because as I was doing the last session when the “light” message came in I instantly smelled ONION in my room. No idea why or where it came from but it was strong. Have no idea if Robin loved Onions or what but it was there.

This video is a compilation of the messages that I feel COULD be Robin, all recorded during the week after his death.
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:shock:
 
Well that's convinced me.

But seriously, he says he was "doing a spirit box session". Does anyone have a clue what equipment this involves & how the 'voices' are recorded?

The recordings are of miniscule length and feature various background sounds. One one it sounds like there is a drum machine playing. If someone told me they'd captured these by tuning in to random radio stations I would not be overly surprised.
 
hunck said:
Well that's convinced me.

But seriously, he says he was "doing a spirit box session". Does anyone have a clue what equipment this involves & how the 'voices' are recorded?

The recordings are of miniscule length and feature various background sounds. One one it sounds like there is a drum machine playing. If someone told me they'd captured these by tuning in to random radio stations I would not be overly surprised.
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I believe that a Spirit Box is basically a radio scanner and speaker built into one unit. It scans through all available radio frequencies and plays them all back in short, quick, random snippets so that the cacophony of sound can be interpreted.

The theory being that the spirits can use the radio waves as carrier waves to send messages. I have always maintained that this is bullshit of the highest order and that you will hear something purely because that is what the brain does. After all, the companies that make these things want to sell them. If people didn't hear anything then they wouldn't sell many.
 
What utter arsewipe. But 'spirit box' sounds so much better and more spiritual than 'random radio' recordings.

On the other hand maybe Robin Williams in the afterlife has taken up rapping and hence the drum machine...
 
It would be interesting to find out if, of his myriad films, tv stuff and interviews those exact words were ever said and this conman had simply sampled them and put it over a really bad drum beat..............or RW had chosen to communicate through him?
 
This programme, which we enjoyed a while back, was on again recently and can be found on the BBC website -

gncxx said:
This is great, a documentary from this morning about EVP:
Out Of The Ordinary

Jolyon Jenkins reports on the world of electronic voice phenomena (EVP) - the community of people who believe that the dead can speak to us through radio transmissions and white noise.
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I've listened a few times now and have been particularly impressed by the fact that William O'Neil, a developor of the Spiricom, was a professional ventriloquist who owned an artificial larynx. There are tapes of him apparently practising his side of conversations with the deceased. So, no chance of fraud there, then. ;)

However, we don't need to rely on old secondhand reports of what a Spiricom can do.

We can build our own! :D

If you need a hobby to help while away those long winter nights, and you've left your banjo on the bus, build a Spiricom.

You know you want to. ;)
 
... Or you could turn the whole thing on its head and get the same experience by mishearing normal conversations. When someone asks 'How are you', squint a little and say 'I think I heard 'my bollocks are haunting your fish tank''. When they then ask 'What are you on about?' Say 'I'm getting, 'I murdered a courgette in Ambleside''.
 
escargot1 said:
This programme, which we enjoyed a while back, was on again recently and can be found on the BBC website
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That's a very well-made programme indeed. I seem to recall that it features, by way of a quick experiment for listeners, an example EVP recording which can't be made out at all. Of course once you're then told what the words are supposed to be it becomes startlingly clear when the clip is then repeated.

And of course, all EVP videos on YouTube etc are captioned or subtitled, so the suggestion has been implanted beforehand in every instance - which, as the human brain is very clever at processing speech under difficult conditions, is all that's needed.
 
Andy_X said:
That's a very well-made programme indeed. I seem to recall that it features, by way of a quick experiment for listeners, an example EVP recording which can't be made out at all. Of course once you're then told what the words are supposed to be it becomes startlingly clear when the clip is then repeated.

And of course, all EVP videos on YouTube etc are captioned or subtitled, so the suggestion has been implanted beforehand in every instance - which, as the human brain is very clever at processing speech under difficult conditions, is all that's needed.
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Its like those ghost hunting shows where they use a Ghost Box. The show displays what the box has produced whilst Im hearing something totally different.

The show then builds upon what they thought it said and this becomes the story or theme that runs to the end of that episode.
 
I've been to a handful of EVP experiments. There's only one time when what's been said has been memorably clear.

Personal Anecdote Time!

The first part of this story occurred about 6 years ago - 15th/16th May 2009, in Edinburgh. Gordon (gordonrutter) had a spare ticket to a ghost vigil at the Mary King's Ghost Fest and invited me along. The vigil was held overnight at the infamous Vaults from around midnight to around dawn. At one point during the night, a pair of dowsing rods were produced. One of the participants was asked to hold them and the host started asking questions with the hope of getting a supernatural response via the rods. One question he asked was "Is there anyone here you're afraid of?" So everyone took their turn approaching the dowser - sure enough, when I approached, the rods swung wildly. It may, of course, just be a result of the person holding the rods badly (they looked horizontal and she'd never dowsed before) so they could swing in even a light draught, but part of me hopes otherwise.
Some time after the vigil (perhaps a few months), we at the Edinburgh Fortean Society had a guest who ran an EVP experiment. Usual setup, as I recall - voice-activated dictaphone in a sealed metal biscuit tin. We were invited to ask our own questions. When it was my turn, I asked "Who do you fear?" Amongst that group, Gordon was the only person who knew about the ghost vigil/dowsing rods result and he gave me a knowing look. Sure enough, when the tape was played back, we heard me asking the question - followed by someone saying, very clearly, "ALISTAIR" (my name)... I just regret not getting a copy of that recording.

tl;dr - Ghosts are scared of me.

Relevant Links :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edinburgh_Vaults

Some of my photos from the night :
https://plus.google.com/photos/109100086797380270291/albums/5336379955009011937

Article about the event :
http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.c...goes-online-to-spook-all-over-world-1-1194407
 
We have two threads on EVP. Just thought I'd mention that.

Anyway, to show that people can disagree about what they hear, I present this video of a singing mouse toy.

It's supposed to warble 'Jungle Bells' but was withdrawn because some purchasers claim to have heard it sing 'Peadophiles' instead. Someone I know bought one and kept it because it made her laugh so much.
 
escargot1 said:
We have two threads on EVP. Just thought I'd mention that.

Anyway, to show that people can disagree about what they hear, I present this video of a singing mouse toy.

It's supposed to warble 'Jungle Bells' but was withdrawn because some purchasers claim to have heard it sing 'Peadophiles' instead. Someone I know bought one and kept it because it made her laugh so much.
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Oh... go on then.
 
Some have found this very disturbing so caution please. I discovered it here which has some good EVP. The hosts refused to play it.

http://www.blurryphotos.org/episode-28-evp/











Allegedly 3 or more voices saying "I cannot breath" followed by water sounds in an empty room.

here is the facebook site where it is supposed to come from.

https://www.facebook.com/The-Ghost-Investigators-Society-236534663661/




here is a fairly accurate transcript.

http://www.talkparanormal.com/thread-2905-page-2.html

here is a guess at what you are hearing.

(Kid) Help me, can't breathe
(Deep mans voice) Murder
(kid) I can't breathe
(very low mans voice) I couldn't breathe
(Kids voice continues, not sure what is being said)
(woman's voice) I couldn't breathe
(just after this you will hear water thrashing around for about 15-20 seconds followed by a big thud And then silence again.

There has been no water supply to the property for nearly 20 years. The property was empty apart from the 5 adults that make up the GIS.

P.S. if anyone has any info on the GIS, please let me know if they're still alive.
 
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Naughty_Felid said:
Some have found this very disturbing so caution please. I discovered it here which has some good EVP. The hosts refused to play it.

http://www.blurryphotos.org/episode-28-evp/

Allegedly 3 or more voices saying "I cannot breath" followed by water sounds in an empty room.

here is the facebook site where it is supposed to come from.

https://www.facebook.com/The-Ghost-Investigators-Society-236534663661/
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That Facebook page doesn't really say much about them. Their "about" page has nothing but a link to a site that turns out to contain nothing more than ads for other sites. And this is one problem with a lot of this stuff: there is no documentation, without which there is simply no way to tell whether the material is for real or faked.

EVP has the same pitfalls as lots of paranormal stuff: there is always the danger of pareidolia. I am on FB groups for paranormal stuff, and people regularly post photos in which they see the most amazingly detailed images of ghosts and demons and things where I see nothing more than a blur, or even just a clear photo with seemingly nothing weird about it at all. When I ask them what I'm supposed to see they repost the photo with the detail circled, and then I STILL see nothing there! :)

At other times the ghostly thing seems very clear, but it also seems like it is almost certainly just a reflection in a window or something like that, that they didn't notice until they looked at the photo. Among lots of paranormalists, there is a truly appalling lack of critical thought or investigation.

With EVP I run into the same trouble. For one thing, if you know what you're supposed to hear, even very random sounds will start sounding like voices. I have noticed that when I don't read the transcript, no matter how often I listen to a recording, I simply cannot make out what they are saying (even in those cases where I do seem to hear a voice; in many cases I listen through a recording and hear nothing at all that sounds like a voice).

Here's a rather nice documentary:


I enjoyed it, but I have to say that with the vast bulk of the EVP they eventually play back, I do not hear anything at all out of the ordinary without reading the transcript.

Now there are cases where there is no doubt in my mind that I am hearing a voice. Sometimes I can make out what it says, sometimes I cannot. In this particular case I can make out some of it, and it definitely sounds like human voices. But where is the recording from? Who made it? When? What were the circumstances? Without that information the recording is of no use. I can make my own "EVP recording" with a few mouse clicks.

Assuming the recording is for real, it is indeed a bit chilling, because I get the distinct impression we are listening to a kid being drowned in a tub. Which confirms the notion that some people don't know they are dead, and kind of keep on experiencing the bad stuff that happened to them over and over.

Anyway, I'm reading up a bit on EVP, because I plan to participate in NaNoWriMo this year and I want to write a book in which EVP briefly features. :)
 
MetroGnome said:
That Facebook page doesn't really say much about them. Their "about" page has nothing but a link to a site that turns out to contain nothing more than ads for other sites. And this is one problem with a lot of this stuff: there is no documentation, without which there is simply no way to tell whether the material is for real or faked.

EVP has the same pitfalls as lots of paranormal stuff: there is always the danger of pareidolia. I am on FB groups for paranormal stuff, and people regularly post photos in which they see the most amazingly detailed images of ghosts and demons and things where I see nothing more than a blur, or even just a clear photo with seemingly nothing weird about it at all. When I ask them what I'm supposed to see they repost the photo with the detail circled, and then I STILL see nothing there! :)

At other times the ghostly thing seems very clear, but it also seems like it is almost certainly just a reflection in a window or something like that, that they didn't notice until they looked at the photo. Among lots of paranormalists, there is a truly appalling lack of critical thought or investigation.

With EVP I run into the same trouble. For one thing, if you know what you're supposed to hear, even very random sounds will start sounding like voices. I have noticed that when I don't read the transcript, no matter how often I listen to a recording, I simply cannot make out what they are saying (even in those cases where I do seem to hear a voice; in many cases I listen through a recording and hear nothing at all that sounds like a voice).

Here's a rather nice documentary:


I enjoyed it, but I have to say that with the vast bulk of the EVP they eventually play back, I do not hear anything at all out of the ordinary without reading the transcript.

Now there are cases where there is no doubt in my mind that I am hearing a voice. Sometimes I can make out what it says, sometimes I cannot. In this particular case I can make out some of it, and it definitely sounds like human voices. But where is the recording from? Who made it? When? What were the circumstances? Without that information the recording is of no use. I can make my own "EVP recording" with a few mouse clicks.

Assuming the recording is for real, it is indeed a bit chilling, because I get the distinct impression we are listening to a kid being drowned in a tub. Which confirms the notion that some people don't know they are dead, and kind of keep on experiencing the bad stuff that happened to them over and over.

Anyway, I'm reading up a bit on EVP, because I plan to participate in NaNoWriMo this year and I want to write a book in which EVP briefly features. :)
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My sentiments exactly. EVP are easy to fake, and the sounds and their meaning are subjective. Nothing I've heard so far has changed my mind about that.

We even had a go at recording some for ourselves a few years ago and heard a voice on the recording, which sounded clear as a bell to me. Nobody else could make it out though! In any case, the 'message' was nonsensical.

EVP and orbs are the Victorian table-tipping or Edwardian 'spirit photography' of our times.
 
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