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Hearing Voices After EVP Experiments

I think that some groups (my previous one included) rely too heavily on electronic "toys" and certainly audio and visual evidence. I wanted to hold a technology free investigation. I wanted to see if "spirit" could communicate in any other way other than leaving vague Evps or putting on a light show. I also thought it would be interesting for the entire team to write separate reports after the vigil to see just how much each would differ.
 
Just been listening through some of my old Evp clips and on reflection some of them are a real stretch.
Don't get me wrong, I've never lied or altered audio clips (apart from cleaning them up) but honestly over the course of nearly four years I probably have about four clips I would stand by.
There is a tendency to make things fit when listening through and submitting audio, not intentionally but certainly subconsciously. If you're listening for a response, you'll hear it.
 
I'm instinctively suspicious of EVP, as with Ouija boards - but not from scepticism, I should add - my parents were innocently drawn into taking part in a session involving the latter at a house-warming party when I was young (an event, together with the existing rumours found among the local kids that our house (and my bedroom) was haunted. This seemed to trigger unwelcome effects in the house for as long as we remained there (I can trace my subsequent interest in matters paranormal to these experiences when I was but 5 years old).
Whether the effects and information gleaned (which is often of a negative character) are attributable to spirits, or to reflections from the unconscious psyche, will, I suspect, forever remain in debate. I guess I find the baseness of the communications alone disquieting, tainted, and unwholesome - and this is without experiencing for myself the disturbing after-effects reported here and elsewhere (which in some cases has evolved to include exterioralised poltergeist and apparitional phenomena). They do seem to engender unhealthy preoccupation and potentially damaging psychological fall-out, and are indeed perhaps best left alone.
Having said that, I did experiment very briefly with a variation on the EVP phenomenon some years back, utilising a feedback loop with video camera pointed at an analogue TV screen that was putting out only an untuned signal pattern of horizontal bands of pixel-snow and white noise. I left it recording in a darkened room for around 30 minutes. On playback, I expected only an interference pattern caused by the feedback loop - which is what I got. This was twisted into a whirlpool pattern disappearing into the screen, that was actually quite mesmerising, and a probable road to hypnotic engagement if looked at in isolation for too long. What surprised me, however, was that rather than a uniform pattern, occasionally, largely white blips like tear-drops would appear at the edge of the pool, which then were quickly sucked into the rotating funnel, and vanished out of sight into the white haze in its centre. These events were not all predictable, and I couldn't find any immediate explanation for them (although in all likelihood they were the result of an amplification of clusters of illuminated phosphors in the snow pattern). Nevertheless, as someone who has read widely in the paranormal field, I couldn't help but draw visual parallels with the tunnels and the angels and spirits that pass through them.
I ventured no further -I had no wish to see anything else in the pattern, to scry faces, or to hear snippets of EVP, no matter its actual source!
 
Just been listening through some of my old Evp clips and on reflection some of them are a real stretch.
Don't get me wrong, I've never lied or altered audio clips (apart from cleaning them up) but honestly over the course of nearly four years I probably have about four clips I would stand by.
There is a tendency to make things fit when listening through and submitting audio, not intentionally but certainly subconsciously. If you're listening for a response, you'll hear it.

Respect to you Sir.
 
Sorry if this was already posted closer to the time the programme was first broadcast but a mate just told me to try and find the Radio 4 documentary he was describing to me. I found it and also fortunately the programme page still has its download option working, I think as the programme is an episode of a series that's been archived on the BBC site.

I really liked the interview with the guy who investigates a dog barking, he asks the dog a question whilst recording, and when he plays it back in reverse the bark has words imprinted inside it, like the name of the dog's owner which the man identified from the recording and then later (apparently) found out the owner's name was indeed the same. Not necessarily convinced but I like the concept, especially when he goes on to describe his other work taking recordings of a squeaky gate and the gate sound played in reverse producing human (like) voices; almost as if the gate had recorded the last people opening and walking through it... Getting into Stone Tape territory here, definitely worth a listen.

Out of the Ordinary, Series 1, Episode 2 of 3.

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. The technique wasintroduced to the English speaking world by a mysterious Latvian, Dr Konstantin Raudive, who travelled to Britain in 1969 with recordings of Hitler, Churchill and Stalin speaking from beyond the grave. The method is now a mainstay of paranormal investigators. Jolyon unearths tapes from 40 years ago made at a key séance held by Dr Raudive in Gerrards Cross. Raudive eventually came to believe that a budgerigar called Putzi was passing on messages from a dead 14 year old girl. Jolyon speaks to EVP current practitioners, and to a man who believes that his recordings of animal noises also contain messages.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01rg1gh
 
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It sounds very interesting.

I couldn't help but be particularly thrown by this sentence though:

Raudive eventually came to believe that a budgerigar called Putzi was passing on messages from a dead 14 year old girl.

Poor budgie, there you are miles from your ancestral home and your thousands-strong flock, trying to make peace with that budgie in the mirror, eating your millet and suchlike, and some ruddy dead fourteen year old keeps messing with your chirping.

I will keep an open mind until i've heard the programme. But I do feel a simpler explanation for evp is always going to be that the human mind has an amazing aptitude for hearing sense in randomness (or seeing patterns in things generally and interpreting them as meaningful). I mean mishearing a tiger that's not there is never going to kill you, but mishearing one that is will get you into trouble.
 
Newly published research indicates there are differences in sensitivity to perceiving speech within sounds, and people who report hearing anomalous voices seem to be among the more sensitive in this regard. This suggests some folks are particularly attuned to discerning speech within sound fields, and it adds evidence to the notion that hearing voices isn't necessarily a symptom of mental illness or delusion.

People who hear voices can detect hidden speech in unusual sounds
People who hear voices that other people can't hear may use unusual skills when their brains process new sounds, according to research led by Durham University and University College London (UCL).

The study, published in the academic journal Brain, found that voice-hearers could detect disguised speech-like sounds more quickly and easily than people who had never had a voice-hearing experience.

The findings suggest that voice-hearers have an enhanced tendency to detect meaningful speech patterns in ambiguous sounds. ...

FULL STORY: https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-08/du-pwh081817.php
 
Newly published research indicates there are differences in sensitivity to perceiving speech within sounds, and people who report hearing anomalous voices seem to be among the more sensitive in this regard. This suggests some folks are particularly attuned to discerning speech within sound fields, and it adds evidence to the notion that hearing voices isn't necessarily a symptom of mental illness or delusion.



FULL STORY: https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-08/du-pwh081817.php

Do you mean they are actually detecting speech or thinking they are detecting speech and are acting as interpreters? Because I've never really been convinced by EVP.
 
It sounds very interesting.

I couldn't help but be particularly thrown by this sentence though:

Raudive eventually came to believe that a budgerigar called Putzi was passing on messages from a dead 14 year old girl.

Poor budgie, there you are miles from your ancestral home and your thousands-strong flock, trying to make peace with that budgie in the mirror, eating your millet and suchlike, and some ruddy dead fourteen year old keeps messing with your chirping.

I will keep an open mind until i've heard the programme. But I do feel a simpler explanation for evp is always going to be that the human mind has an amazing aptitude for hearing sense in randomness (or seeing patterns in things generally and interpreting them as meaningful). I mean mishearing a tiger that's not there is never going to kill you, but mishearing one that is will get you into trouble.

I don't think we have a thread on Possessed Budgies but I can't imagine it would be a long one.
 
Do you mean they are actually detecting speech or thinking they are detecting speech and are acting as interpreters? Because I've never really been convinced by EVP.

The subjects are detecting distorted / manipulated speech sounds hidden in the sine signal noise without being cued that there may be speech sounds in the audio.
 
Or....

The subjects under an experiment THINK THEY are detecting distorted / manipulated speech sounds hidden in the sine signal noise without being cued that there may be speech sounds in the audio.
 

People who 'hear voices' can detect hidden speech in unusual sounds
People who hear voices that other people can't hear may use unusual skills when their brains process new sounds, according to research led by Durham University and University College London (UCL).

The study, published in the academic journal Brain, found that voice-hearers could detect disguised speech-like sounds more quickly and easily than people who had never had a voice-hearing experience.

The findings suggest that voice-hearers have an enhanced tendency to detect meaningful speech patterns in ambiguous sounds.
 
newbie but long time lurker here. Always found this thread fascinating, and as to whether these are outside entities or something the brain conjures up, i think i'm on balance with the former probably due to my experience i'm posting here:

Back in the 80's i picked up one of those cheap books about the paranormal which had a chapter on Raudive. After a while i mentioned it to a friend and we decided to give it go. It was a rather half-baked attempt, done more for larfs than anything scientific. I set up one of those old 80's ghetto blasters with a blank c90 in and left it to record downstairs in my lounge one night. The results were erm.....unimpressive to say the least. We heard a few muffled sounds and maybe a few whispers but nothing you couldn't put down to static or background noise. With that, we had a good laugh and thought no more about it.

A few days later i got home after a night out on the town. As was my routine at the time, I usually got into bed and listened to music on my stereo through headphones whilst falling asleep. I rewound a tape, pressed play and waited for the music to start. After about 5 seconds all i could hear was a background hiss. I suddenly realised i'd pressed the one touch record button instead of play and was taping over my music. Cursing myself, I fumbled for the stop button and rewound the tape wondering how much of the first song i'd ruined. When i pressed play again i got silence and then i heard a very faint youngish female voice saying something i couldn't understand. Then it said it again but a bit louder, then it said it again but really LOUD! To say i nearly levitated would be an understatement and i've never got out my bed that fast in my life.

The next morning i played it again and it was there, very loud as a voice. I played it to my friend and family, there was no doubt it was a female's voice saying something and not anyone's imagination or brain playing a trick. This was loud and not some noise in the static where there was a doubt you were hearing what the listener wants to hear. To me it sounded foreign and roughly she said phonetically "intera scan" three times at different sound levels.

Now i tried to rationally work out what had happened but i still can't to this day.

I hadn't accidentally recorded anything off the radio or another tape. If i'd left the input button on radio/record player it still wouldn't pan out because:

a) when i listened originally i would have heard what was recording and i did - nothing!

b) what radio station repeats the same word 3 times in a vaguely robotic voice ?I had no tapes or records with a women's voice like that repeating the same word that could have possibly been recorded

To this day i'm still at a loss to explain it. One thing it did do was turn me off messing around with evp's ever again and maybe it was something having a good laugh at my expense for my earlier attempts to get some on tape.
 
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Sounds like you'd recorded a radio station in your fumbling, but I'm not sure what. Maybe a test transmission, maybe a numbers station? Great story, anyway.
 
Hi GNC,

The voice did sound a bit like that. Emotionless etc. But as i said if i'd put it on another input like radio i would have heard the voice when i accidently pressed record originally. Also i think i'm right in saying numbers stations are long wave and this stereo didn't have it and there was no background noise in the recording. This recording was like i was taping you speaking in a room - In fact from memory the 3rd time the voice was actually distorted - like someone was too close to a microphone.

Putting this down has got me thinking again after 30 odd years and i may still have the recording. If i can find it, it still plays and i can find a tape deck, I will try an upload somewhere for you lot to hear. obviously 30 years ago i didn't have that option or would have imagined it would be possible, so it may have got chucked.
 
If I am following correctly, you accidentally recorded over a song while you were lying in bed with headphones on?

So the stereo (which will have had an in-built microphone) was recording the ambient sound in the room while you were lying on your bed (with headphones on)?

You may not have heard any background noises which caused the EVP. It may also have been something else entirely. The headphone cable may have brushed against the microphone hole and caused the "speaking" sound. Or it may have been your duvet? Or your pillow against the headboard etc etc. Years and years of investigating these sounds tells me that almost anything sounds like a voice given the right conditions.

It repeats three times - possibly due to you moving, turning over, sitting up. The frequency coupled with the increase in volume suggets your actions may be responsible. When you realised that you were recording over something you probably sat up and rushed to press the button. This may have made the sound louder (for example, your duvet/quilt rubbing against the stubble on your chin (if you're a bloke), your breathing after a few beers etc etc.

Were you the only one at home or could somebody else have been woken up by you coming home? Maybe someone moving around, coughing, snoring?

I'm not ruling out that you captured something paranormal. I just can't rule it in until we've ruled everything else out.
 
There's also the possibility that the five seconds of possible voice represented bleed-over from the tape's other 'side'.

Boom boxes weren't noted for their cassette mechanisms' sophistication. A little bit of head misalignment and / or internal circuitry cross-influence could sometimes cause audible sound from one side to be heard during very quiet or unrecorded stretches of the other side.
 
Hi Ringo,

I'm not sure what you mean by recording the ambient sound in the room. This was a 80's 3-in-1 stereo system with a record player, radio and double-tape deck, so if it was set on radio it would record the radio and set on tape it would record the other tape deck and nothing else - it never picked up exterior noises in a traditional microphone way at least otherwise you'd be getting sound recorded from both the tape head recording and the sound coming from the speakers or any other loud noise going on when recording. It was cheap but not that cheap! EDIT: Sorry i may have confused you with my original post. The original deliberate recordings i did were with a ghetto blaster which did have an external microphone, the accidental recording was with a midi-system. It could be some electrical interference i suppose but it sure didn't sound like it. To me and others it sounded like a clear female voice speaking some unknown language

Hi Elona,

I have considered bleed-over and i'm pretty sure the first time the voice appears it is bleed-over but from the loudest part of the recording. As you probably remember this was quite common (still is probably) where you would put on say a record or tape and hear the music quietly about 2 seconds before it started actually playing. I did check the other side i think but it was just more music. If i track down the recording i will have another check as its a long time ago!.
 
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A Google reveals Intera Scan is a brand of MRI scanner, so maybe not a foreign language, maybe a spot of subliminal advertising!
 
Hi Ringo,

EDIT: Sorry i may have confused you with my original post. The original deliberate recordings i did were with a ghetto blaster which did have an external microphone, the accidental recording was with a midi-system.

Yes, that helps. I thought it was the same machine both times. I see what you mean now.

I, and my sister, heard a strange voice booming through the speakers of her midi hi-fi system once. We rewound the tape and the voice wasn't there a second time. I still don't know what that was nor do I now what yours was.

Eliminating the external microphone really cuts down the options. It may be that the recording head on the hi-fi was leaving a trace on the tape - kind of like the old scrapes and swishes you could get on a reel to reel. But I'm just stabbing in the dark here.

As often is the case, people usually start to experience this sort of phenomenon after they have learned of its existence. I wonder what would have happened (or how you would have experienced/interpretted it) had you not read or experimented with it first? I find it all so fascinating.
 
GNC,

Could be! To me it sounded like a couple of words said fast so probably a sentence if it is actual speech. One of the reasons i want to find the tape is to see if anyone recognises the "language" or maybe an app could work it out. i remember in the original raudive experiments it was quite common to get voices speaking foreign languages or combinations of languages. There's so much scope now to investigate that wasn't available in the 80's


Ringo,

Yeah i see what you mean. I could have "primed" myself to go along with the evp explanation, although a noise that loud and weird would have still had me scratching my head i think. I occasionally see these programmes when they use voiceboxes and to me the assorted burps and split seconds of noise rarely look to me like speech even when they let you know what they claim it's saying. Mine was clear, long, loud and to be honest unlike anything i've seen from one of those boxes, which probably means its something else!
 
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