One of the most exciting
areas of research for paranormal investigators is the field of transdimensional
communication. Although this can take several forms, electronic voice phenomena
(EVP) is probably the most common. Historically, Edison is credited with the
first attempts at communicating with spirits. He thought that if the equipment
could be made sensitive enough, then it should be possible to pick up the
voices of the dead. The first person credited with successfully recording
spirits was Friedrich Jorgensen, who in 1959 picked up some disembodied voices
while recording bird songs in the forest. Recently, this phenomena has been
popularized by the movie "White Noise," which not only introduced it
to much of the public but also cast an unfavorable light on exploring it.
Fortunately, things have
advanced considerably since Friedrich made that first recording with an old
reel-to-reel recorder. It is now possible for investigators to obtain very
high-quality recordings of spirits with very little investment. In this
article, we will explore how to get started and how to consistently get good
recordings, as well as some of the more interesting EVPs the authors have
captured.
What is an EVP?
EVP stands for electronic
voice phenomena. It refers to any recordings that appear to come from spirits.
They may be spooky voices or, in some cases, be singing, humming or music. They
normally are short snippets and may be bizarre in what they appear to say.
However, at other times they can be very easily understood and apply to what is
happening or even provide answers to questions posed to them. Sometimes you get
conversations between spirits that are not directed toward you at all, such as
the hide-and-seek game we mention below.
Although no one really
knows just how spirits are able to affect an audible recorder and leave behind
messages in different voices, accents and sometimes languages, there is
evidence that there are two different ways a recorder can pick them up. The
easiest to understand is an audible voice that the microphone picks up and is
often heard by the person as well. These are fairly rare, and we have only
captured one example of this (the "I'm waiting" EVP). Any microphone
that can pick up normal speech can pick up such an EVP.
The second type of EVP is
the actual electronic phenomena and is very common. They appear to be the
modulation of a scalar field (we for years beleived that they were modulated
on an electric field, but have recently deternined that they are in fact carried
on a scalar field), and different types of microphones
have different sensitivities to EVPs and scalar fields. There are three primary types of
microphones in use today: the dynamic (also known as moving coil or ribbon);
condenser; and electret.
Only the electret appears to have a high sensitivity to scalar waves and
thus EVPs. The electret is a
form of a condenser microphone but differs in that it uses a film for the
pickup that has an electric field frozen within the plastic film diaphragm. A
normal condenser microphone has an external supply that supplies the bias
voltage, which an electret does not need. Thus, the electret microphone is
generally less expensive than a condenser microphone, yet will work much better
for EVP work.
EVPs are classified
according to their clarity:
Class A - For an EVP to
receive a Class A rating, it must be a very clear voice, and nearly everyone
who listens to the recording agrees on what is being said by the voice.
Class B - An EVP that can
be understood, and most people agree on what is being said.
Class C - The worst quality
EVPs. There isn't a lot of agreement between people about what is said, if
anything can be understood at all.
Pick a Place
Obviously to record any
spirit voices requires you to be where there are spirits. Some places are
obvious, such as cemeteries. However, there are many other places where you can
successfully find them, as well. Old homes, old hotels and theaters, old ships,
churches and lighthouses all are good possibilities. If you try to get EVPs and
are unsuccessful for several trips, then try somewhere else. Note that it does
not matter when you record. They are as easy to get during the day as at night.
High electrical fields seem to enhance them, so recording immediately after a
thunderstorm may improve the volume.
Be Friendly
Realize that spirits are
people and, if you treat them with respect and are friendly, you are much more
likely to get them to interact with you. Do not insult or threaten them. Many
already are confused and scared, so they
will simply leave, hide or become quiet. In some cases, intentionally
attempting to provoke them can result in retribution. Recently, one of the
investigators of the East Tennessee Paranormal Research Society had his arm
scratched when he called an entity names to try to get it to respond. Try to
ask questions you think they might want to answer: who they are; if they want
to say anything; and so forth. Also, be aware that it seems that spirits can
see auras. An aura of anger, hatefulness and so forth can all but make any
attempts at capturing an EVP futile, so you have to be careful about whom you
bring with you.
Control the Environment
Try to pick a place that
has low ambient noise. If you have others with you, make sure that whispering
is not allowed. This is because many EVPs will be a whisper. It is almost
impossible to tell the difference in whispers between different people and
spirits. If someone forgets and does whisper, then announce on the recording
that it was a whisper by so-and-so. Although it would seem reasonable to keep
as quiet as possible during recording sessions, experience has shown that
talking is a good inducement for spirits to join in. Spirits often will
inject a response into a conversation, contradict
what is being said or answer questions. The trick is to allow pauses between
each person talking, to allow a spirit to get a word in without being talked
over. The use of a control recorder that is insensitive to EVPs to help weed
out non-spirits is highly recommended, though. Sometimes EVPs will even provide
insight to scientific questions, such as one we got recently while discussing
what an orb caught on video was.
Use The Right Equipment
The correct equipment is
very important. Some believe that the use of a noise source will improve the
frequency or quality of an EVP. This may improve the volume of some EVPs, but
because the noise also will be
louder, the signal-to-noise ratio will be reduced, and the possibility of
audible pareidolia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia) becomes a very
real possibility. Pareidolia is one of the primary arguments debunkers use to
attempt to discredit the phenomena. The best, clearest and loudest EVPs have
virtually indiscenable noise. Therefore, it is recommended to use a
recorder with low noise, and pick a place that has little ambient noise. If
there is little or no noise, then there is little possibility of mistaking
random sounds in the noise as voices.
There are two types of
recorders: tape and digital. Tape is noisier because of noise inherent in this
method of recording and the noise of the tape transport mechanism and motor. In
addition, tape presents the possibility of print-through (resulting in pre- and
post-echoes) and archival noise. If you use a brand new tape each time, you can
eliminate the archival noise and print-through from previous recordings, but
the problem of print-through, tape noise, and transport noise still exists.
Thus, it is very difficult to ever say that anything unexpected on a tape
recorder is truly an EVP. Tape recorders also make it very easy to insert a
fake EVP into the middle of the recording, by someone wanting to play a joke on
you.
Fortunately, digital
recorders have none of these problems. They are relatively inexpensive, can
have excellent signal-to-noise ratios, can eliminate the possibility of tape
print-through and eliminate tampering of your recording. Some recorders may
have a metal housing which will shield the mike from stray electric fields,
but that will have no effect on the ability to record EVPS. A spirit mike
that has been designed by this author and is now being used by the ETPRS is
enclosed in a Faraday shield, and works better than any other method we have
tried. If you want to get into this research inexpensively I recommend the Sony ICD-B16
recorder because it has proven to be an excellent EVP recorder, but there are
other brands that also work well. If you want to get the absolute best EVPs
possible, with normal talking reduced to background noise and EVPs amplified
by 10 db or so over a typical digital recorder, I recommend building a Tennessee
spirit mike, the full plans for which will be published in an
upcomming article.
It is also highly
recommended to have a second recorder that is not sensitive to EVPs. Typically,
most camcorders have microphones that do not pick up EVPs. It is a good idea to
shoot with both at the same time. The EVP-deaf recorder then can be an
excellent control that not only will allow you to easily determine if that fantastic EVP is
truly an EVP -- and not someone talking in the background -- but it will allow
you to validate for others that the EVPs are not simply some extraneous talking
or background noise, as well.
Processing and
Post-Analysis
Once you have the
recording, you will need to transfer it to a computer. The small speaker in
these recorders does not reproduce lower frequencies well, and sometimes an EVP
will be a deep voice or will be unintelligible without good frequency response
of the speaker. Listen to the recording with the volume set as high as you can
without distortion. EVPs are often much lower than normal talking and can be
easily missed if you are not using a Tennessee spirit mike. When using a
Tennessee spirit mike, listen for passages that are LOUDER than normal
talking, and/or much clearer. Occasionally they can come blasting through so loud
you may almost jump out of your chair. If possible, use a good set of
headphones. However, if you don't have any, just use the speakers.
If you have any EVPs that
are loud and clear, you can cut them out and make them into their own separate
files. If the EVP is answering a question or responding to something that was
said, be sure to transfer the normal talking as well as the EVP to the file.
Also, if the EVP is of a much lower volume, you can boost its volume. However,
if you do that, be sure to note it in your description. If the EVP is too near
the noise level, run some noise-reduction software on it, such as Clear Voice
Denoiser (www.speechpro.com).
Always keep a copy of the
original recording to go back to, if need be. It is recommended that EVPs be
saved as a .wav file because an .mp3 file often will reduce the intelligibility of an EVP significantly. The
program of choice for editing EVPs is Adobe Audition.
Note that many computers,
even high-end ones, will contain on-board audio that is far below par. For
instance, we checked a top-of-the-line Compaq Presario and found that the
built-in audio was almost completely unusable. In addition to other faults, it
had terrible dynamic range, lacked volume, had high distortion, easily clipped
and had a terrible signal-to-noise ratio. If your computer has a poor-quality
audio input interface, you will want to use a high-quality USB audio adapter
(e.g., Byterunner Model UA580 audio adapter) to get good transfers.
Many EVPs are accompanied
by a connect and/or disconnect sound. This can sound like a click, pop, thump
or other transient sound. We believe that this is caused by the scalar field
or some other field carrying the EVP being switched on and off. The connect and
disconnect sounds can help confirm that a sound is truly an EVP.
Keep Records
It is very important that
you keep records. Record when and where the recording was made and under what
circumstances. For each snippet, record which raw recording file it came from,
what processing was done and the time index into the original recording.
Once you have recorded some
EVPs you may want to post them on a forum such as the MSN.com discussion group
Ghosts, Hauntings, Spirits and the Paranormal (http://groups.msn.com/GhostsHauntingsSpiritsandtheParanormal/general.msn)
and the forums at Ghost Village (http://www.ghostvillage.com/ghostcommunity)
and Ghost 2 Ghost (http://ghost2ghost.org).
What Can Be Expected?
Once you have started
recording in the right place with the right equipment, you will find that EVPs
are like a box of chocolates. (Our apologies to Mr. Gump) They are often
strange, wild, unexpected, and sometimes downright funny. One of us (Sean
Dudley) began recording EVPs shortly after seeing the trailer for "White
Noise." He wondered, like many of you probably are, whether EVPs are real.
After doing some research on the Internet, he went to a local cemetery and
tried his luck. To his surprise, he had some good results right away. The very
first EVP he got was after attempting to ask a number of questions. As he said
goodbye while starting to leave, he got a response of "goodbye." The
next one he got when he returned to the cemetery was a female voice that said,
"Hi, Hi, Hi, Hi" in ever-increasing volume. This was followed by a
gruff male voice that said, "You look awful."
As often is the case with
EVPs, it can be hard to determine whether one has tapped into a conversation
between spirits or whether the comments are directed toward the researcher. Occasionally
one can get an EVP that is a direct answer to a question. At another cemetery,
Dudley asked whether the man whose name was on a tombstone was still around.
The answer came immediately: "I'm right here."
At the historic,
97-year-old Bijou Theatre in Knoxville, Tenn., a researcher for the ETPRS asked
whether anyone would like to communicate with him and got back a distinct,
"Hell, no." After Dudley walked into a small room in the basement of
the Bijou and asked, "Is anyone here with us?" came a very clear
answer in male voice: "They call me Gritch."
At a haunted residence in
Rogersville, Tenn., Dudley got a response of "21" when he asked how
many entities were there, and at TMG Academy in Sweetwater, Tenn., ETPRS
investigator Tesa Nauman got a "Why not?" when she said she was going
to take a picture to see whether any entities would show up.
Sometimes you can pick up a
group of EVPs that appear to be communication between two or more spirits. Some
of our favorites, captured at the residence in Rogersville, are ones that say:
"Bill, where ya goin'?
... How ya doin', Wheaty?"
"I'm getting cranky
... Look behind you ... You doin' alright?"
Another favorite is the
"Hide 'n' Seek" sequence captured at Rogersville.
An EVP we got at the Bijou
we like seems to be three young girls talking amongst themselves: "Call
Paige ... Adrian, too? Ya'll stay ... Pretty please."
"Call Paige" and
"Pretty please" seem to be the same voice, and "Adrian,
too" and "Ya'll stay" seem to be different voices.
In the "Hide n
Seek" EVP we got the following action sequence:
(loud child-like voice)
"Hiding good."
(soft gruff voice)
"You're good."
(medium gruff voice)
"Get back."
(soft voice) "You got
to get by me."
(medium voice)
"One."
(soft voice) "Behind
you."
(medium voice)
"Sh*t."
(soft voice) "F*cking
cheats."
(soft child-like voice)
"Mommy."
In addition to what appear
to be real-time EVPs, actual voices of spirits acting and reacting to local
activities, there is what often is termed a residual haunting. This can often be picked up as
an EVP and will be a replay of something that happened long ago. The initial
entities involved probably are long gone (at
least physically).
One of the best ones we
captured was at the Bijou Theatre. On the fourth floor, where there used to be
a bordello with showers, a male voice says, "This time let's take a quick
shower."
This is followed nine
seconds later by a female voice that says, "The shower's cold."
On a lower floor of this
theater Robert Allen, an ETPRS investigator, got what appears to be commenting
how he puts everything he can into his performances when he says, "I give
it all to the stage."
Sometimes they seem hung up
on something the researcher or another party did. During a recent meeting of
the spiritual group Circle Of Light, a channeler and his helper on the other
were sending lost souls "to the light." One spirit commented four
or five times that the light was out, after the
lights were turned off. It then commented that the lights were back on, when we
turned them back on after the prayer.
A poor researcher with
ETPRS who usually only gets EVPs telling him to shut up, get back, or keep out,
got "Keep off that, lunkhead" on the fourth floor of the Bijou.
Bizarre is the best word to
describe some EVPs. In a cemetery this conversation was picked up between
spirits:
"Where's the
dog?"
"Bark ..."
"Very good ..."
"John ..."
"Bark."
And a classic one obtained
at Rogersville by Tracy Franklin, the ETPRS president, not only had a little
girl saying, "Micka nicka high, nicka hiney hiney lo," but had
another spirit saying "No! Sh*t!," and the child repeating "Micka
nicka high, nicka hiney hiney lo," again in a
whisper. Then, if you listen carefully, under the girl's loud voice saying the rhyme is a deep, gruff voice that says,
"Who will help them?" and "They are here to stay." This was
in direct reference to a conversation we were having where we said we were
there to help the other spirits.
If you send the spirits to
the light, be sure to record any EVPs as well. At the haunted Rogersville
residence, while showing the results of our investigation to the homeowners, we
said a prayer to bring down the light and told the spirits they could go to it
if they wanted and nothing could stop them. The sequence we got during this is
nothing short of phenomenal: a total of 18 Class A and B EVPs.
It is apparent that
different spirits experience the light in different ways. Some apparently see
friends and family coming in from the light, as indicated by the EVP that said,
"Look at all the people." Others are disappointed that they were not
met by whom they expected, such as the EVP that says, "That ain't
LaBrena." Others apparently see Jesus or another religious figure:
"My Saviour."
Others speak of the light itself:
"This lights so warm,
Bergell."
"That light's
on."
"Whoa!"
"Watch this
thing"
"Ya'll found the
light."
Even when going to the
light, the humor of some spirits is apparent by the EVP that says, "Come
and get me, and set up the right song."
There are those who choose
not to go and end up saying their goodbyes or wishing they had gone:
"You'll see him again" and "Being alone."
Alternatively, you may
actually get a spirit's exclamation, such as the one that says, "Ohh, ohh,
ohh!" like she is being sucked into something. After this particular
event, the family had to leave that night because of things being thrown around
the kitchen by something. Apparently, something did not like us rescuing the
subjugated spirits there.
Occasionally you may
actually hear an EVP at the same time you record it. In actuality, this is not
really an EVP because the mic is responding to actual sound rather than an
electric field, but the effect is similar. Of all the EVPs that we have
recorded, Sean Dudley has only gotten one like this, where he read the name of
a woman on a tombstone and asked whether she wanted to say anything. He got a
verbal response of "I'm waiting" whispered right next to his ear.
(Luckily, the audio recorder was held next to his ear, so it picked it up
well).
Recently one of the authors
(Marshall Dudley) captured an orb on video coming through a door when it was opened at an old military
institute. He already was in the room with the
lights out when some other investigators opened the door from the hallway. The
orb can be seen coming in from the lighted hall, where it was initially a black
orb. As soon as it came into the room, it became a white ball surrounded by
what appears to be ectoplasm. After dodging another researcher and Marshall Dudley,
it flies off to the left.
EVPs of this sequence
proved very interesting. The video recorder, which is not sensitive to EVPs,
picked up nothing out of the ordinary. However, a digital EVP recorder picked
up what to one of us sounds like "Get back" when dodging the
investigators and then, "tough (or "rough") sh*t," after
getting by them successfully without a collision. Even more interesting is that
when the video was played back for other investigators to see a few minutes
later, someone asked, "What's that?" Marshall Dudley replied,
"An orb." What probably was the source of the orb in the same voice
as the previous EVP said, "That's my light!" This answered a big
question about why the orb was black until it went into the room, then became
white. If the spirit voice can be believed, it somehow turned on a light so it
could see, just as a person carrying a flashlight would do. The
"light" however was infrared and not visible, because Marshall Dudley
and the other investigators could not see it directly but only through the
infrared camera's display when it was captured.
So, if you doubt that EVPs
are real, get a recommended recorder and prove it to yourself. It is easier now
than ever with the inexpensive digital recorders on the market.
For more information and to
hear the EVPs that are mentioned in this article, please visit
http://www.friendly-ghosts.com.
Sean Dudley owns and
operates a company that imports and distributes computer peripheral hardware.
Marshall Dudley worked as a
nuclear instrumentation engineer for 23 years and presently is the owner and
operator of an Internet shopping cart service.
They are both investigators
for East Tennessee Paranormal Research Society (ETPRS), whose website can be viewed at
http://www.etprs.com