Electronic voice phenomena (EVP)
Brief History
The birth of EVP can be attributed to Thomas Edison because of his phonograph and recording inventions. Thomas Edison was known to be involved in the spiritualist movement that was popular in the US and abroad in the 1920s. In the late 1920s, near the end of his life, Thomas Edison experimented with a spirit communication machine. Unfortunately, Edison passed away in 1931 before he could document any results.
In 1959, Friedrich Juergenson, a Swedish artist and film producer noticed that he had unexplainable voices on recordings he made of song birds in the woods. He continued his research and wrote a book entitled "Voices from the Universe".
In 1982, Sarah Estep from Severna Park, MD began the American Association for Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP) with the intent to prove that there is life beyond the physical plane; her research began as an attempt to contact her departed husband. In the same year, Sarah published a book entitled "Voices of Eternity" in which she chronicled her 15 years of EVP research. Sarah has since retired from EVP research and turned the reigns over to Tom and Lisa Butler in May, 2000 (see http://www.dreamwater.com/aaevp/index.html for more details on the AA-EVP organization.) Sarah recorded an EVP in the basement of my favorite lighthouse, Point Lookout. The voice was of a young boy who said: "I was seeing the war".
(Note- while we do find the information presented on the AAEVP website interesting, we do not endorse all of the methods presented. In particular, we believe that using the highest quality setting available on a digital recorder will produce better results, or at the very least will allow for the most ability to "clean up" any potential sounds captured during an EVP session. In addition, we have not had a lot of experience- or success- with using white noise to "generate" EVPs. In fact, at this time, we feel that white noise only complicates the analysis of EVPs, as it adds yet another layer of sound that either has to be removed in the editing process or ignored by the listener, and any distractions to the listener are usually most unwelcome. In addition, skeptics will argue that the mind will take the random white noise sounds and attempt to make spoke words out of the chaos. AAEVP participated in the making of the movie "White Noise", which I personally found to be disappointing in that the fantastical was explored, and several people died as a result of their research. I can assure you that if I noticed a correlation between EVP research and bodily harm or death, that I would find another field to investigate! Some PRSNA team members have had experiences with the Hollywood crowd, so we do understand the pressures the industry places upon making programs main-stream and "exciting".)
Another interesting resource is EVP Online Resource, which can be found by clicking here: www.EVPOR.com. This website presents a number of interesting ideas and tips, but again, we don't necessarily agree on everything presented on this site but feel that debate on the finer points is healthy and necessary to focus our research on proven techniques, ideas and concepts.)
What Exactly is EVP?
No one knows for sure exactly what EVP is, however there is no shortage of theories. The simplest definition is unknown sounds or voices- for which there is no logical explanation- appearing on electronic recordings. For skeptics, the answer lies in intercepted short wave radio transmissions or perhaps that the human brain needs to make sense of sounds and is interpreting naturally occurring sounds as human speech. Other theories include:
The voices are the projections of the person recording
The voices are a form of residual haunting and not really a spirit entity; when a traumatic event happens on a site, the environment absorbs the energy associated with the event and merely replays the same events over and over.
The sounds are extra terrestrial in nature.
The sounds are from spirits who are attempting to contact the physical world; some EVPs are claimed to be answers to questions posed by the recorder.
Grading
For the most part, EVP sound bites are disappointing in terms of quality. White noise as well as background noise pose a difficult problem in rendering the EVP. As the number of humans present at the investigation site increases, so does the possibility that the anomalies are a real person’s voice that is distorted. The spirit voices are often distorted and sound like their speech is either too slow or too fast. The voices rarely speak in sentences, usually just in fragments of speech, and sometimes the voices unfortunately do no wait their turn and speak as the humans are speaking.
Grade A EVPs are very clear unexplainable words or sounds that have little interference from background noises. Also, in order to be a grade A EVP, the investigator has to have a high level of confidence that the words were NOT spoken by anyone at the investigation. I find that the fewer the people at an investigation, the easier it is to validate an EVP as legitimate. Another validation confidence level is during question and answer sessions where everyone is in the same room and all but the current person asking a question remain quiet.
Grade B EVPs are unexplainable bits of sound that could be interpreted in more than one way. Sometimes the sounds could be mechanical in nature, but still "ring true" with some type of speech pattern or discernable sound.
Grade C EVPs are unexplainable bits of sound that are heavily masked in background noise or are barely intelligible. I refer to the EVPs "at the edge" where it sounds as if the EVPs are just beyond the limits and imbedded in the white noise.
The birth of EVP can be attributed to Thomas Edison because of his phonograph and recording inventions. Thomas Edison was known to be involved in the spiritualist movement that was popular in the US and abroad in the 1920s. In the late 1920s, near the end of his life, Thomas Edison experimented with a spirit communication machine. Unfortunately, Edison passed away in 1931 before he could document any results.
In 1959, Friedrich Juergenson, a Swedish artist and film producer noticed that he had unexplainable voices on recordings he made of song birds in the woods. He continued his research and wrote a book entitled "Voices from the Universe".
In 1982, Sarah Estep from Severna Park, MD began the American Association for Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP) with the intent to prove that there is life beyond the physical plane; her research began as an attempt to contact her departed husband. In the same year, Sarah published a book entitled "Voices of Eternity" in which she chronicled her 15 years of EVP research. Sarah has since retired from EVP research and turned the reigns over to Tom and Lisa Butler in May, 2000 (see http://www.dreamwater.com/aaevp/index.html for more details on the AA-EVP organization.) Sarah recorded an EVP in the basement of my favorite lighthouse, Point Lookout. The voice was of a young boy who said: "I was seeing the war".
(Note- while we do find the information presented on the AAEVP website interesting, we do not endorse all of the methods presented. In particular, we believe that using the highest quality setting available on a digital recorder will produce better results, or at the very least will allow for the most ability to "clean up" any potential sounds captured during an EVP session. In addition, we have not had a lot of experience- or success- with using white noise to "generate" EVPs. In fact, at this time, we feel that white noise only complicates the analysis of EVPs, as it adds yet another layer of sound that either has to be removed in the editing process or ignored by the listener, and any distractions to the listener are usually most unwelcome. In addition, skeptics will argue that the mind will take the random white noise sounds and attempt to make spoke words out of the chaos. AAEVP participated in the making of the movie "White Noise", which I personally found to be disappointing in that the fantastical was explored, and several people died as a result of their research. I can assure you that if I noticed a correlation between EVP research and bodily harm or death, that I would find another field to investigate! Some PRSNA team members have had experiences with the Hollywood crowd, so we do understand the pressures the industry places upon making programs main-stream and "exciting".)
Another interesting resource is EVP Online Resource, which can be found by clicking here: www.EVPOR.com. This website presents a number of interesting ideas and tips, but again, we don't necessarily agree on everything presented on this site but feel that debate on the finer points is healthy and necessary to focus our research on proven techniques, ideas and concepts.)
What Exactly is EVP?
No one knows for sure exactly what EVP is, however there is no shortage of theories. The simplest definition is unknown sounds or voices- for which there is no logical explanation- appearing on electronic recordings. For skeptics, the answer lies in intercepted short wave radio transmissions or perhaps that the human brain needs to make sense of sounds and is interpreting naturally occurring sounds as human speech. Other theories include:
The voices are the projections of the person recording
The voices are a form of residual haunting and not really a spirit entity; when a traumatic event happens on a site, the environment absorbs the energy associated with the event and merely replays the same events over and over.
The sounds are extra terrestrial in nature.
The sounds are from spirits who are attempting to contact the physical world; some EVPs are claimed to be answers to questions posed by the recorder.
Grading
For the most part, EVP sound bites are disappointing in terms of quality. White noise as well as background noise pose a difficult problem in rendering the EVP. As the number of humans present at the investigation site increases, so does the possibility that the anomalies are a real person’s voice that is distorted. The spirit voices are often distorted and sound like their speech is either too slow or too fast. The voices rarely speak in sentences, usually just in fragments of speech, and sometimes the voices unfortunately do no wait their turn and speak as the humans are speaking.
Grade A EVPs are very clear unexplainable words or sounds that have little interference from background noises. Also, in order to be a grade A EVP, the investigator has to have a high level of confidence that the words were NOT spoken by anyone at the investigation. I find that the fewer the people at an investigation, the easier it is to validate an EVP as legitimate. Another validation confidence level is during question and answer sessions where everyone is in the same room and all but the current person asking a question remain quiet.
Grade B EVPs are unexplainable bits of sound that could be interpreted in more than one way. Sometimes the sounds could be mechanical in nature, but still "ring true" with some type of speech pattern or discernable sound.
Grade C EVPs are unexplainable bits of sound that are heavily masked in background noise or are barely intelligible. I refer to the EVPs "at the edge" where it sounds as if the EVPs are just beyond the limits and imbedded in the white noise.