A STUDY OF E.V.P
(ELECTRONIC VOICE PHENOMENON)
What is EVP? Electronic Voice Phenomena, or EVP, are weird and mysterious,
apparently paranormal sonic events of unknown origin, which can sometimes be
heard (and captured in recordings) on various types of electronic apparatus, and
which are usually discounted by sceptics as being simple forms of radio
interference. Some people believe the voices have a satanic or demonic origin,
others postulate that they are extraterrestrial attempts at communication, or
that they may, in fact, be "projections" from the researcher.
The voices take on diverse forms; they may appear to be speaking in tongues
(polyglot), singing or making public service announcements. They interrupt
standard radio broadcasts, and can apparently call on by name, and speak
directly to researchers (and most likely attempt to communicate with people too
busy to notice they are being addressed by the voice of weirdness). They may
make themselves heard over telephones, during television broadcasts, and as
anomalous interference on tape recordings. Some of them seem to enjoy engaging
in dialogue, answering questions, or willingly supply secret, or highly specific
personal information, no doubt as an indication of their greater insight.
Often, intercommunication between those waiting and hoping to speak finds its
way onto the tape, just as background talk might during any normal recording,
the difference here being that the discarnate technicians' ability to create a
window of communication is seemingly random, or poorly fixed. In other words,
that acoustic window only opens for a moment, and whoever happens to be making
noise ends up on the recording, whether they are the designated speakers or the
bystanders. Of course, as with all "sciences," both conventional and paranormal,
there are those investigators (or "investigators"), who are so keen on finding
evidence to support the validity of their chosen field that they will impose
meaning on what might otherwise be a mere cloud, albeit oddly shaped.
Intense research and investigation, which seriously began in the fifties (when
assumptions that they were enemy propaganda were nullified by the Allied
victory), has revealed that EVP is quite possibly an actual, recurring system of
interdimensional communication.
Interestingly enough, the EVP phenomenon was predicted by those reputed fathers
of radio, Marconi and Thomas Edison who believed it was only a matter of time
before such magnificent technology would enable us to communicate directly with
the dead. Indeed, Edison even went so far as to suggest that the spirit world
would perhaps be the first to initiate the communication by using radio to make
contact with the living. He also worked on developing a "psychic telephone" that
he hoped would create a means to converse with the discarnate, alas, without
success.
The Early Years
It seems the honour of recording the first spirit voice on tape goes to the
Reverend Drayton Thomas who, during his investigations of the abilities of the
famous medium, Gladys Osborne Leonard, captured one of the audible, disembodied
voices she had started producing on tape. He later identified one of them as the
voice of his own father. This occurred sometime in the late 1940s.
The psychic Attila von Szalay, who frequently heard disembodied voices in the
air around him, started researching the phenomenon with Raymond Bayless, a
psychologist in the early 1950s. Their initial attempts with a 78 RPM Pack-Bell
record-cutter and player were disappointing. Undeterred, they continued their
efforts using a device that Bayless had devised and constructed. It consisted of
a cabinet with an interior microphone resting inside a speaking trumpet. The
microphone chord led out of the cabinet and was connected to a tape recorder and
a loud speaker. Almost immediately, they began to hear whispers originating from
inside the cabinet and duly recorded them. In 1956, they produced an article
documenting their research for the Journal of the American Society for Psychical
Research. Von Szalay carried on taping for many years using an open microphone
connected to a reel-to-reel recorder and he achieved excellent results.
At the end of the fifties, Friederich Jurgenson, a retired Swedish opera singer,
film producer and bird-watcher, was occupied with a project recording wild bird
songs in the forests near to his home. On playback he discovered that strange
garbled fragments of seemingly human speech had somehow made their way onto the
tape, although he was absolutely sure that he had been completely alone when he
made the recording. He even recognized one of the voices as his dead mother
calling his name. Later, Jurgenson admitted that he had been trying to record
EVP voices for a while, but without success and it was no accident whatsoever
when he finally succeeded.
Listening closely to the voices, Jürgenson found that they spoke in different
languages, often changing to another idiom in mid-sentence. Also, longer phrases
often had an improper structure or grammar and, in some cases, the syllables
were either stretched or compressed in a way that made it quite hard to
comprehend the messages. The strangest aspect of all was the uncanny way the
voices seemed to respond to his comments. Jürgenson began to hold conversations
with the strange voices by recording questions and later searching the tape for
answers. After four years of experimental recording, he announced his strange
discovery to the world at an international press conference in 1963 and his
book, Roesterna Fraen Rymden (Voices From the Universe) was published the
following year in Stockholm. His conclusion was that the tape recorder was
acting as a form of electronic communication link to the realm of the dead.
Following this initial burst of enthusiasm, EVP was forgotten, even by the Para
psychological community who were, in the 1960s, far more interested in studying
ESP and telekinesis, and who were no doubt quietly encouraged by the military
community in their efforts.
Comprehensive cataloguing was started in the sixties by a small team of
researchers assembled by one of Jurgenoson’s protégés, Dr. Konstantin Raudive, a
Latvian-born psychologist and philosopher. He recorded thousands of disembodied
voices, many of which communicated in a polyglot of languages. (Raudive himself
spoke nearly a dozen, so interpreting the messages was not usually difficult for
him.) A typical polyglot message might begin with a word in Latvian, then two in
German, ending with one in French. Because it seemed so odd that spirits should
choose to use polyglot, Raudive was often criticized and accused of
misinterpreting his voices. However, his critics were unable to decipher exactly
what these voices on his recordings were actually saying--if they were indeed
just speaking in a single language--and they often neglected the fact that
Jurgenson, too, had recorded similar polyglot messages.
Raudive’s messages also came under fire for their seemingly nonsensical content,
which sometimes included comments on the colour of the sweater he was wearing,
tidying up his house in preparation for anticipated guests, or even on the
virtues of living in Upsala in Sweden. A counter-argument to this criticism is
that if the voices originate from the dead, it should be remembered that they
were once normal (living) people; the only difference being that they have
experienced the change-of-state known as "death," which need not necessarily
make them any more wise or erudite! Raudive was not the only experimenter whose
work documents that the dead have a sense of humour, get bored, like to tease,
or even talk about the weather. Most EVP researchers apparently record a
substantial amount of this sort of "verbal junk" on their tapes.
Raudive also came under fire for his use of a diode. He discovered that the
voices gained in strength and number when background noises were prevalent. The
diode, which is a broadband, crystal radio detector with a short antenna and a
second wire directly connected into the microphone input of the recorder,
provided white noise and greatly aided the voices in manifesting. Raudive's
critics claimed what he was actually recording were snatches of ordinary radio
transmissions. Perhaps the main defence against this charge is that Raudive's
voices made a point of mentioning his name as often as possible.
Some of his recordings were made available on a 7" record together with a book
titled Unhoerbares Wird Hoerbar (The Inaudible Becomes Audible), based on the
72,000 voices he recorded. This audio document included spirit messages from the
likes of Spanish philosopher Ortega Y Gasset and Soviet poet Vladimir Mayakovsky.
The book was translated and published in an expanded edition as Breakthrough, an
Amazing Experiment in Electronic Communication with the Dead. by Colin Smythe,
Ltd. England in 1971. Indeed, Dr. Raudive was so absorbed by the phenomena that
he started to communicate with investigators after his own death.
Thomas Edison made an unexpected reappearance in 1967, when he spoke through
Sigrun Seuterman, a West German clairvoyant while he was in a trance. Edison
discussed his attempts to develop equipment for recording voices from the beyond
in 1928. Edison also made suggestions on how to modify TV sets and tune them to
740 megahertz to get paranormal effects.
There seventies saw a resurgence of interest in the EVP phenomenon and a number
of books were published world-wide which documented various researchers’
discoveries: Talks With the Dead was written in 1971, by William Addams Welch, a
Hollywood scriptwriter and playwright, and published in 1975; and Carry On
Talking by Peter Bander, a British researcher, was published in the United
States as Voices from the Tapes: Recordings from Other Worlds in 1973. Two
Americans, Scott Rogo and Raymond Bayless conducted extensive documentary
research and published a book, Phone Calls From the Dead (1976). Wen Die Toten
Reden (When The Dead Speak) was written by Father Leo Schmid, Oeschegen,
Switzerland and published posthumously in 1976. He had been assigned a small
parish almost ten years earlier to give him time to experiment with recording
the mysterious voices.
The 1980s
In 1982, G. W. Meek made a trip around the world to distribute tape recordings
of 16 excerpts of communications between William J. O'Neil and an American
scientist who died 14 years earlier. He also distributed a 100-page technical
report giving wiring diagrams, photos, technical data and guidelines for
research by others. The bulk of this material had resulted from the extensive
research he had conducted together with two other Americans, Paul Jones and Hans
Heckman, at a laboratory they had started. Their intention had been to create a
two-way voice communication system far more sophisticated that the equipment
used up until then in EVP research.
Rapid advances in technology introduced not only new research techniques, but
also new media for the voices to use to express themselves. Researchers in
several countries reported pictures of the "dead" appearing sporadically on
their televisions. There is apparently no control over the appearances of these
images.
Klaus Schreiber, a West German, developed an optical-electronic feedback system
together with Martin Wenzel, and began to receive images of dead people on
television. Many images were accompanied by audio communication, and could be
positively identified. Schreiber even claimed that he had even received
video-audio contact from two deceased wives. His work was the subject of a
documentary TV film and a book by Rainer Hobbe of Radio Luxembourg.
Perhaps the best known experimenters receiving visual-audio communication are
Maggie and Jules Harsch-Fischbach of Luxembourg, who have been busy researching
the EVP phenomenon for many years now. They developed and successfully operated
two electronic systems in 1985, which were significantly more dependable than
their predecessors, producing results that could be reliably duplicated. One of
the techniques they developed allowed them to hear spirit voices speaking
audibly over a radio frequency which in Europe is exclusively used for personal
beeper signals. In 1987, they received their first TV picture sequences of good
quality. About a year later, Jules and Maggie Harsh-Fischbach established
sustained computer contact. Messages were left on unattended computer screens,
and photographs of dead friends and co-workers were mysteriously uploaded onto
their PCs.
The most incredible case of EVP on computer occurred in the tiny village of
Doddleston, England, during the years 1984-1986. Ken and Debbie Webster began
receiving messages from a man named Thomas Harden, who claimed he was writing to
them from the year 1545, during the reign of Henry VIII. The language of his
messages was pre-Shakespearean in construction and was studied by at least one
linguistic expert who found the writings all-but-flawless, and who thought it
inconceivable that they might have been faked, even by the most skilful
Elizabethan linguist. In all, the Websters received more than 250 such messages,
many accompanied by poltergeist phenomena. Intermixed with these bizarre
communications from Thomas Harden in the 16th century was a confusing set of
messages from a group calling themselves 2109. It was not possible to tell if
the members of this group were humans from the future or extraterrestrial. After
the mysterious writings at Doddleston ceased, the 2109 group began communicating
with the Harsch-Fischbachs in Luxembourg and apparently still does. Webster
wrote a book in 1989 titled The Vertical Plane, and included extensive
photographic documentation.
Finally, experimenters began receiving images on their VCRs. These tapes show
faces, crowds, scenery and animals. The people in the images look extremely
ectoplasmic; similar to the types of images seen in spirit photography, although
recent images appear much more "normal." Perhaps this is reflective of improving
technologies on both sides of life.
A year earlier, Sarah Estep, resident in Severna Park, Maryland, USA published
the results of fifteen years of EVP research in her book ‘Voices of Eternity’.
Sarah also founded the American Association- Electronic Voice Phenomena, which
is a loose collective of experimenters and others who are interested in survival
research. The organization has well over two hundred members scattered around
the world and it publishes a quarterly newsletter.
Sarah Estep has made it her goal to collect as much information as possible from
her non-corporeal guest speakers about life in their world. She has also made
contact with entities from "Space" worlds invisible to us, but not commonly
thought of as spirit. The entities who communicate speak of flying ships, often
repeat all or part of their words, sound robotic on occasion, and mention names
of stellar bodies familiar to us, like Alpha Centauri or Venus, as well as those
we do not know, such as a place called Palymachie. The denizens of the spirit
world tell her that they are happy, that their world is our true home, and we
should come back and see how lovely it is. There are plants, trees, and animals
and they even mention they have homes of a sort and even cities. They are able
to view future events, although they do not automatically know what will happen
in the future. They appear to have to do some research of their own before
discussing any future occurrence.
Estep is not alone in receiving "Space" voices. Other researchers do so as well.
They frequently receive calls for help, prayers, and guidance from souls who are
wandering, unaware they are dead, or greatly tormented at their separation from
loved ones. It seems these spirits are drawn to the researcher, or brought to
them by other entities whose job is rescuing the lost. These souls are allowed
to speak, perhaps to warn us of the consequences of being unprepared for death,
and then they are shepherded on, and hopefully given the help they need.
The Ghost Orchid
"The Ghost Orchid" CD, recently released on British record label Ash
International [R.I.P.], was compiled, edited and produced by Justin Chatburn and
Ash International's Mike Harding. They sourced a massive tape archive, property
of an organisation called the Para psychic Acoustic Research Cooperative (PARC),
to bring the curious up to speed on this weird and vexing phenomenon. Sam Ayres
and Justin Chatburn established PARC in Autumn1998. As a co-operative effort,
PARC consists of many members who willingly contributed to the project or
concept under development. The results were then archived, documented, and
finally published.
I welcome the release of this definitive CD. Ringmaster Leif Elggren unravels
the threads as we proceed through the tracks, which, by the way, includes the
material from the 7" record released with Raudive's 1971 book Breakthrough. The
CD is most certainly a valuable addition to this field of research, and, dare I
say it without appearing to be flippant, a source of some of the most beautiful
textural sounds I have heard for a long time.
The hero of "The Ghost Orchid" is Raymond Cass, who devoted a great deal of his
time to researching this phenomena. He first became interested in EVP when a
male voice suddenly called his name over a primitive radio, which was switched
off at the time. An investigation of his genealogy revealed that he had psychic
ancestors, one of whom was persecuted for her paranormal abilities in 1773, and
another who could levitate a table with three men sitting on top it. The
publication of Konstantin Raudive’s book Breakthrough in 1971 was the impetus
that propelled Cass to the forefront of British EVP research, and he was soon
producing recordings of voices of such amazing clarity and amplitude that he
attracted worldwide attention. His previous studies in acoustics and his
practical experience as a hearing-aid technologist were probably invaluable
tools in his research. Cass was one of the first to record examples of the
disputed polyglot voices, which construct phrases and sentences from several
different languages, examples and interpretations of which occur on this CD.
However, in 1997 at the age of 76, his abilities seemed to falter, and it
remains to be seen whether he will return successfully to the field.
Cass seems to favour the ET scenario, suggesting that fragmented communications
might be being directed at selected individuals over a long period of time,
possibly from extraterrestrial monitoring and relay stations positioned
somewhere in our solar system. The fragmented nature of these messages keeps the
recipients finely tuned and simultaneously ensures that they conduct their own
continuous research in order to corroborate their observations and conclusions.
He also suggests, however, that "the voices may be a mutant development of the
subconscious mind, or a transient by-product of the electromagnetic pollution
which now rings our planet."
Joe Banks, who is no stranger to peculiar audio phenomena--as he spends much of
his time recording natural radio waves from stars and galaxies--contributed one
of the several excellent expositions included in the CD booklet. He makes the
very valid point that there is a natural human inclination to "project" meaning
onto otherwise innocent phenomena, in an attempt to either simplify them even
further, or to make them appear (more) mysterious than they may already (appear
to) be. The human imagination will try to impose meaning on configurations of
sounds, in this case, and of course each individual will usually use his or her
own language as the basis for interpretation. If no sense can be made of what we
perceive, then some form of auxiliary hypothesis will be invented and/or
introduced to support the conclusion. The wilder the territory that unfolds
before us, the stranger the language that we use to attempt to describe it
becomes.
Even conventional science has been reduced to poetic terminology to articulate
the infinitesimal and abstract worlds within worlds that it seems to continually
unearth. One of the problems pointed out by Joe Banks with regard to this
particular aspect of the phenomenon of EVP is that 'we are asked to accept that
the entities have the intellect to acquire a grasp of many languages, while
having lost the ability to speak grammatically or confine themselves to proper
words'. Additionally, he observes that it is conventional when compiling EVP
demonstration tapes to reinforce the process of projection by first having the
narrator announce the meanings before playing the examples.
The human mind has to fill in the blanks, or else it would go completely bonkers
and the mysterious voices which we might hear through our radios or telephones
will start to resound inside our own craniums. To be frank, there are simply not
enough lampposts around for us all to have one to talk to.
It remains to be said that the phenomenon has been considered serious enough to
have not only been assessed by various paranormal groups, but also to have come
under scrutiny by Defence Ministries on both sides of the Atlantic and no doubt
by their counterparts in the (former) East bloc too.
Personally, I cannot make up my own mind about the phenomenon of EVP, but I know
that this audio document will be a thing to treasure and listen to from time to
time, just to tantalize and encourage my human desire for the all-too sweet, and
eternally uncharted terra incognita which may just possibly be waiting beyond
the gate.
How-To
Anyone with an interest in the study of survival of the human consciousness
beyond physical death stands to learn and grow from investigating and/or
conducting his or her own EVP research. There are many ways to approach the
possible manifestations of post-mortem survival; perhaps the best attitude to
take is to consider it a mix of both science and spirituality. Most researchers
conduct recording sessions in their homes, on a regular basis. Frequency and
consistency seem to aid in obtaining results.
What do you need to tape?
1: A tape recorder, obviously. Early recordings were made on reel- to-reel
machines, then cassette decks. Anything with a built-in microphone or speakers
has proven unreliable as they increase distortion and often pick up too much
local motor noise, if recordings are made at high levels. The introduction of
digital technology has greatly improved recording quality and is a still more
preferable medium.
2: A microphone. Condenser mikes aren't up to scratch. You will end up hearing
yourself talking and there will more than likely be a wall of hiss in the
background. Good quality microphones can be bought at most hi-fi stores.
3: Decent headphones always come in handy. They can help to pinpoint sounds more
specifically if used simultaneously with (loud) speaker playback
4: Good loudspeakers that can tolerate high volume levels, a stereo amplifier to
drive them, and if possible, a graphic equalizer, so that you can filter out
unnecessary frequencies.
5: A sound source. Try tuning to a frequency between stations on an AM/FM radio.
You'll probably achieve better results on the AM waveband, as FM contains so
much bleeding between the stations on an already overloaded dial. Seek out areas
where white noise is the dominant sound. This same procedure can be applied to
short-wave radio, where there are less frequencies. If utilizing the AM/FM or
short wave bands doesn't appeal to you, try the air bands. These are frequencies
air pilots and control towers use to communicate. The only earthly voices you
are going hear will be clearly evident as air traffic communications, so if
someone says, "This is your dead uncle," you can be sure it isn't a British
Airways pilot. You might also try playing a record or making a tape of running
water. Apparently both of these methods also work well.
7: A commitment to taping.
What should you expect?
Do not expect to hear anything the first time you tape, or perhaps the ten times
after that. It seems to take about two weeks before most tapers get anything, or
before their ear has been trained to distinguish a spirit voice, which might
sound like a whisper, be low and tonal in pitch, be faster or slower than normal
speech, or oddly accented. If you are successful, you will undoubtedly hear
voices uttering strange, seemingly unintelligible words and phrases. You may
hear calls for help from distressed souls. You may never receive messages from
the people (in spirit) you love best, or if you do, you may hear from them only
once or infrequently
east midlands paranormal society © All rights reserved