Electronic Voice Phenomena
EVPs were first discovered quite by accident by Friedrich Jürgenson as he was recording bird calls near his home in Sweden during the 1950s. He was flabbergasted when he heard a man's voice telling him how to better record the bird songs. Totally intrigued, Jürgenson continued his recordings for many years after that and subsequently published a book, Voices From the Universe, that described his method of electronic communication with the dead.
Some claim the discovery of EVPs goes much further back than that. Thomas Edison, the inventor of the telephone, was quoted in the publication Scientific American in the 1920s as saying: “Nobody knows whether our personalities pass on to another existence or sphere, but it is possible to construct an apparatus which will be so delicate that if there are personalities in another existence or sphere who wish to get in touch with us in this existence or sphere, this apparatus will at least give them a better opportunity to express themselves than the tilting tables and raps and Ouija boards and mediums and the other crude methods now purported to be the only means of communication.”
What is “table tipping”?
During the nineteenth-century spiritualist movement, table tipping became a popular parlor game. A group of spiritualists sat around a table with each person resting his hands flat on the surface. After calling on a spirit, the table would vibrate, begin to move, and even levitate.
Recording EVPs
Anyone can try to capture EVPs. It can be done with either analog or digital recorders, though the analog method will probably be phased out very shortly because of the superior quality of digital voice recorders and the ease of transferring files to a computer. Some investigators recommend performing the experiments outside your own home; after all, if something disturbing is discovered, it may upset you and change how you feel about your personal living space.
Follow these steps to record an EVP:
Prepare the equipment and check to see that the batteries are charged and everything is in good working order.
Tune an AM or FM radio to the space between channels to generate white noise. Running water and computer programs that generate background noise will also work.
State the date, the time, your name, and where you are at the beginning of the session.
Ask a question, and wait about thirty seconds for a response, letting the white noise run softly in the background.
Ask as many questions as you like, but remember that you have to review the recording. Keep your sessions short at first; thirty minutes will suffice.
Be polite. There is no need to provoke anyone out there.
Transfer your recording onto the hard drive of your computer and play it back. Audio programs can be used to clean up the files and boost the sound.
Unique Characteristics
How do you know the EVPs you capture are authentic? After all, they are often garbled, full of static, or very nearly inaudible. There have been a staggering number of EVPs gathered in the last sixty years, and some of them have been clear enough for friends and family to recognize the voices as those of their dearly departed.
One of the most interesting aspects of watching the TV series Ghost Hunters International is noting that the EVPs gathered in different regions of Europe not only speak with accents that are appropriate to the country, but in some instances the voices on these EVPs have spoken in ancient forms of German or Italian. They often answer questions put to them in an archaic language no longer in use today but totally pertinent to the site being investigated.
