Sounds found on electronic recordings for which there is no readily indentifiable source, are interpreted by some to be spirit voices, and by sceptics to be voices from radio or TV transmissions picked up by the recording devices.[1] The idea of such recordings being a communication with spirits was popularised by the parapsychologist Konstantin Raudive in the 1970s, who described EVPs as being typically brief, usually a word or a short phrase.[2] But he was not the first to suggest that sensitive recording devices might be a way to communicate with the dead.[3]
EVP recorders are one of what the paranormal sceptic Kenny Biddle has called “paranormal gadgets”, popular with ghost hunters. The Ovilus is a similar device, designed to respond to electromagnetic field variations with words from a pre-programmed dictionary.[4]
History
As the Spiritualist
System of beliefs and practices intended to establish communication with the spirits of the dead. movement gathered momentum in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, emerging technologies such as photography
Technique popular in the 19th century to capture the invisible spirits of the deceased. were employed in an effort to demonstrate contact with a spirit world. Thomas Edison was asked in a 1920s interview with Scientific American to comment on the possibility of using his inventions to communicate with spirits. He replied that if the spirits were only capable of subtle influences, a sensitive recording device would provide a better chance of spirit communication than the table tipping and ouija boards
Flat board marked with the letters of the alphabet to allow participants in a séance to communicate with the dead. mediums employed at the time.[3]
The first EVP recording is alleged to have been made in 1952 by two Catholic priests, using a device they called a magnetophon.[5]
Natural explanations
Auditory pareidolia can result in an observer interpreting random noise on an audio recording as being the familiar sound of a human voice.[6] EVP voices are usually heard on playback, and are often of poor quality, with a few words embedded in background noise.[5] The electronic musician and researcher Joe Banks has pointed out that a dead person speaking in studio quality would not be nearly as convincing as a voice one must strain to hear. It has been demonstrated experimentally that if in a passage of recorded speech every sixth of a second is replaced by silence it is very difficult to understand, but replacing it instead with white noise creates the illusion of continuous speech and makes it much more comprehensible.[7][8]
Banks has coined the term Rorschach Audio to describe EVP; “… ambiguous sounds can provide a ‘blank canvas’, onto which, with repeated listening, the brain can impose sometimes vivid illusions of audible meaning”.[7]
Suggestibility may also play its part in EVP communications. Paranormal investigators, for instance, can create an expectancy of the response by asking a question such as “Would you like us to go?”, followed by the perceived response “Get out!”.[5] Merckelbach and van de Ven (2001) asked university students to listen to an audio track containing only white noise, after suggesting that Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” could be present below the auditory threshold. Thirty-two per cent of participants then reported hearing it.[9]
