The Haunted Homeowner's Survival Guide

EVPs are electronic voice phenomena. These are the spooky sounds that might be somebody trying to communicate by either speaking into the microphone of an audio recorder, speaking to an investigator, or directly impacting the audio recording process. In either case, the ‘voice’ is not heard by the humans near the equipment.

The downside of EVPs is that there is no control for this process.  Most of North America is covered with electronic signals – cell phone communications, emergency response service radio calls, garage door openers, microwave transmissions, TV, radio, short wave radio, and whatever else is floating around in the electronic spectrum.

How do we know that the alleged EVP is not one of those other sources that just happened to interfere with the equipment?  We don’t.  Even two identical devices placed near each other may not give the same result, and that’s just with normal reception.  Two audio recorders may be used in an investigation, but let’s say that the entity only speaks to one of them. Is that a proof of paranormal? Not really.  Broadcast waves are fickle enough in general that any one of a number of random effects might eventually be observed even in controlled settings.

In order to try to screen out radio station broadcasts, microwave communications, television signals (and whatever else is floating around in the air electronically) one current idea is to put the audio recording devices in a Faraday cage.  This is a metal cage that is hopefully big enough to let a ghost in, but the metal structure will keep the radio waves bouncing off – away from the audio recording equipment. Some investigators are using microwave ovens for this, but I’m a little dubious of this since I would think the ovens would be tuned only to keep the microwave range of signals inside, not necessarily to screen out other broadcast frequencies (AM, FM, TV, and so on).

Hey, but if ghosts are energy, wouldn’t they be kept out of the Faraday cage too?  Maybe. Maybe not? We don’t know.  But we know for sure that the radio spectrum is full of contamination that can get into your audio recordings and make you think you’re having a conversation – when you’re not.

The other trick some investigators are using is to modify a scanning radio so that it continually scans its frequency range (AM and FM signals).  The theory is that the entity can select bits of signals as the radio scans by them, and let those bits of audio through to communicate.  If you insist, you can look up ‘ghost box’ on youtube.com.

What you end up with is what I call an audio version of the fabled Rorschach test.  You see, those visual ink blot tests let the viewer project onto them whatever comes to mind since the inkblots are designed to be neutral.  With these radio samples, the listener can project onto them whatever ghostly communication they feel a need for – without any further proof being required of course.

The next step in this evolving idea is what you see in those videos of guys putting their ghost box in the microwave and having a ‘discussion’ with somebody by listening to the words clipped through when the scanner pauses.  Well, that rules out the Faraday cage idea for microwaves then, doesn’t it?  If radio contamination is getting in, it isn’t a Faraday cage.  And finally, how are we supposed to know which words are really important in whatever might be coming through?  Ah, it’s what we think might be important.

Let’s say that an entity really does choose to communicate through a scanning radio.  The entity would have to have simultaneous knowledge of multiple frequencies, predictive abilities about when the words it wants to use will be available, and the ability to stop the scanner on the frequency long enough (and at precisely the correct time) for the word to come forward.  These are deceased humans trying to communicate? I certainly couldn’t do this even if I were given a script and a timeline to memorize in advance.  Why should some random dead guy be able to do this when we cannot?

Ah, but what about those genuine-sounding EVPs where the breathless voices from beyond seem to answer our questions? I don’t know. Hey, I’m not ruling out the possibility of paranormal events legitimately happening! But it is far too easy to manipulate an audio recording to insert stuff in there. Unless I’m hearing it from the original device in a pre-downloaded state (or other controlled method) I’m going to be skeptical. Especially if it is on one of those TV shows.  Those are SHOWS after all, right?  It looks bad if they don’t find something, don’t you think?

Actually, I’d like to run a voice analysis on the EVPs on those shows and compare them to the staff members, sound guys, camera guys, and investigators who were present. You know? Just to be sure.

This entry was posted on November 7, 2009 at 1:28 pm and is filed under Haunted, Paranormal Evidence, Science! with tags audio phenomena, EVP, faraday cage, radio frequency, radio spectrum, Rorschach test. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed Both comments and pings are currently closed.