Electronic voice phenomena is today one of the most fascinating areas of paranormal research. Human-sounding voices from unknown origin are recorded on such electronic media as tape recorders, digital voice recorders, video recorders and other devices. Strangely, the voices are not heard at the time of the recording; it is only when the recording is played back that the voices are heard. 
We at this site do agree with skeptics that much of what passes for EVP research today is merely overprocessed audio samples in which the anomalous recorded sounds are being misinterpreted as voices. This type of "Rorschach audio" does very little to advance the investigation into paranormal voice captures.
One of the greater problems facing EVP investigation at this time is the currently favored use of supplied-noise techniques of audio recording. This seems to have arisen due to the idea that EVP occur when ambient sound energy is morphed or transformed into intelligible voice sounds.This concept is employed to justify the use of low quality noisy recorders as well as various noise-generators and speech synthesis devices in an attempt to create or boost EVP reception. This also tends to cause a great amount of EVP samples to be little more than anomalous sounds which are then overprocessed to the point of distortion by sound editing programs.
But this is not our view or practice. We believe that EVP are non-acoustic in origin and propagate through subtle energy-based emanations from a source of unknown origin. These subtle energy emanations are then received directly by the recorder and converted into the digital equivalent of acoustic sounds.
We further believe that EVP arise through their own energy and do not require ambient sound energy to propagate. Therefore, we find no need to use supplied-noise recording techniques. Additionally, we feel that adding noise -- no matter how technologically state-of-the-art it is claimed to be -- and analyzing the results merely creates recordings where anomalous acoustic sounds will be misidentified as paranormal voices.
Read about "auditory paredolia" under:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_voice_phenomenon
Our Recording Methods
Since EVP research emphasizes paranormal voice captures, our preferred method is to use high quality digital voice recorders in environments where normally occurring sounds can either be minimized, controlled or accounted for. Our recording sessions are generally long and can be from a half-hour to two hours in length. The recorder is not touched or disturbed during the recording session.
For additional testing, we also sometimes place recorders in electromagnetically shielded containers to ensure that random radio frequency contamination does not create false voice captures and at other times place recorders in soundproofed containers which limit environmental noise contamination.
The most difficult part of this traditional EVP recording method is the amount of time spent on reviewing the recordings. We must strictly dismiss any sounds which are considered merely "anomalous" and focus on finding actual voice sounds that were neither heard at the time of the recording nor can be explained away by radio broadcast contamination, electromagnetic interference or other physical world sources.
The only voice captures that are of interest to us must meet two criteria:
- the sound must clearly be a voice in the original unfiltered and unenhanced recording and not merely a distorted or anomalous sound
- the voice must be from a source of unknown origin and not from any known physical world source
If the voice capture passes these tests, it is then evaluated for the number of pronounced syllables, what vowel and consonant sounds can be heard and any words that can be reliably recognized.
Since the recordings are often done in normal residential environments, the voice captures can be further analyzed by seeing if the utterance occurred as a responsive or observational remark or comment about any human-produced sound, action or situation in the physical environment.
Because of this, the additional step of evaluating the audio clip in terms of the ambient sound context will also be used. Therefore, any alleged paranormal voices are judged within the original contextual environment and this means that the audio clips of the voices will include whatever ambient sound existed before and after the EVP occurrence.
Additional audio filtering, noise reduction, amplification or audio enhancement will be done to the original audio clip only afterwards to clarify, if possible, any of the spoken words.
Read about "human speech" in:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_speech
First of all it must be reemphasized that in order to compile observations and conclusions about the alleged paranormal voices, the voice sounds themselves must be carefully scrutinized by the two-fold method outlined above that 1) the sound must clearly be a voice in the original unfiltered and unenhanced recording and 2) the voice must be -- as best that be ascertained -- from a source of unknown origin.In other words, the alleged paranormal voice cannot simply be a snippet of natural sound which is overprocessed to the point of distortion in order to create the impression of voice sounds. In our experience, this type of pseudo-EVP is all too common and should be dismissed as a simple sound-editing fabrication.
The alleged paranormal voices that remain show a surprising consistency in characteristics:
- The voices appear to be male and female in tone with an occasional androgynous or gender-neutral voice speaking
- The voices are almost always of adult age humans, are occasionally of young humans, but so far none have been identifiable as either elderly or infirm
- The voices generally speak in the language of the investigator, but not always since occasional unidentifiable languages can sometimes be heard
- The voices speak very briefly, anything from a single word to a short phrase or sentence
- The voices are soft-spoken and sometimes hushed or whispered; very rarely is a voice heard that is loud
- The voices make complete utterances without interruption or interference, except when masked over by louder environmental sounds
Overall, the recorded voices appear to be in the nature of overheard voices rather than voices which are directly addressing the investigator. Even in the case where the voices appear to be making observational remarks or comments about a living human being in the environment, these unseen beings usually speak to one another and make no direct attempts to communicate with, for example, the investigator.
One of our personal findings, and one that you will not often see expressed by other researchers in this field, is that the voices we record do not answer questions.
Usually those who profess to be capable of spirit communication through electronic recording media will affirm that the unseen spirits respond immediately and answer all manner of questions. In our own EVP investigation experience, this is not the case.
It does seem, however, that since some of these unseen speakers make observational or responsive comments about the speech or actions of the investigator it is most likely that they do perceive the investigator, although we have no clear idea what their sensory perception is like.
We do not know why the voices are reticent to answer direct questions since they do not seem to be concealing their existence from us. On the other hand, they do seem to exhibit some discretion about speaking near living humans since we occasionally record one voice shushing another when the voice is too loud or too long.
Additionally, the voices seem to be broken into two broad classes: the Emotional and the Peaceful.
By far the majority of the voices are in the Emotional class. These beings sound self-centered and somewhat secretive, even conspiratorial. However, for all intents and purposes they seem harmless even if they are self-obsessed. These are also the ones who seem somewhat confused, ask questions among themselves and have a rather low perceptual awareness. When they speak, it often is rapidly and not very clearly as one would do when speaking casually or informally.
The rarer class of voices are the Peaceful ones who are characterized by monotone-sounding voices speaking slowly, separating their words carefully, and whose remarks are most often of a observational nature indicating a greater degree of perceptual awareness. They will often speak about the investigator -- although not directly to the investigator -- and their comments display intellect unclouded by emotion. These voices are characterized by clarity of perception and calmness and their words are expressed in a formal way.
See the "human voice" under:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_voice
One of the abnormalities of these voices, regardless of class, is that even though the voices sound like human speech, they are most definitely not voice sounds arising from the biological vocal tract of any living physical human being. The human voice has distinct acoustic characteristics, a broad frequency range, resonance, harmonics and complexity. By frequency analysis, these paranormal voices lack the identifying characteristics of an acoustic human voice and instead appear to be frequency-compressed or frequency-restricted to a large degree. They seem to be a stripped down version of human speech -- thinned out and simple -- a simulation of physical speech rather than the real thing.Our conclusion is that while the voices sound somewhat like the voices of living physical human beings they are, in fact, not coming from a living physical human body. Instead, we believe that the voices are nonphysical in origin.
See "vocal range" under:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocal_range
Attempting to avoid either personal or orthodox religious interpretations of the paranormal voices leaves us to draw direct conclusions that do not rely excessively on information that is not present in the recorded evidence.Since the voices appear to be human in nature, tone and personality yet are not heard at the time of the recording and only become apparent when the recording is played back, it seems that the source or sources of the voices are -- as long as we can reasonably rule out sources of physical world origin -- living beings who are undetectable by our physical senses. This suggests to us that whoever these human beings are they are not living human beings in the physical dimension of existence, but rather are living nonphysical beings in a nonphysical dimension of existence.
Within the confines of our evidence, it is not entirely clear exactly who these nonphysical beings are except to say that most of them appear to be human in origin.
We speculate that the apparent voices are of Earth-bound or Near-Earth spirit beings and this is probably as far as we would dare to go. Sometimes paranormal voices of this nature are thought to be "voices of the dead" but we reject this terminology not because we necessarily disagree with it but more because it is overly suggestive of a kind of dark supernaturalism. One thing that seems clear is that whoever the speakers are they are not dead and are, in fact, very much alive -- although perhaps not in the physical sense that we are accustomed to.
This also suggests that survival of the human consciousness after the death of the physical body may be valid.
Read about the "Afterlife" in:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afterlife
Contact us at: info@evplink.com
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