They garble unintelligibly, you decide.

September 10, 2003 4:19 PM

Some believe, some don't. Welcome to the strange world of electronic voice phenomenon. Warning: some Real Audio formats.
posted by moonbird (12 comments total)

Nice post, moonbird. I had never heard of this phenomenon. I'm not even close to holding a belief in ghosts, but a few of those recordings are good creepy fun. Of course, some of those EVP associations had to go ahead and trash any semblance of credibility by bringing up two old standbys-

1. You can only hear some of these by playing them backwards.
2. Aliens.

With all the signals, broadcasts and radio transmissions out there these days, I don't see it as any great wonder that maybe sometimes possibly a snippet or two winds up on a recording device.

Now, that all having been said, I wouldn't care to hear some of those recordings again. In the middle of the night. All by myself. While locked in the basement.
posted by mathis23 at 4:55 PM on September 10, 2003

Wasn't this in Pattern Recognition?
posted by KnitWit at 5:16 PM on September 10, 2003

I listened to nearly everything on the Ghostwav site. Even with the author suggesting what I'm supposed to hear, 4/5 of the examples are unintelligible static.
posted by Mayor Curley at 5:26 PM on September 10, 2003

This is a favorite topic on Japanese TV, there was one on this week. They crank up the volume on blank sections of tape and cook up ghost stories, especially regarding abandoned schoolhouses, those are a goldmine for variety TV.
posted by planetkyoto at 5:33 PM on September 10, 2003

I listened to a few examples without reading what the message was supposed to be. I never heard it. But after reading what they claim is being said, I can hear it fine. Which says to me that this is crap, and I'm only hearing it because I've been told it's there.
posted by punishinglemur at 6:31 PM on September 10, 2003

creeped me out enough to have to turn on the light in my bedroom - chills up my neck - i'm a sucker for this kind of stuff

it woudl be a lot scarier if they took out 90% of the stuff and just kept the really valid stuff in - a lot if just noise .. but some its impossible to say its not voice.


a trick? i don't know.
posted by re_verse at 8:18 PM on September 10, 2003

Actually, if you go to the best of page on one of the above links, many of the recordings are very clear.

Personally, I'd have to be there myself when the recording was made to have a shred of belief, but it is nicely creepy.
posted by frykitty at 10:04 PM on September 10, 2003

seem to recall that when The_Gibson was writing about it, the believers were looking for messages on pristine unrecorded tapes...? thought of that is just plain spooky.
posted by dorian at 10:25 PM on September 10, 2003

All of the above comments make good cases; EVP may be real, it may be suggestive. There's no definitive proof either way, which makes the speculation fun. It's all one big grey area with some blatent examples of trickery and some that are creepily mysterious. I've heard recordings [from way back] made in my parent's house, but could not eliminate possibilities such as RF and tape quality.

Likewise, I've heard sounds on tape that have no clear source or meaning. All this phenomenon, true or not, is like one big Rohrshach blot, and it is what we make of it... I guess (?).
posted by moonbird at 10:28 PM on September 10, 2003

you know that if you listen to those tapes, you die within on week unless you pass them on?

Dear George W....
posted by Pericles at 5:16 AM on September 11, 2003

Phone Calls from the Dead
posted by anastasiav at 1:57 PM on October 1, 2003

"So many ghosts. So little time." Help June sleep at night.
posted by ZachsMind at 2:11 PM on October 1, 2003