Electronic
Voice Phenomenon (EVP) and Reverse
Speech
What is Electronic Voice Phenomenon?
Electronic
Voice Phenomenon or, more widely known as E.V.P., what is it?
E.V.P. is simply the ability to record voices of the dead on
audiotape. This phenomenon has been around since the 1920’s and
had the interest of the well known scientist Thomas Edison * October
1920 issue of 'Scientific American'* who believed that the use of
recording devices or other such apparatus, could very well be the
communication link between this world and the other.
In 1979, George
Meek and Bill O'Neil created a device specifically to
communicate with the dead; this device was called The Spiricom, which
employed the use of 13 tone generators along the range of an adult male
voice. Mr. O’Neil was said to have conversations with the deceased, Dr
George Jeffries Mueller. A total of 20 hours of recordings was
made of dialogs between the two.
Many have given
theories as to what causes this to occur, from CB radio
interference or other vocal signals being picked up by the recording
device to the more simple of explanations, that people hear what they
want to hear on the recordings and pick out sounds that resemble
words.
How would you go
about obtaining your own example of E.V.P.?
Simply by going to any known “haunted” areas such as cemeteries,
abandoned buildings or areas such as battlefields where it is known
people died, while using any tape recorder or digital voice recorder,
and ask questions while the device is recording, giving sufficient time
between questions for the disembodied voices to answer.
According to Sara
Estep, the founder of the American
Association-Electronic Voice Phenomena, there are classes to the
different voices that can be heard.
Class ‘A’ voices are the clear, easily heard
and able to be duplicated
to other tapes.
Class ‘B’ voices are clear and loud enough to
hear without the aid of
headphones.
Class ‘C’ voices are the quiet, whispery voices
that need sound
boosting and are often undecipherable.
These voices are
never heard during the recording
process, only upon playback is this phenomena heard, which makes it an
easy target for debunkers, many of which believe that the voices are
added to the tracks afterward by the person doing recordings.
Many of the results are short phrases, single words, laughs or other
human-like vocal sounds. E.V.P. voices are not limited to English
speaking occurrences; there have been some recordings of foreign
languages as well as animals.
Many believe that
these voices are happening due to
the electromagnetic energies that comprise a spirit, or the use of
“ectoplasm” focused onto the tape, or digital recording media.
The correlation
of E.V.P. and Reverse Speech
Phenomenon are close. Whereas E.V.P. is the recording of
disembodied voices, Reverse Speech is the occurrence of the recording
of a person speaking normally and the resulting tape played
backwards. The study of Reverse Speech has been around for quite
some time. And some believe that the use of this can bring to
light the underlying feelings of the speaker. For 20 years
researcher David John Oates has been
studying this phenomenon,
referring to it as a sub-conscious Truth Detector. Examples of
reverse speech include the Beetles
recordings played backwards revealing another message. Although
deliberately inserted into the recording this is known as backwards
masking. Other songs, including Stairway
to Heaven, by Led
Zepplin, include natural
reversals.
