A discussion on EVPs

iamhunted

I was trawling the web listening to some EVPs and really, quite a lot of them are indistinct background sounds that your mind could make anything of. Does this though meant that EVPs overall are explainable (EVP as in voice recorded but not heard by those present)?

I found this on http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/evp.html:

Possible Explanations
Well, if the voices aren’t spirits, what are they?

Cross-modulation. This is a common phenomenon; I first became aware of it in the 1960s when my “record player” clearly picked up a local radio station, which one could hear between cuts.
But Raudive dismissed this possibility, saying that it cannot be radio since one never hears music or other obvious elements of radio transmission.

(edit - have to say I agree with Raudive - Ive never picked up a dj on a recording without using an extra long mic cable to act as an ariel and just imagine how fecked music producers would be if their audio devices kept picking up radio etc. It just doesnt happen very often)

Apophenia. This refers to a common perceptual phenomenon whereby we spontaneously perceive connections and find meaningfulness in unrelated things. In other words, it involves seeing or hearing patterns where in reality, none exist. A visual example is the Rorschach Inkblot test.

We may be the best pattern detectors that exist, but not all the patterns we find have any objective meaning. However, once we think we have detected a pattern, it is hard to ignore it, and generally, we take it to be meaningful. A common example of apophenia occurs when people are in the shower, and mistakenly think that they hear their door bell or telephone ringing. The white noise produced by the shower contains a broad spectrum of sounds, including those that make up ringing bells. The ear picks out certain sounds from the spectrum, and we “detect” a pattern corresponding roughly to a bell.

(edit - this makes sense when you can barely hear something, or hear a noise which then kinda sounds human. doesnt explain the laugh we captured recently or a few of the other EVPs we got)



I understand where that side is coming from but what about EVPs that are clear - so much so many would think one of those present made the sound? (We have a few of these from LeinsterParanormal)

Are these to be ignored as they dont fit into the categories above?

DANNY22XX

the intresting thing about this is that some evp experimenters use the likes of a running tap or whiteniose to catch evp .
they feel the voices can bounce of the sounds and it is easier to detect an evp,
i have tried this method but it can be hard due to water pressure from the tap
you can be recording and some one some where else turns on a tap then the troulbe starts you hear pressure dropping and think theres an evp ,,,:mad:

Stoner

"We may be the best pattern detectors that exist, but not all the patterns we find have any objective meaning. However, once we think we have detected a pattern, it is hard to ignore it, and generally, we take it to be meaningful. A common example of apophenia occurs when people are in the shower, and mistakenly think that they hear their door bell or telephone ringing. The white noise produced by the shower contains a broad spectrum of sounds, including those that make up ringing bells. The ear picks out certain sounds from the spectrum, and we “detect” a pattern corresponding roughly to a bell. "

this reminds me of a something referred to in Colin Wilson's book, Poltergeist. Wilson draws others theory about how the brain may attempt to offer an answer based on the information in your memory when we experience something new/strange, he attempted to use Leprechauns in Ireland as an example, as Irish people have reported seeing them outside of Ireland while others have not, the idea being that these thoughts/images are traditionally in our heads anyway, and when we see/experience something the brain zips through our memory looking for a fit, and sometimes it takes the best fit rather then the perfect fit.

It must have been difficult for Raudive at the same time. with his knowledge of so many languages he could quite possibly have found a meaning for so much of what he heard on playback.

Ziycon

Theres been many a thread on EVP if you look back!

iamhunted

silly me but i could have sworn I posted this already (so if you see this in another thread then you know I psoted into the wrong one )

I have been looking for thread on EVP and found these:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showt...p?t=2054988445
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showt...p?t=2054956355
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055079397&highlight=evp

but ... none seem to address the question posed in the OP - ie if its accepted by science (considering they dont do any serious research into EVPs) that EVP is as described in the OP then how does one explain the clear, audiable evps - like for example the laugh recorded by Leinster Paranormal. are such examples best to be just disbelieved as that way science could still pretend EVPs arent worthy of research?

Stoner

Sorry iamhaunted, but I don't fully understand your question ,
I don't see in the OP where there is a scientific explanation for EVPs, I see someones opinion, and I see the ref to "seeing or hearing patterns where in reality, none exist. A visual example is the Rorschach Inkblot test". So I can see where there is a scientific theory that could apply to EVPs.

IMO some of the Class A EVPs recorded are very convincing and you might be correct when you indicated that science may not be interested in exploring it further. However IMO from a scientific point of view it is very difficult to get a controlled environment that would satisfy the scientific community, and more importantly repeat it.

For me I have retrospectively thought that I might have heard a laugh once or twice but only when someone pointed it out to me, I could not say that if they had not pointed it out that I would have remembered it.

I think that a lot of people ask a question and their mind is conditioned to expecting a response that makes sense, i.e "how are you?" expected answers "fine" "good" and if something is recorded I think that we try to fit the expected response into the conversation in a some what subconscious way. where as the "fine" could be "find" ot "five" etc.

However that does not explain the very good EVPs out there (apart from the obvious explaination is that they are made up, but as posters in this forum most of us are willing to accept that there are genuine examples)

I would also consider that yes there may be a reason for these voices, but I would alway keep an open mind as to their context, for example, getting a recording of a laugh as your friend Kshils heard played back in Ross caslte, who is to say where that came from, a laugh is not an answer to anything, but we can make it an answer in our minds.

Names are another thing, there are so many names out there that fitting a name to a recording can sometimes be easy.

Anyway thats my thoughts on the thing

iamhunted

youre right - my bad on the OP ... the article that came from kinda made a reference to science not accepting EVPs as they can normally be broken down to people hearing what they want etc etc

EVPs are normally more realistic if they are in asnwer to specific questions, but at the same time, who's to say that there wont be other responses. we made an evp recording a week or so ago in carlow where on playback the laugh is very very clear - and we have a theory on what its in response to as well. I suppose the question I was asking is how can those kind of evps be explained. its obviously not audio matrixing and its also not something you only hear when someone points it out.

You have the problem again that theres no way in the world anyone is going to be able to set up a controlled experiment to capture an evp considering evps are audio recordings that arent heard at the time and cant be pre-determined so theres no real way to present findings that cant be accused of fakery or anyway to guarantee that an evp will be captured at any given time outside of a long term experiment in a location where EVPs had previously been recorded.

Outside of it being faked, how can scientists turn a blind eye to such things ... or at least not wish to explore such things further? Thats what Im wondering.

Stoner

yeah it's a fair question, I for one dont have an answer, may be it is up to people to refine their techniques to a stage that they reliable enough to attract peoples attention

From my own point of view I'm not really interest in convincing others, if I do see or hear something that convinces me then I don't expect others to jump on board, its a personal thing for me really.

iamhunted

on a personal level - yes, im the same - but on a bigger picture level we have to work out ways of presenting the info we find in a way that the world at large will take it seriously. I cant see that happening though.

DublinWriter

iamhunted wrote: »

Outside of it being faked, how can scientists turn a blind eye to such things ... or at least not wish to explore such things further? Thats what Im wondering.

The answer is very simple - funding.

Scientists working in academia are attached to colleges/universities where they receive funding for individual research projects.

The majority of such scientists will be quite conservative when it comes to the areas of research they want to undertake. Proposing a research project based in the area of the paranormal would do their funding and wider reputation no end of harm.

The best example of this is Dr. John Mack, a Harvard psychiatrist. Mack decided he wanted to examine the phenomenon of people who believed they were abducted by aliens. He wrote several scholarly papers on this and also a popular book.

Although Mack's angle of research was to investigate how such experiences affected the brain and not to look for evidence of ET existance per se, he was lambasted by the academic community for 'looking for little green men'.

So that's why the few scientists there are that work in the area of paranormal research tend to be independent and have their own means of funding.