EVP II (Electronic Voice Phenomena)

Fig. 1 One of the earliest EVP reports published in the XX century: "Voices from the beyond on the telephone. New and admirable system of communication. Spirits talk on the telephone''.

As in XK's karaoke recordings, the Electronic Voice Phenomena or EVP (*) gained notoriety when F. Jürgenson (1903-1987), a Swedish artist and singer, was recording birdsongs in 1959. At first, he believed voices were interference sources coming from radio stations operating nearby. Since the voices replied unmistakably to “callings”, and other anomalous answers were obtained even when the equipment was shielded in Faraday cages (to block external electromagnetic radiation), Jürgenson was convinced of their paranormal origin. Since then, names like Konstantin Raudive (1909-1974) and Hans O. König are linked to the history of EVP as relevant researchers who recorded many clear voices which cannot be explained away easily. In what appeared to be an acceptance of something already known, some Vatican authorities supported EVP experiments and claimed the voices came from Purgatory.

In fact, the interest in contacting spirits with electronic equipment is as old as the invention of wireless communication. It soon became clear to technical celebrities such as Thomas Edison (1847-1931), Oliver Lodge (1851-1940), and Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) that it might be possible to use the recently invented radio or some sort of electric circuit to communicate with the dead. Edison exchanged correspondence with William Crookes (1832-1919) about the possibility of obtaining images of spirits. In an interview for Scientific American in 1920, (an unthinkable interview given the publication standards of this journal today), Edison trustfully stated:

I have been thinking for some time of a machine or apparatus which could be operated by personalities that have passed on to another existence or sphere.

After declaring he knew nothing about the subject of “our personality passing on to another existence or sphere”, Edison continued: 

But I do claim that it is possible to construct an apparatus that will be so delicate that if there are personalities in another existence or sphere who wish to get in touch with us in this existence or sphere, this apparatus will at least give them a better opportunity to express themselves than the tilting tables and raps and ouija boards and mediums and the other crude methods now purported to be the only means of communication.

He proposed to build a highly sensitive instrument in which electric currents could be manipulated by the dead provided they existed in “another sphere”. It did not occur to Edison that the human ear is such a sensitive machine. As it is known, at the threshold of human audition (~1 pW/m2), the ear can detect oscillations in air molecules as small as 1/10 the size of an atom! 

Zarrelli stated properly that the “spirit phone” was Edison’s most fruitless invention. This failure should be attributed to Edison's disregard for the conditions under which the phenomenon occurs. Just having any apparatus, no matter how sensitive, is not enough. But Edison’s reasoning is very much alive these days. In a recent article, the same conclusions were drawn for the super-ultra-sensitive LHC collider in the context of detecting “other dimensions” including “ghosts”. 

Communication by electronic media was possible since the widespread use of wired telephony. Predating Raymond Bayless experiments in 195, Oscar D’Argonnel published in 1925 Vozes do Além pelo Telephone (“Voices from the beyond on the telephone”, see Figure 1). This book reports D’Argonnel’s experiences with spirit communication a decade before its publication in Brazil. Recent research unveiled a curious Brazilian patent filled by the Portuguese Augusto de Oliveira Cambraia in 1909. Named Telegrapho Vocativo, its purpose was to transmit information through the air by using “souls and spirits floating in the atmosphere”. However, today it is hard to know what Cambraia meant by “souls and spirits” (it seems an improper reference to radio waves). Such scattered accounts of anomalous communication by wired phones at the beginning of the XX century can be linked to EVP reports using tape recorders much later. 

Because no theory was ever available to explain how the voices could be picked up anomalously (or more generally speaking “signals” in the case of ITC – instrumental transcommunication), the EVP research took a purely empirical path since Jürgenson’s first recordings. Several technical arrangements for obtaining EVP were invented: using a simple tape recorder, with a recorder and a shortwave radio, with a recorder and a noise generator, using computers converted into digital recorders and noise generators, using a single or several radios as a noise source and a digital recorder and many others. 

Since Edison's time, enthusiasts have supported the thesis of EVP as a non-mediumistic phenomenon par excellence. Provided a refined method existed in the future, they believe EVP could become the most trustworthy way of communicating with the beyond. After all, the information would come directly from the source (the spirits) to the equipment with no human influence. Perhaps many officials of the Catholic Church supported EVP in this non-mediumistic sense because the idea undermined any non-Catholic explanation implied by the medium’s presence.

But such non-mediumistic nature attributed to EVP is a naïve oversimplification of what may really happen during the voice recordings.  In 1925, D'Argonnel emphasized the need for special mediums in his telephonic experiences. Clear phrases were obtained by a few researchers in the past and today.  Others have recorded utterances as noise modulations which could be interpreted as acceptable answers to proposed questions. In fact, many EVP messages are barely lengthier than a couple of words forming short phrases. The majority of EVP enthusiasts have recorded barely understandable words feeding pareidolia-based explanations by skeptics. The frequency and quality of EVP messages are definitely correlated to the presence of certain people. 

Notes

(*) EVP acronym is used for both phenomenon (sing.)  or phenomena (plural).

Next post:  EVP III (Electronic Mediumship)