Electronic voice phenomenon

Electronic voice phenomenon is the alleged communication by spirits through tape recorders and other electronic devices. The belief in EVP in the United States seems to have grown thanks to Sarah Estep, president of the American Association of Electronic Voice Phenomena, which claims to have members in forty states and publishes a newsletter. Estep claims that in the 1970s she started picking up voices on her husband's reel-to-reel recorder. She is sure that the voices are spirits proving there is life after death.

Estep also claims to hear voices of aliens on some of her tapes. She says she has recorded approximately twenty thousand spirits and aliens. Aliens don't speak English, however, so she is not sure what they are saying. The sounds that make up EVP are apparently sonic events of unknown origin which can be heard and captured in recordings using various electronic apparatus, including tape recorders and radio equipment. The voices on the tapes take on diverse forms, sometimes appearing to speak in languages, singing or talking in gibberish. The messages often make a sort of sense as though communication is difficult. Spirits can call by name and speak directly to researchers.

They can be heard over telephones and as anomalous interference on tape recordings. Some spirits seem to enjoy engaging in conversation, answering questions or supplying personal information about the researchers, possibly as a way of achieving credibility. Many of us have heard recordings of what might be voices and the sounds of spirits on tape but we often have to question what we are hearing. Are they accidental recordings of the researchers themselves? Or sounds that have no meaning? Or spirits?

Many researchers make the valid point that there is a natural human inclination to project meaning onto otherwise innocent phenomena. Many tend to do this with EVP. It is an attempt to make the messages simpler or to appear more mysterious than they really are. If no sense can be made of what we hear then an idea will be invented and/or introduced to support what we want to hear.

It has been suggested that if you listen to something enough times you can hear anything that you want to hear. This problem is apparent when a researcher announces to those listening to the recordings what they should hear. The power of suggestion can easily take over and destroy whatever credibility this experiment may have had. While it is impossible to prove that all EVPs are due to natural phenomena, sceptics claim that they are probably due to forces such as interference from a nearby CB operator or cross modulation. Some of the voices could be people creating meaning out of random noise, a kind of auditory pareidolia or apophenia. Now that the phenomenon has a number of devoted followers (thanks partly to the film White Noise), some hoaxers have probably entered the fray. Jim Alcock, a psychologist believes the reason why many people believe in EVP is a very complex process.

When our brains try to find patterns, they are guided in part by what we expect to hear. If you are trying to hear your friend while conversing in a noisy room, your brain automatically takes snippets of sound and compares them against possible corresponding words and guided by context, we can often “hear” more clearly than the sound patterns reaching our ears could account for.

It is easy to demonstrate in a psychology laboratory that people can readily come to hear “clearly” even muffled voices as long as they have a printed version in front of them that tells them what words are being spoken. The brain puts together the visual cue and the auditory input and we actually “hear” what we are told is being said. Without that information we would discern nothing. People can clearly “hear” voices and words not just in the context of muddled voices but in a pattern of white noise, a pattern in which there are no voices or words at all. If we can routinely demonstrate this effect then one could argue that what people hear with EVP is also the product of their own brains, and their expectations, rather than the voices of the deceased.

A Short History of EVP & ITC
In the 1920s, Thomas Alva Edison, inventor of the electric light, the motion picture camera, and phonograph, was working in his laboratory building a machine to achieve spirit communication with the dead. Dr Miller Hutchinson, Edison’s assistant, wrote, “Edison and I are convinced that in the fields of psychic research will yet be discovered facts that will prove of greater significance to the thinking of the human race than all the inventions we have ever made in the field of electricity.” Edison himself wrote, “If our personality survives then it is strictly logical or scientific to assume that it retains memory, intellect, other faculties and knowledge that we acquire on this Earth.

Therefore … if we can evolve an instrument so delicate as to be affected by our personality as it survives in the next life, such an instrument, when made available, ought to record something.” Edison also claimed “it is possible to construct an apparatus which 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.” (Clark 1997: 235). There is no evidence that Edison did ever design or attempted to construct such a device. Edison probably did not foresee spirits communicating with our tape recorders and television sets.

Sadly Edison died before completed his invention. As he lay dying he said to his physician, "It is very beautiful over there." Edison was a scientist and very factual. As a scientist he would never have reported "It is very beautiful over there," unless he believed it was the truth.In 1936, an American photographer, Attila von Szalay began experimenting with a record cutter with some success of capturing spirit voices on phonograph records. In the 1940’s the success of his attempts increased with use of a wire recorder. In the 1950’s a writer, Raymond Bayless began collaborating with von Szalay. The two men documented von Szalay’s results in an article for the American Society for Psychical Research in 1959. Neither the Society nor the authors received a single response from readers.

In 1949, Marcello Bacci of Grosseto, Italy, began experimenting in the paranormal. It wasn’t long before he began recording voices using an old vacuum tube radio. A spirit team developed around his work and they spoke to him through radio sounds. People would visit him in his lab at home. Very often Bacci’s visitors departed loved ones would talk to them through Mr Bacci’s radio. Today, Marcello Bacci still uses the vacuum tube radio. In Italy during the early 1950’s, two Catholic priests, Father Ernetti and Father Gemelli, were working together on music research. Ernetti was an internationally respected scientist, a physicist and philosopher as well as a music lover.

Gemelli was President of the Papal Academy. On 15th September 1952, Gemelli and Ernetti were recording a Gregorian chant. A wire on their magnetophone kept breaking. Feeling somewhat frustrated Father Gemelli looked up and asked his father for help. To the two men's amazement his father's voice was recorded on the magnetophone and answered, “Of course I shall help you. I'm always with you.”

They repeated the experiment and this time a very clear voice filled with humour said, “But Zucchini, it is clear, don't you know it is I?” Father Gemelli stared at the tape. No one knew the nickname his father had used for him when he was a boy. This was validation that he was truly speaking with his father. Though his joy at his father's apparent survival was mixed with fear he then questioned if he had any right to speak with the dead. The two men then visited Pope Pius XII in Rome. Father Gemelli was troubled by what he had experienced told the Pope what had happened. To his amazement the Pope patted his shoulder and said, “Dear Father Gemelli, you really need not worry about this. The existence of this voice is strictly a scientific fact and has nothing whatsoever to do with spiritism. The recorder is totally objective. It receives and records only sound waves from wherever they come.

This experiment may perhaps become the cornerstone for a building for scientific studies which will strengthen people's faith in a hereafter.” The Father felt reassured at this but he made certain that the experiment did not go public until the last years of his life. It wasn't until 1990 that the results were published. In 1959, a Swedish film producer Friedrich Juergenson captured voices on audiotape while recording bird songs. He was stunned when he played back the tape and heard a male voice say something about "bird voices in the night." Listening more intently to his tapes he heard his mother's voice say in German, “Friedrich, you are being watched.

Friedel, my little Friedel, can you hear me?” When Juergenson heard his mother's voice he was convinced he had made an important discovery. Over the next four years, Juergenson continued to tape hundreds of paranormal voices. He played the tapes at an international press conference and in 1964 published a book in Swedish called ‘Voices from the Universe’ and another entitled ‘Radio Contact with the Dead.’ Juergenson was a man who became a great pioneer in the recording of voice phenomena.

In 1967, Juergenson's ‘Radio Contact with the Dead’ was translated into German. A Latvian psychologist named Dr Konstantin Raudive read it very sceptically. He visited Juergenson to learn about his methodology and decided to experiment on his own Raudive soon began developing his own experimental techniques. Like Juergenson, Raudive also heard the voice of his own deceased mother. She called him by his boyhood name: "Kostulit, this is your mother." Eventually he logged tens of thousands of voices, many of which were recorded under strict laboratory conditions. In 1971, the chief engineers of Pye Records Ltd. decided to do a controlled experiment with Konstantin Raudive.

They invited him to their sound lab and installed equipment that could block out any radio and television signals. Raudive was not permitted to touch any of the equipment. Raudive used one tape recorder which was monitored by a control tape recorder. All he could do was speak into a microphone. They taped Raudive's voice for eighteen minutes and none of the experimenters heard any other sounds. But when the scientists played back the tape, to their amazement, they heard over two hundred voices on it. In the late 1960's, EVP began to be accepted as a legitimate form of paranormal research but it has remained controversial ever since. The problems come because of the way that messages are recorded. Many messages were not simple messages but often fragments and sounds that require hours of listening to understand.

This opens the research up to criticism but by using detailed, restricted and well monitored techniques to achieve EVP recordings, the margin for error can be eliminated from your experiments. In Europe during the 1960’s and 1970’s experimenting in electronic voice phenomenon (EVP) became very popular. Many individuals and groups collected voices over their home tape recorders.

In 1971, three Americans, Paul Jones, G.W. Meek and Hans Heckman, opened a laboratory. They began the first serious research to create a two-way voice communication system more sophisticated than the equipment used in the EVP approach. In the late 1970s there was a significant breakthrough. Ironically, it occurred in the US where EVP had been virtually ignored. In 1973, spiritual researchers George and Jeannette Meek met a psychically gifted man, William O'Neil, who could see and hear spirits. The Meeks provided funding and direction for a groundbreaking project of advanced spirit communication. O'Neil provided the necessary psychic skills and electronics know how.

O'Neil recruited a few of his spirit friends into the project. One of his invisible colleagues was the spirit of Dr George Jeffries Mueller, a deceased university professor and NASA (National Aeronautic and Space Administration) scientist who appeared in O'Neil's living room one day as a semi-materialized spirit. He announced that he was there to assist in the project of Meek and O'Neil. It became an astonishing collaboration between dimensions: Doc Mueller in spirit helping Bill O'Neil on Earth design a new piece of electromagnetic equipment that would convert spirit voices into audible voices.

The new device was named Spiricom, and was a set of tone generators. The frequency generators emitted 13 tones spanning the range of the adult male voice. By Autumn 1980, Spiricom had progressed to the level where Doc Mueller's spirit voice, although having a buzz sound, was loud and easily understandable. Meek and O'Neil soon logged more than twenty hours of dialog with their spirit colleague Doc Mueller. These dialogues are reported in the book ‘After We Die, What Then?’ by George Meek.

In 1982, Meek made a trip around the world to distribute tape recordings of sixteen excerpts of communications between William J. O'Neil and an American scientist who died fourteen years previously. He also distributed a hundred page technical report giving wiring diagrams, photos, technical data and guidelines for research by others. The pioneering efforts of George Meek and Bill O'Neil fuelled minds all around the world. Sarah Estep started the American Association of Electronic Voice Phenomenon (AAEVP) in 1982.

She and rapidly assembled a list of hundreds of EVP experimenters to receive her newsletter. Her book entitled ‘Voices of Eternity’ was very popular. In Europe, thousands of people were already following up on the EVP experiments like the ones conducted by Friedrich Juergenson and Konstantin Raudive. EVP experimenters were becoming excited and inspired by the news from the States.

As time progressed, reports of spirit telephone calls were becoming widespread. In 1979, D. Scott Rogo logged them in his book, "Telephone Calls from the Dead.” ITC flourished since Spiricom. Most notable among the new generation of ITC researchers were Ken Webster of England, Maggy and Jules Harsch-Fischbach of Luxembourg, and researchers Klaus Schreiber, Manfred Boden, Hans Otto Koenig, Friedrich Malkhoff, and Adolf Homes all of Germany. Manfred Boden (West-Germany) obtains 1980-81 unsolicited computer print-outs from "spirit" communicators. Prior to this he received telephone calls.

Until 1983 he has also unsolicited contacts with communicators of non-human evolution. Hans Otto Koenig developed new spirit communication technologies between 1982 and 1988. He employed low frequency oscillators as well as lights in the ultraviolet and infrared range. In 1983 he appeared on a radio program on Europe’s largest radio station, Radio Luxembourg. The host, Rainer Holbe, had Koenig set up his equipment under close supervision of the radio station engineers. One of the engineers asked if a voice could come through in direct reply to a question and a voice replied, “We hear your voice.

Otto Koenig makes wireless contact with the dead.” Rainer Holbe told the millions of listeners across Europe, “I tell you, dear Listeners of Radio Luxembourg, and I swear by the life of my children, that nothing has been manipulated. There are no tricks. It is a voice, and we do not know from where it comes.” The radio station issued an official statement afterwards stating that every step of the program was very carefully supervised.

Staff and engineers alike were convinced that the voices were of paranormal origin Ken Webster received around two hundred and fifty spirit messages on his computers between 1984 and 1985 from a 16th Century Englishman called Thomas Harden. He claimed he was “haunting” Webster’s house because he had owned the same house some four centuries earlier. Harden in spirit was appeared to be stuck in time and referred to Webster’s computer as a ‘light box’. On one occasion he typed a message to Webster onto the screen saying, “What strange words you are speaking, although I must admit that I had only a poor school education myself. You are a good person and you have a fantastic wife. But you live in my house. It was a big crime to steal my home.” The many messages from Harden were in Olde English dialect and contained extensive details of Harden’s personal life as well as life of Harden’s era.

These were later confirmed through research at Oxford Library. Webster’s book, ‘The Vertical Plane,’ records those ITC contacts. Klaus Schreiber began to receive spirit images on his TV set in 1985. The faces of scientist Albert Einstein, Austrian actress Romy Schneider and various departed family members including his two deceased wives and daughter Karin, with. His technique was set up by his colleague Martin Wenzel and involved pointing a video camera at the television and feeding the output of the camera back into the television in order to achieve a feedback loop. The result was a mist on the screen out of which the spirit faces would slowly form over a period of many frames. Schreiber’s results were the subject of a 1985 television documentary and book by the popular radio and television commentator, Rainer Holbe.

Maggy Harsch-Fischbach and her husband Jules Harsch of Luxembourg began to get voice contacts through radio systems early in their experiments in 1985. A high pitched, computer like voice came through their radios with increasing frequency to announce the beginning and the end of experiments and also shared amazing insights with the couple. The entity producing the voice identified himself (or herself) as an ethereal being who was never human, never animal, and never in a physical body. “I am not energy and I am not a light being. You are familiar with the picture of two children walking across a bridge, and behind them is a being who protects them. That’s what I am to you, but without the wings.

You can call me Technician, since that is my role in opening up this communication bridge. I am assigned to Planet Earth.” The small flat inhabited by the Harsch-Fischbach couple became a place of miracles as visiting scientists and reporters saw spirit world images on the television screen. They also heard long discourses by various deceased personalities through radio sounds. The spirit of Nelson D. Rockefeller told German physicist Ernst Senkowski, “The Mahatmas are a reality.” Nineteenth Century chemist Henri Ste. Claire de Ville told American and German researchers, “It is our job as well as your job to set fire to minds—to set fire to minds in your world, and in that moment to try to master time.” In 1994 Konstantin Raudive said, in English through the radios, “It can only work when the vibrations of those present are in complete harmony and when their aims and intentions are pure.” In 1987, Fritz Malkhoff and Adolf Homes began ITC experiments independently. Each began to get spirit voices on tape rather quickly.

In a few months, they learned of each other’s work and became colleagues and friends. During their experiments, small voices on radio quickly developed long and clear voices. They then began to receive phone calls from their spirit friends. In 1988 they set up Malkhoff’s computer in the house of Adolf Homes where they did most of their experiments. They posed a question and two days later a short answer appeared on their computer screen. As years passed, Malkhoff received many phone calls from spirit friends including nature spirits. Homes received spirit images on his television and messages on his computer screen routinely. One morning in 1994, Homes climbed out of bed in a trance, aimed a video camera at his television and received the first colour picture from the spirit world.

It was a picture of the deceased EVP pioneer Friedrich Juergenson. At the same time, a message from Juergenson printed out of Homes’s computer saying, “This is Friedel from Sweden. I am sending you a self portrait… The projection since January 17, 1991, has been in the quantum of spacelessness and timelessness. All your and our thoughts have their own electromagnetic reality which does not get lost outside the space-time structure… Consciousness creates all form….” In 1995, ITC entered a new phase. Mark Macy worked closely with ITC colleagues on both sides of the Atlantic to plan a meeting among scientists and researchers from different countries. Sixteen of them met in England to discuss this modern day miracle and the obstacles that stood in the way. By the end of that weekend INIT was formed, the International Network for Instrumental Transcommunication. In the following months ethereal beings told INIT they were watching their efforts closely and would provide guidance and support.

Many members of INIT received phone calls, usually from the spirit of Konstantin Raudive and the Harsch-Fischbachs received pictures and messages through their computer, all as a result of resonance among INIT members. It was clear that a new phase of ITC research on Earth had begun. Ethereal beings told INIT that the greatest strides would be made by individuals from different countries who committed to work together in harmony with pure intentions. As aging researchers died—Konstantin Raudive in 1974, Friedrich Juergenson in 1987, Klaus Schreiber in 1988, Bill O’Neil in 1991, and George Meek in 1999 they began to get in touch with their colleagues on Earth through ITC systems.

Raudive told several living colleagues that since his death it has been his calling to continue the development of ITC systems from the other side. He called Mark Macy by phone seven times after his death. On one occasion they chatted for nearly fifteen minutes before the contact ended. On another occasion Raudive said to purchase a “VLF converter” for the radio system as it would improve contacts.

Friedrich Juergenson told watching ITC experimenters in Germany, through the television of Adolf Homes, “Every being is a unity of spirit and body that cannot be separated on earth or in spirit. The only difference is the fact that the physical body disintegrates and in its place comes the astral body. Our message is to tell you that your life goes on. Any speculations on how an individual will experience it are bound to be limited in accuracy. All your scientific, medical or biological speculations miss the mark of these realities. What serves as ‘real’ to science is not close to reality in the broad picture. It is no more than a word in a book.” The most inspiring and helpful information came to from a group of timeless beings who said they had never been in physical bodies but had watched human development over thousands of years.

These ethereal beings addressed the INIT group in 1996: “This is the seventh time that we accompany and guide you on your progress toward a free, wealthy, and sane future in which humanity would have stripped off the chains of intolerance and cruelty—a future in which it will be able to establish a fruitful, endurable relationship with the light, ethereal realms of existence.” Ethereal beings told INIT more than once that opening the door to the spirit world can be dangerous but researchers who work together and dedicate their efforts to higher human principles will receive ethereal guidance and protection.

As the years passed, Technician and his six ethereal friends, along with a team of more than a thousand spirits who had once lived on Earth, shared vast amounts of information with INIT members through computers, telephones, radios, and other technical media. The ethereal beings said they had accompanied Earth beings for thousands of years and had come close six times when the Earth had reached a crossroads leading either to a dark age or to a period of enlightenment. This was the seventh time and they wanted to establish a lasting bridge between Earth and the spirit world. ITC research would be the means by which to establish that bridge.

Through the work of INIT, it was evident that forms of ITC contacts were made possible by such ethereal beings who provided protection and guidance for ITC researchers and their spirit colleagues. The spirits suggested to INIT members that the collective wisdom and knowledge of all the INIT members allowed the information in ITC contacts to contain unprecedented depth of substance.

Due to their collective understanding, they were told about the distant past of Earth, long before recorded history, were given hints about future possibilities that depend upon critical decisions humans must make in the near future. The ethereal beings told INIT what it’s like from their perspective when they come to “take us home” at the end of our earthly lives. These are just a few general examples of the types of information delivered through ITC systems.

INIT members were told that ITC contacts are made possible by a contact field which is a pool of thoughts and attitudes of all the researchers collaborating on an ITC project, as well as the thoughts and attitudes of their spirit team. When the thoughts and attitudes of all those entities on both sides are in harmony, the spirits said the contact field was clear. They could then see into our world and work with our equipment. When doubts, fears, envy, resentment and other troubled feelings created dissonance, the contact field became cloudy and the spirits said they could not see easily into our world or work with our equipment.

After several years, troubles developed at INIT. Most members were a little insecure about the contacts they were receiving. They had no way of understanding what was making them possible. Many INIT members believed that they would not make major strides in ITC research until science became involved and discovered the secrets behind ITC contacts.

Some members began working with scientists in their home country who took one look at the results of the research and told the INIT researchers that the messages that had been received were scientifically impossible. The scientists told the INIT members they should be more sceptical of the contacts their colleagues were reporting. As a result, some members began to express doubts publicly about the legitimacy of other members’ contacts.

The researchers who had received those contacts felt betrayed and a division developed within the INIT association. Some members felt they should work with science even if it did mean being more sceptical. Others believed that the contacts being received were most important and scientists who were not ready, willing or able to accept the legitimacy of INIT’s work should be forgotten. The division grew quickly, fuelled conflict and hurt feelings on both sides of the Atlantic and probably between Earth and the spirit world as well. As a result of the tension now apparent, the contact field became cloudy, spirits were unable to come through into our world and work with the equipment. The miracles of ITC virtually dried up.

Perhaps more contacts will be made when humans have learned from their mistakes. We need to realize that doubts, fears, insecurities, envy, resentment and other dark emotions which we experience must all be kept under control when we are involved in any form of spiritual work, especially ITC research. It is easy for us to say that we are in harmony with others but our hidden doubts, fears, and insecurities say otherwise. We have to find those dark feelings inside us and bring them into the light to heal.

Humans are spirit magnets that attract spiritual influences into our lives that resonate with our attitudes. If we are in doubt or in fear, we will attract spirits into our lives who stir up our doubts and fears. If we love and trust the people around us then we will attract spirits into our lives who will support that love and trust. The ITC networks that will enjoy miracles in the future are those which grow today on a harmonious foundation.

How to record EVP by Dr. Dave Oester
Electronic Voice Phenomena is what we call capturing the voices of the dead with an audio recorder, either audio tape or digital format. The techniques described here are simple but effective. Any recording device can be used as an EVP recorder.

While some researchers favour the digital format, audio cassette tape recorders work just as well. If you have questions about your EVP recording device, take this simple test. Turn your volume up to high and then lower it by a minute amount. Press record and record for two minutes. The two minute recording should be free from artificial noise that can interfere with background sounds.

You need a quiet two minutes free from electronic squeals and/or electronic humming that distorts the background sounds. Play back the recording and listen to the background noise. If you can hear the natural sounds found in the background noise you are set for an EVP experiment. If you cannot hear the natural sounds in the background because of squeals or other interference that block out the soft quiet background sounds then this recorder is of no use. A tape recorder with an external microphone that can be placed away from the machine is often preferred by researchers. Small, hand-held tape recorders only work in the range of the human voice. The recording can pick up all sorts of ambient noises at your location. The sounds of the motors and gears in the recorder as well as incomprehensible background noises can be recorded on the tape and can be mistaken for strange phenomena. Valid EVP will sound human with human emotions often being expressed in their voices. This human quality is retained spirits.

Remember that first generation digital recorders were poor recorders because they recorded digital static that fooled many people into thinking they had captured demonic or angry spirits yelling at them. The second generation recorders solved this problem these digital recorders are no longer sensitive to digital static. If you are using a standard tape recorder, use only a brand new tape that is still in the factory sealed package. Never try to record on a tape that has already been used.

It is not necessary to record for long periods of time. In the past some people have recorded for hours on end and then had to listen to the play back for hours. Some have found that if you ask permission from spirits to record them recording for ten minutes at any one location has been successful. If a researcher moves to a different location at the site, a new recording should be started. When you begin recording you can softly say the name of the location. The recording should also be free from conversations between people in the land of the living.

Some researchers find it helpful to think about the spirit they are trying to receive communication from and what their lives may have been like. When conducting an EVP investigation, random locations are not recommended. It is best to conduct an investigation at a location that you have good reason to feel is haunted. Your EVP experiments should be conducted in the most active spot in the location.

This obviously increases your chances for good results. When you arrive at your location, make handwritten notes of the weather and any natural or artificial sounds that can be heard where you plan to do your recording. When you put the recorder into place, make sure you extend the external microphone about three feet or so away.

It is not recommended that you walk around with the recorder. This creates a lot of sound pollution. It is recommended that you place the recorder and the microphone in a secure spot on the floor or on a table and preferably on a rubber mat which will reduce any sound travelling though material to the recorder. It is advisable not to walk around while recording because the sounds of your footsteps will be loud and clear on the playback. Listening to footsteps can become annoying and will cover up the voices of the dead. Find a spot and stand still for two or three minutes. If you want to move to another spot go quickly and then stand still. Do not move the recorder in your hand or stroke the recorder with your fingers because the friction on the recorder is recorded as a loud noise.

It is advisable to try an EVP experiment at home so you know the limits of your recorder. Be aware that if you live near power lines you may get a sixty cycle hum on the tape that is very annoying. The question-answer format is the best to use when doing an EVP recording. Selected questions should be asked allowing at least a 30 second span between them to allow time for responses. Questions that can be answered with a yes or no, or one syllable words are the simplest to ask. Once the taping begins, the recorder should be monitored by at least two people and absolute silence must be maintained. It is imperative that verbal notes are made on the recording whenever any outside sounds are heard by those monitoring the tape.

If one of the researchers makes a sound (aside from the asked questions) it should be noted on the recording. The same direction goes for automobiles passing outside, noises in the house, etc. When you play back your EVP recordings listen to the background sounds. In those background sounds are human voices in conversation or making statements to you. This can all occur within a minute or less.

Listen carefully and never discount human voices until you have separated them and listened closely to determine if it was anyone in your research group. Some times you get complete sentences and at other times just a word or two but the voices will be human sounding and often filled with human emotions.

When conducting an investigation never make fun at those who have passed away. If there is someone on your investigation that is likely to have this disrespect for those that have passed away, ask them to leave. Negative people breed negativity and this should be avoided. If one member of your team is feeling negative, this will have an effect on the entire group.

Good luck with this and I believe that if you follow these guidelines you can be successful at experimenting with EVP but also offer authentic evidence that the voices of the dead can, and do, communicate with the living