Does anyone know anything about "electronic voice phenomenon"?

[eudaimonia]

with that new "white noise" movie coming out, my sister (who isn't religious but is a little superstitious) got all excited and started researching "evp". apparently, she's been listening to the dozens of samples which are available for download from the various websites, and she's convinced herself that it's a real phenomenon. the story is that in the early 1920's when radio was first becoming widely used, a man fell asleep listening to a radio show and when he woke up, he could hear his dead wife speaking to him from the static coming out of his radio speakers. of course his friends and family thought he was nuts, but apparently he then duplicated it in the presence of his entire family and many of his friends. and thus the "field" of evp research was born. people on these websites claim that anyone can do it, and all you need is some kind of white noise- tv, radio, even computer speakers will work.

here's the problem i have: i don't believe in life after death, and i don't believe in ghosts or spirits. but unless the literally tens of thousands of people who all claim to have not only experienced this phenomenon, but have recorded it for posterity so we can all hear it too, are hallucinating and/or lying (somehow creating the recording)...what exactly is going on here?

does anyone know anything about this phenomenon, and what are your thoughts?

[Gooch's dad]

Nicely debunked here:

http://www.skepdic.com/evp.html

[Schneibster]

Yes (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=100264).

[hagiograph]

This was discussed last year when the ads started coming out for the movie.

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=100264&highlight=EVP

My 2 Cents from that Previous Thread:
I went to the movies the other day to see "Shaun of the Dead" (TRULY excellent film, btw!) and one of the previews was for the movie "White Noise" which was the movie you referred to. So when I got home I hit the AAEVP webpage and I think you are quite correct. This stuff is conveniently "unfalsifiable", not only because of what the person said in their ramblings that you quoted, but because of this (from the AAEVP Techniques Page)



Microphone with Background Sound Source--Since the paranormal voice uses sounds in the environment to help with its voice manifestation, the experimenter can deliberately supply these sounds. This can be done in several ways, The best, and the one the voices seem to prefer, is to turn a radio on, volume low, to an inactive channel. Some radios have an air-band channel, 108- 136 MHz. Tuning such a radio to 125-130 MHz can bring good results. It is good to tune your radio between two channels (FM or Air-band) where there is some earth plane break-in. The paranormal voice will use, at times, the voice of the earth plane radio operator to help in his own communication. The experimenter needs to be careful, however, not to attribute the earth plane break-in to a paranormal voice. He also should be careful to keep the volume down or it will overshadow the paranormal voice. At the same time it needs to be loud enough to be faintly heard in order for those in the next dimension to be able to benefit from it.



"The paranormal voice will use, at times, the voice of the earth plane break-in"??? Puh-leeeze! Why don't they just tell you to speak directly into the microphone and say whatever it is you want the ghosts to say? The voices seem to prefer an external source of noise, and granted while this is a blank set of bands, gimme a break. They are biasing the experiment from the git-go. I'd be impressed if these things didn't require the heady mix of electronic interference and a firm desire on the part of the observer to get a "hit".

But still, when one goes into the lab, no matter what kind of science you do, you should always perform:


A short prayer and then an invitation to friends, known and unknown, in the unseen world to join you, who come in love, peace and truth is recommended as you start



The rest of the standard techniques are in more detail here:

http://www.aaevp.com/techniques/techniques_evp9.htm

[msboyd]

There's a great show for kids called 'Mystery Hunters' (I think it's on Discovery Kids) that had a good debunking a while back -- they demonstrated how it happens (or is hoaxed), played back some tapes -- it was really well done.

It's worth checking the show out; it's great that there's something out there for the 8-13 year old skeptics in the world! Hopefully it'll educate the masses too, but that's probably too much to hope for.

edit: it is indeed Discovery Kids. Here's a link (http://www.discovery-kids.co.uk/mystery_hunters/).