User:Perfectblue97/evp1

History

Although EVP was not named or defined until the mid 20th century, it is reported to have been observed in various forms since around 1901.

Early examples of EVP include a public seance held, in 1933, in the New York studio of Decca, which was recorded by four parapsychologists and two electrical. During the course of the seance participants reported hearing many different sets of voices, some of which the engineers said fell outside normal human speaking range. The results of the seance are currently maintained by the American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR).

Among the early pioneers of EVP was the self proclaimed medium Attila von Szalay (Sealay) who tried various techniques for capturing EVP during the 1930s, before joining with Raymond Bayless in the 1950s. Together von Szalay and Bayless began by experimenting using a 78 RPM Pack Bell record cutter. When the results failed to meet their expectations, Bayless constructed a custom made recording rig consisting of an insulated closest with a microphone inside that lead to a remote tape recorder and speaker system; to allow the sounds inside the closet to be monitored and recorded.

At times the recording closet was empty, and at times it was occupied by a volunteer. Using this setup von Szalay and Bayless report having captured many voices on tape that were not not heard through the speaker when the closet was occupied and when it was empty. Records of their experiment were later published in the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research.

EVP attracted further interest when, in 1959, Swedish film producer Friedrich Jürgenson captured what he believed to be the discarnate voice of a Norwegian speaking man on a recording of birdsong that he had made. Jürgenson went on to conduct a number experiments into EVP, including one in which he is reported as having received a message from his late mother. Jürgenson's recordings quickly attracted the attention of German parapsychologist Hans Bender; the head of a research team at the Institute for Border Areas of Psychology and Mental Health (University of Freiburg). After analyzing them Bender, concluded that Jürgenson tapes were "susceptible to a paranormal interpretation".

Jürgenson's tapes were also followed up by Latvian psychologist Konstantin Raudive. Raudive, who worked in conjunction with both Jürgenson and Bender, became heavily involved in EVP research and conduct over 100,000 recordings under various conditions.

After various experiments, Raudive devised three primary method for conducting EVP research; Allowing a tape to record in a silent room, recording the static from an un-tuned radio, recording the static of an un-tuned diode receiver. He also reported that there were 4 key characteristics that differentiated the voices captured on taps from normal speech.

• Voices used a different rhythm to regular speech
• Voices used a stunted "telegram-style" sentences
• Voices did not obey standard grammatical rules
• Recordings may consist of multiple languages

Raudive's recordings were sometimes criticized for not follow a pattern consistent with intelligent communication (for example, consisting of an answer that was unrelated to a question posed by Raudive) or because they appearer to be random collections of words with no overall meaning. Raudive's interpretations of his tapes were also criticized for being highly subjective in nature.

In 1960 Jürgenson presented his work to the Vatican. According to his own accounts, in 1973 Archbishop Bruno Heim presented him to the Pope for investiture as Commander of the Order of St. Gregory the Great, an award honoring meritorious service to the church.

In 1971 Raudive conducted a controlled experiment in a shielded laboratory that was designed to block out both sound and potential interference from external sources such as television and radio signals. Raudive recorded his own for 18 minutes and no other sounds were made or heard. When the recordings were played back, observers are said to have found that 200 other voices were present on the taps..

In 1982, Sarah Estep founded the American Association of Electronic Voice Phenomena in Severna Park, Maryland, with the purpose of increasing awareness of EVP and teaching standardized methods for capturing it.

Despite successes claimed by Raudive, Estep and others, mainstream science has taken little interest in EVP. Experiment carried to peer review standards have also been unable to replicate their results, or to collect data that validates EVP as a genuine phenomena.

In 1997, researchers with the Department of Psychology at the University of Western Ontario conducted several EVP experiments based on the Raudive's methods, and on the the work of Instrumental Transcommunication {ITC) researcher Mark Macy. During 81 sessions, researchers recorded a total of 60 hours and 11 minutes of data in the presence of a neutral volunteer who either sat in silence or attempted to make verbal contact with potential sources of EVP. Over the course of the experiment researchers recorded were several non-speech audio events similar to those which some paranormal researchers have previously associated with EVP, but which fell outside the parameters of the experiment because they did not represent a form of communication, and several events which could be interpreted as voices "with a little imagination", but which were deemed to be too few, too random, and too open to interpretation to be usable.

The experiment was deemed to have failed to capture an EVP, and to have provided no evidence validating it as a phenomena. Its findings were published in the Journal of Scientific Exploration, in 2001.