Electronic voice phenomenon
Electronic voice phenomena are electron-
ically captured sounds that resemble speech,
but are not the result of intentional voice re-
cordings. Common sources include static,
stray radio transmissions and background
noise. Some people claim these sounds are of
paranormal origin[1]. Others claim there are
natural explanations such as apophenia (find-
ing significance in insignificant phenomena),
auditory pareidolia
(interpreting random
sounds as voices in their own language),
equipment artefacts, and simple hoaxes. Re-
cordings of electronic voice phenomena are
often created from background sound by in-
creasing the gain (i.e. sensitvity) of the re-
cording equipment.
The term electronic voice phenomena (or
phenomenon in the singular) is commonly ab-
breviated as EVP.
According to parapsychologist Konstantin
Raudive, who popularized the idea,[2] EVP
are typically brief, usually the length of a
word or short phrase.[3]
History
As the Spiritualism religious movement be-
came prominent in the 1840s–1920s with a
distinguishing belief that the spirits of the
dead can be contacted by mediums, new
technologies of the era including photo-
graphy were employed by spiritualists in an
effort to demonstrate contact with a spirit
world. So popular were such ideas that Tho-
mas Edison was asked in an interview with
Scientific American to comment on the pos-
sibility of using his inventions to communic-
ate with spirits. He replied that if the spirits
were only capable of subtle influences, a
sensitive recording device would provide a
better chance of spirit communication than
the table tipping and ouija boards mediums
employed at the time. However, there is no
indication that Edison ever designed or con-
structed a device for such a purpose.[4] As
sound recording became widespread, medi-
ums explored using this
technology
to
demonstrate communication with the dead as
well. Spiritualism declined in the latter part
of the 20th century, but attempts to use
portable recording devices and modern digit-
al