Electronic Voice Phenomena

Electronic Voice Phenomena (E.V.P for short), is a widely discussed topic within the anomalous phenomena research field with people using E.V.P recordings as proof that ghosts/spirits exist and can communicate with us.

E.V.P are found on recordings of white noise or background noise that seemingly contain human sounding voices that were not heard at the time or recording.

There is much debate surrounding the accuracy and success of E.V.P as an investigating technique, the problem with E.V.P recordings is the fact that there are numerous causes for these recordings that are a lot more plausible than the “voices of the deceased” explanation. Despite this a majority of people still present these recordings as proof that ghosts exists.

Ghost researchers that use dictaphones to capture EVP recordings often classify their recordings depending on the clarity of the ‘voices’ they captures.

Class A: Voices are very clear and easily understandable by many.

Class B: Voices are fairly loud and clear and are sometimes audible without headphones.

Class C: Voices are very soft and often indecipherable and often need to be enhanced for clarity.

It is true that some of these recordings are easier to understand and hear than others, but this does not provide evidence that they are caused by spirits of the dead. The clarity of these recordings could simply be down to a number of the contributing factors that cause people to think they’ve captured a voice, as outlined below.

External Interference
E.V.P recordings made on devices which contain RLC circuitry can be caused by radio signals from broadcast sources. Interference from CB Radio transmissions, walkie talkies, and wireless baby monitors, or anomalies generated through cross modulation from other electronic devices are all documented causes for E.V.P – It is even possible for circuits to resonate without any internal power source by means of radio reception!

Auditory Pareidolia/Apophenia
When listening to a jumble of noises and sounds on recordings of background noise/ambient noise/white noise, it can be easy to interpret random noises as familiar noises such as human speech, singing, cries, moans etc. when in fact they are just random noises of no significance.

Apophenia is defined as “the spontaneous finding of connections or meaning in things which are random, unconnected or meaningless” and is similar to the pareidolia theory above.

Auto-Gain Circuit
Most hand-held video and audio recording equipment have an auto-gain circuit that is designed to to keep a consistent level of sound, basically when a noise is too loud it ‘turns down’ the recording volume and when the environment is quieter it turns the recording volume up in order to try to record something. The obvious problem here is that the recording you are listening to may sound up close to the recording device but could actually be quite a distance away.

Internal mechanisms
Recording devices that have moving parts, such as those that use tapes, can often record what sounds like anomalous sound or E.V.P when in fact what you are listening to are the clunks, squeaks and ticking sounds of the internal mechanisms of the actual recorder moving.

Due to the above logical, possible explanations for how people record what appears to be voices that were not present at the time of recording, it is not possible to use any alleged E.V.P recording as proof of a spirit presence within a location.