Horniman-Farr Group

EVP Experiments January - February 2015

Introduction

Here is an occasional report on some experiments I have been conducting into EVP (Electronic voice phenomenon) over the past few weeks.

Background

I had been reading seminal work concerning EVP’s and watching the Scole Group and other EVP documentaries on the internet and I discovered there are many websites devoted to EVP collection and most of them are authored by ordinary local paranormal investigators using very simple unsophisticated equipment and methods. They all state that it is easy to collect EVP’s and they get results quickly but warn they are often of varying quality. This prompted me to conduct experiments in uncontrolled conditions at first, just to see if I could collect some EVP’s at home.

Method

A digital voice recorder was set up on a table in the lounge and was to set to record for 5 minutes on six occasions over two consecutive days.

The investigator remained in the lounge during the recordings. The time, date and weather conditions were noted. The investigator began the session with a short prayer to the Creator and asked the ‘Spirits’

if they would please leave a message on the tape. Any sounds heard by the experimenter during the recorded time were noted. 6 recordings were made in all. 1 - 3 were recorded around midnight on 8.1.15 4 - 6 were recorded around midnight on 9.1.15.

Results

The 6 recorded files were downloaded from the voice recorder to the laptop where they were labelled and saved.

The recordings were played back as WMA files on a standard Microsoft media player with the experimenter listening at maximum volume through full headphones.

3 recordings proved negative for EVP’s.

1 recording proved inconclusive, having clicks, but no voice.

2 recordings provided positive results.

Much of the published research on EPV’s suggested that a common feature of genuine EVP phenomena is that ‘spirit voices’ are often preceded by an entrance noise, often clicks, as if the spirit was ‘entering’ the audio stream, it sounds like them operating a switch – an entrance switch. This phenomenon is also often heard after the main ‘spirit message’ has been given – as exit clicks.

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These entry and exit clicks appear on both of the positive recordings and on one which was inconclusive. The investigator did not hear these clicks audibly within the room - neither did he hear the short phrases and words which have manifested on the tapes upon playback.

Example One - ‘Can you play?’

Two distinct sets of clicks can be heard. One set occurs at around 00:06 and the second set at 00:18.

At 00:09 a young male voice clearly says ‘Can you play?’

Example Two - ‘Manipura’

Two distinct set of clicks can be heard. One set occurs at 00:14 and the second set at 00:48

At 00:42 a woman’s voice can be heard to say the word ‘Money gall’ or ‘Manipura’.

Other sounds that appear on all of the recordings include normal static (white noise) my own coughs and movements in the room - which I tried to minimise and remain aware of, my clock ticking and the wind (which has been at gale force for the last 48 hours!) a police helicopter in the distance at one point, occasional traffic noise and noises associated with neighbours and the building particularly the windows, responding to the wind, these sounds were audible to me during the experiment.

Discussion

1. Please assume that I’m not being fraudulent and that my report is as accurate a transcription as is possible of what took place during the experiments. Of course EVP’s can be faked by anyone with a computer microphone and audio production software and the knowledge and skills to use them, but what is the point of that! There’s a terrible You Tube Video where ‘an experimenter’ with a radio scans the frequencies for EVP’s, and every time she picks part of some speech from a terrestrial transmission, she cites it as an EVP!

2. The first message I received ‘Can you play?’ appears to relate to my electric guitar. I very recently played my guitar live in public again after a long break of several years. During the recordings I was sitting in the lounge and my guitar is on its stand a few feet from the table on which I had placed the recorder.

3. I had to listen to the second message several times to ascertain the meaning; she may be saying ‘Manipura’ which is the Hindu for the solar plexus chakra.

4. The voices are very faint and low in the mix in both recordings. A strange feature of EVP recordings reported by other investigators is that the volume of the voice is often unaffected by altering the overall volume of the sound file. I have a very basic understanding of audio software and have not been able to increase the volume or clarity of the voices - nor have I been able to manipulate the file to reduce white noise or other background noises. I have maximised the EQ for vocals, but apart from this the files are clipped but otherwise unadulterated. For this I used freeware called Audacity. I attach the wave samples. To hear the voices clearly use good enclosed earphones with the volume turned full up.

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Conclusions

The EVP’s were collected in an uncontrolled environment, so sceptics could suggest that these have been picked up via radio, TV, satellite or internet wireless signals. Although it is not possible to prove attribution of the recordings to spirit beings, I rule out fraud and paralolia. Super–Psy theory can be advanced as a counter hypothesis to both spirit communication theory and ET communication or other paranormal causes of the recorded ‘voices’.

Genuine EVP phenomena were collected during the recordings.

Recommendations

I notice on playback that on the first recording the L channel is much louder than the R channel and on the second recording it is the other way around. I used a very cheap voice recorder for this session. My Olympus needs new batteries so as soon as I have these I will repeat the experiments using the better recorder next week. If anyone has the ability to use audio processing software to clean up these files and make the voices clearer and louder, then please feel free to do so and let me know. Corresponding with Dr Cardaso and reading her work ‘Electronic Voices’ indicated that the addition of background noise, white, brown, pink, can increase the volume so I will try this later.

Update February 2nd 2015

Spirits exhibit visual EP suggesting Music.

It is always nice to obtain positive results with EVP, even when those results are somewhat puzzling!

I have been reading through ‘EVP Lab 1.0’ by Dr John Gruber PhD. (2010). It is an interesting work and I’m about half way through it. I’m really enjoying learning about the technical issues involved in the research, though I’m still grasping to gain a simple understanding of how it all works and beginning to think of ways to control the conditions more.

On Candlemas evening, I had an intuition to conduct another series of recordings. Conditions were good, so I performed the set-up and short prayer and then recorded a series of seven 2 to 4 minutes clips.

Method

An Olympus 650 digital voice recorder was set up on a table in the lounge and was to set to record for 5 minutes on six occasions over two consecutive days.

The investigator remained in the lounge during the recordings. The time, date and weather conditions were noted. The investigator began the session with a short prayer to the Creator and asked the ‘Spirits’

if they would please leave a message on the tape. Any sounds heard by the experimenter during the recorded time were noted. 6 recordings were made in all. 1 - 3 were recorded around midnight on 2.2.15 4 - 6 were recorded around midnight on 7.2.15.

Results

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4 proved negative for EVP’s

3 were inconclusive

8 Positive EVoP’s can be heard on the files.

2 EViP’s can be seen on the files.

Ambient noises heard in the room include my noises and movements, my clock ticking, distant cars and the occasional burble from my laptop, apart from that it’s fairly quiet.

On the first clip, WMA DM670026 – at 02: 05 a young male voice clearly says, ‘When you’re ready’, just before I get up to switch off the recording.

Recordings WMA DM670027, WMA DM670028 and WMA DM670029 are inconclusive.

But then interesting things started to happen with WMA DM670030.

When I downloaded this clip to my laptop and played back the file, I noticed that the file format had changed.

Instead of the WMA DM0000 coding appearing in the file name, this had been replaced by the words, ‘PSI’, ‘Xotox’, and then ‘winterblut’.

These 3 words can also be clearly seen on the top left-hand side of the windows media screen.

See screen-shots below.

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I deduced that these were music titles of some sort, although there is no music or video data present on the recording, just my environment sounds. How had these titles appeared on my ‘clean’ audio recordings? I can’t explain it.

Firstly I checked the voice-recorder and I can confirm there are no music files of any type in any of the files or folders. Second, I do not have any music files which include these titles on my laptop or anywhere else.

I Googled all 3 words and what I found is really quite strange. A search of ‘PSI and Xotox’ brought up this commercial video of a German band called ‘Xotox’ playing a number called ‘PSI’!

The theme of their You Tube video is interesting and concerns environmental protection and industrial monitoring - although the two people in the video are scanning for PSI rather than radiation. The genre is industrial grunge music. See screen shots below;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhoFJdn643I

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The track listing indicates that the title of the track is called ‘winterblut’, but I was unable at the time to find a track called ‘winterblut’ from Xotox on the internet. Instead I discovered the existence of a band called ‘Winterblut’ who are a death-metal cum zombie-band also from Germany. Their video posted by Timothy White shows them clearly made up as demonic litches.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2pc7v6TbD8

Watching the whole video, I could see that at one level this is very dark stuff, but on the other hand I have always felt that spirits have a great sense of humour! Since New Year, I played guitar live (for the first time in six years) last New Year’s Eve. The last two weeks I have also posted up videos of myself playing rock guitar to friends on Facebook (though not dressed as a Zombie-Litch!) so there’s a possible link here to the musical side of my life, and also to my next door neighbours and good friends whom are both avid Gothic-metal fans who would love this kind of music, as for me, it’s not really my cup of tea.

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But an important question is whether this a breakthrough? There are no audible EVP’s on the audio recordings, but the method of communication has changed from audio to visual, from Electronic Voice Phenomenon (EVoP) to Electronic Visual Phenomenon (EViP).

The next clip WMA DM670031 also has no audible EVP’s; it has no audible music track or video, just my background noises. Here’s what appeared on the clip upon download and playback.

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A visual image of this album cover appears. It is by a band called DDP entitled ‘La Esquina Del Crem’ or ‘Cream Corner’ produced in Portugal or Spain (I’m not sure which) in 2001. The cover is not that clear, but it is truly weird, showing a person trapped or peering through a gap in a veil, enclosed by a church gate. Perhaps it is a portal.

The track selected is called ‘Bosita 5.1’ and this name is shown in the top left hand corner of the WMA file and it also appears in the recording filenames listed on page 1. I found the corresponding album on I-tunes and listened to it. It is light Latin vocal jazz, but the last two tracks are extremely weird and out of place with the rest of the album, particularly tracks 10 and 11 ‘Bosita 5.1’. These seems to have been recorded as a joke…it really hurts one’s ears if the volume on the headphones is turned up!

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/la-esquina-del-crem/id5052207

What is interesting about these developments are that during the Scole Experiments initial EVP’s received by the Scole Group were audible voices, but soon the ‘spirits’ or otherworldly communicators began to produce visuals, albeit on film.

I’ve never heard of images appearing on WMA files via a digital voice recorder before, perhaps this is a research first!

Finally, on WMA DM760034 this image appears.

Well, the spirits do have a sense of humour!

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As before, there is no audio track or video present. There is just a still image of this album cover from ‘Relaxation & Meditation’ ‘Ocean Voyages’, 2001 by David Miles Huber. I’ve never heard of him! But I found it on Amazon easily enough and had a listen, and true to its genre it consists of soft melodic keyboards with the sounds of tropical birds and the ocean, sort of new age.

I was directed to the track ‘Sparrow hawk cove’ but because there’s no track listing I couldn’t isolate that, but a quick listen through showed that this music is sweet enough.

I was listening to some of the older EVP files and I came across this one that I had overlooked. It predates the other visual EViP's and must have been recorded during the 9th January sessions.

The album cover below appears on WMA DM760024 about 27 seconds in, it just suddenly appears.

''Echoes of Nature. American Wilds. The Natural Sounds of the Wilderness'',

Track selected, 'Crickets and Wolves'. See screenshot attached.

 

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(All of the original WMA recordings are available on request)

EVP REPORT Update: February 4 2015

Are spirits exhibiting Electronic Visual Phenomena or are there more mundane or more fantastic explanations?

In discussing the results of my EVP experiments there are a number of issues which need to be addressed before I get too carried away! Regarding the Electronic ‘Voice’ Phenomenon, although there are good reasons to suggest PSI explanations for the voices recorded, I can’t yet rule out radio, wireless, or microwave reception. However, if the ‘voices’ were received from transmitting radio or TV or internet, (like on that terrible You Tube Video) the chatter would be fairly broken or random i.e. it wouldn’t always be complete words or sentences, but partial and broken ones, and would contain dialogue as well as monologues (My EVP’s with the exception of one – discussed later - are all single voices in complete words or sentences) and they appear to respond to questions from the researcher, (this would not happen if I were receiving random terrestrial broadcasts) so asking better questions is my next step, roughly following Dr Gruber’s methods. I also need to rule out other possible causes for the appearance of the visual images on the WMA’s taken from the voice recorder. A key question is can WMA files containing images, (being sent to and from local modems and ISP’s, TV and mobile networks) be captured on a sound recorder? It is possible that the digital data on the WMA files originated from local cable, internet, microwave, satellite, mobile or wireless

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technologies and these have been picked up by the condenser mic in the same way as sound waves. Is this possible? If anyone has or finds some technical opinions on these issues please email me. Anyway, I propose using ‘Faraday cage’, type technologies which should block out incoming radio, TV and microwave and wireless signals, although we need to ascertain how effective this is in eliminating such data from common sources. Another suggestion is to place the recording device inside a microwave oven (with the power turned off at the mains!) But I am not certain how signal proof the average microwave oven is! As has been pointed out, if the voices and images don’t come from terrestrial transmissions, then PSI and spirit explanations can be re-examined.

February 8 2015 update on the EVP Sessions so far.

Reviewing the EViP’s (Electronic visual phenomena) again from the sessions on the 2nd and 8th

February I’ve been reflecting upon the significance of the first image I recorded on the DVR (digital voice recorder) in file WM670030 which displayed the words ‘Psi’ ‘Xotox’ and ‘winterblut’.

When I searched these on You Tube you may recall I found the Xotox video entitled ‘’Psi’’. The opening and closing credits clearly display the symbol of the planet Neptune heading towards Earth, this is also the internationally accepted symbol for Psi. Is this just a co-incidence? What were the chances of obtaining a link to the word Psi on the first EViP?

I also thought this was highly significant given that in preparation for my EVP experiments I had been researching the work of the Scole Experiments in Norfolk England as recorded in the official reports

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of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) whose logo since 1886 has also been the planetary glyph for Neptune or Psi.

I was mistaken in my initial assessment of the link between the German bands Xotox and winterblut. It appears that they are related and produced the two albums below.

So perhaps this explains why the names of these bands appear together.

Regarding recording WM670043 and the words spoken which sound like, ‘Al Qudra Bapa’.

Initial research showed ‘Al Qudra’ to be a Lake in the UAE and it is also a common place name, company name and family name in Arabic. It is also found as a place name in Dubai. ‘Al Kudra bapa’ in Somali means ‘Allah shows’. In Swahili ‘Al kudra’ means ‘Omnipotent’. Alkhudrah is also listed as a Czech word, but I can’t find a translation. ‘Ba pa’ in Malaysian means ‘father’. An interesting set of associations!

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The session produced files DM670046 through to DM670050 which provided 16 positive EVoP’s but were negative for EViP’s. Several ‘voices’ were captured during the session and these are listed on documents, ‘EVP 2. Experiments (available on request)

In terms of spectacular EVP’s there are several class A EVP’s here but they are fairly short and the Class B and C’s are longer and more numerous, but harder to discern.

DM670050 contains a Class A EVP wherein two female voices and one male voice exchange ‘I Love You’s’ – and this is fairly spectacular. I have attached the recording for the pure joy of you hearing it, wherever it originates.

The fridge and microwave sessions.

The first test using the digital voice recorder in the microwave oven file DM670046 showed that the microwave is not soundproof. As a test I boiled the kettle and recorded from within the microwave, the DVR’s microphone picked up all the noise although it may have inhibited radio and microwaves. Until I build or obtain a soundproof and signal proof box or Faraday cage, I had the idea to use the fridge for recordings. Fridges may be more insulated and therefore more soundproof than microwave ovens.

The sessions used the fridge’s main compartment and the freezer compartment - when the fridge was being quiet! Tests showed that recordings from the freezer compartment contained less thermostat clicks and refrigerant sounds than recording from the main compartment, but it is less soundproof. A couple of difficult to discern Class C’s were collected but there were several interruptions during this session.

From analysis of the EVoP’s collected overall, I can discern perhaps six or seven main characters whose voices appear on each new recording session. They do not appear to be random. This is important and I will try to differentiate between the characters and group the statements each of them have made since the experiment began.

How many characters are speaking?

The same set of characters or voices seem to appear in every recording session and therefore are not random, but so far no-one has emailed me to claim ownership of any of the messages. So to address this I have changed my request to the spirits for the next sessions. Although I am grateful for what has been sent so far, I told spirit that apart from one EVoP which clearly says ‘I am Zephyr’s friend’ and another ‘Chris’ and a possible ‘Michael’, (my brother’s name) I had not received any other names during the sessions, no names of spirits (whether as they are known now or as they were known on earth) neither had I received any other names for the possible recipients of the messages.

I pointed out to spirit that I had not received any dialogue or any music and I asked them to try to achieve some of this in the following sessions.

Around 12 distinct EVoP’s and 2 EViP’s were collected from the microwave and fridge sessions. Files WMA670055 through WMA670056 contain some great Class A EVoP’s and I have attached some of the clearest for you to listen to. What is interesting is that (as I requested) my name ‘Sean’ is

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mentioned on both of these recordings and my wife’s name is mentioned on 670056, there’s also a message containing the name ‘Russell’ which I can’t hear well and I don’t think this relates to me. The final two files were recorded in the main compartment of the fridge and these produced the two EViP’s. Two WMA files linked to music albums manifested upon the recordings. I found the music on You Tube and had a listen. Here are the screenshots WMA670062 ‘Josephina’ by Andy Montanez, 2013 - a nice Salsa. This is interesting to me because Josephine is my sister’s name.

WMA670062 contained the music to the film ‘Requiem for a Dream’ (2000) which is a morality tale about the lives of four drug addicts, but what does it mean?

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The track appearing on the recording, track 33 is ‘Colney Island Low’, produced by Clint Mansell and the Kronos Quartet. An interesting name for a four-piece!

The track shares some unique characteristics with some of the other EViP’s from previous sessions. Firstly the track is very different from the rest of the album, it is mainly composed of the sounds of the sea, but if you listen you will hear weird overdubs towards the end of the track that sound very much like radio scanning for EVP’s!

The next stage of the research is to make a Faraday box and to record in that.

I have ordered some materials for this which should arrive by the middle of the month. I’ll also ask the spirits to provide their names and the names of the recipients for future messages. I‘ll also catalogue the spirit characters and their messages and put this into a table for easy reference.

Apparently a Faraday cage was used in 2013 by the Vatican to shield the Sistine Chapel from electronic eavesdropping during the secret papal conclave to elect the next Pope! See, "Papal Election: Vatican Installs Anti-leak Security Devices at the Sistine Chapel". International Business Times. 10.3.2013.

More importantly, my results are fairly consistent with the extensive findings of Dr Anabela Cardoso and I recommend reading the results of her extensive EVP experiments.

Cardoso, A. (2012) ‘A Two-Year Investigation of the Allegedly Anomalous Electronic Voices or EVP’. NeuroQuantology. Vol 3: pp 492-514

www.neuroquantology.com

http://www.itcjournal.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=133&Itemid=55&lang=en

Your critical comments and evaluations are always welcome.

(Original WMA files available on request.)

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