Ghost Tales

I have heard an audio capture of what sounds like a male voice. Nothing remarkable in that except the audio capture is said to be the voice of a dead spirit.

How did the voice get on the tape? The ghost hunting group had switched the voice recorder on and in a darkened room started calling out questions. After each question a pause, a bit of silence recorded, to attempt a capture of a voice, a spirit's voice that may wish to say hello or warn the group to get out of the place.

By asking questions aloud while you record the responses of any answers you may discover more on the recording when you analyse the results later.

This attempt of communicating with a ghost is a popular method used by ghost hunters and with the range of digital voice recorders readily available anyone can try to conduct Electronic Voice Phenomenon, known as evp capture while conducting their own paranormal investigations.

The method of recording sound on a suitable device is indispensable to the would be and professional ghost hunter. But are noises that sound like ghostly messages from beyond the grave indicative of the presence of ghosts, apparitions or other bizarre elements?

There are indeed many examples posted to the web of alleged ghostly evp's, are all of them explainable or are there some examples which remain a mystery and not easily explained away? If you find any good examples, genuine recorded evp's, I'd be interested to hear them. Our sound engineer has one hell of a good set of lugs to tell when it's just tape artefacts. Ah well I live in hope.

How is EVP captured?

Generally the procedure for ghost hunters is to begin recording before attempting to establish contact with the source. Switch on the recorder, wait a moment, ask your question, keep recording after you have asked your question and avoid any noise from the group or accidental movement. You want to capture an evp not some mortal shuffling or making some other unwanted noise.

Try to avoid analogue recorders for they tend to require background noise to work well which can make capture difficult to pick out from the noise floor tape hiss. Digital recorders tend to be the preferred choice.

After the saved file is transferred to an audio editing program you can visually check the raw wave file. This is the actual noise print of the wave. So upload the recording and import it into some pc audio software that can play back as well as visually display the audio wave to help in searching for evidence of evp on the track. You'll see along the track spikes and the like, these spikes indicating questions asked. Look for spikes and visual signs of a response rising up from the base line after the bigger spikes. These spikes following the larger spikes may indicate a response and evidence of evp. If you find one highlight or set the parameters around it to loop it over and over again to hear what might prove a most spooky response...

I remember watching the 2005 movie White Noise a film that uses EVP in the story line. The tag line intrigues me for I can hear that voice-over man of the movies saying "There are nearly 7 billion audio and video recording devices in homes around the world. Everyone of them is a portal..."

Or what about the movie Poltergeist and the white noise on the TV when its not tuned to any channel except for a portal to another dimension. Remember that chilling line "They're here..."

Back at the studio here at Radio Poupierre I remember the team setting up a digital recorder wired into a microphone left on all night to see if it could capture any noise after one or two had claimed to have been spooked by something on the stairs.

You can imagine the excitement when coming in the next day to see if anything had been captured on it. Well it wasn't long into the recording when what sounded like a heartbeat could be clearly heard. I don't know how many of you have listened to the sound of an ultrasound recording of a babies heart in the womb, well that's the nearest sound it resembled.

No idea what could have caused it because this studio equipment runs silently in what is virtually sound proofed rooms. I hear the sound of the X files theme being sung at this very moment! Is that you reader?

And finally –
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