Addressing Skeptical Explanations for Electronic Voice Phenomena

First I prefer to call Electronic Voice Phenomena commonly known as an EVP among ghost-hunting enthusiasts. I and others agree that there are more than one attribute that is associated with the phenomenon, so a more accurate description would be Anomalous Voice Phenomena, AVP. There is an extensive history of the phenomenon with many notable physicists, and Universities dating to the original discovery back in 1949, the technology of the time, the first reel to reel tape recorder called a Magnetophon.


In 1965 Dr. Konstantīns Raudive worked with Friedrich Jürgenson to make what was then called EVP recordings. Later with the help of various electronics experts from Pye Records, and physicists from AT&T recorded over 100,000 audiotapes, most of which were made under what he described as "strict laboratory conditions." Over 400 people were involved in his research, and all apparently heard the voices. This culminated in the 1968 publication of Unhörbares wird hörbar “What is inaudible becomes audible” published in English in 1971 as Breakthrough. The following year, more controlled experiments took place. English company Belling and Lee, Ltd., used by the British government to test its most sophisticated defense equipment, decided to conduct some experiments with Raudive at their Radio-Frequency-Screened Laboratory. The supervising engineer, Peter Hale, was a physicist and electronics engineer. He was considered the leading expert on electronic-suppression in Great Britain, and one of the five leading sound engineers in the West. The recording hardware which was designed for this test was provided, and the blank tape which had just been shipped from the factory was used. But the voices still appeared.

A.P, Hale stated:
In view of the tests carried out in a screened laboratory at my firm, I can not explain what happened in normal physical terms. Raudive continued researching such alleged voices on his own and spent much of the last ten years of his life exploring EVP.

Technology has come along way since the late 1970s, and early 80s the nearest thing to a portable computer called an Osborne also called a "luggable", the Marketing Department called it a "hernia". The understanding of the phenomena and it's detractors have explained away a large part of "why it can't be." I can't emphasize that most EVPs are explainable. Especially when it involves the inexperienced, and uneducated.

Skeptical explanations for Electronic Voice Phenomenon:

1. Noise Contamination
2. RF Contamination
3. Human Speech Mistaken for an EVP
4. Stomach Noise
5. Breath
6. Echo

Collecting data correctly requires rigorous disciplines something the ghost-hunting enthusiast is not willing to do. Simply put they are just not in it for the data, or the real work that is involved. I have had members in my own team mentioned that doing research “the correct way” took the fun out of the paranormal. When the primary focus is scaring one another in the dark, or bolstering evidence that in the real world means nothing at all. I have yet seen anyone in the paranormal community that has the slightest clue on how to preserve the integrity of the data.

How voice recorders can record what our ears cannot hear. The average frequency ranges on these audio devises are between 40Hz – 21,000 Hz well within the range of human hearing of 20Hz – 20,000 Hz, Electronic Voice Phenomena described as being within the bandwidth of 60Hz to 28Hz. On a wideband spectrogram within the range of 800Hz to 4 kHz, it is not so much that it is above or below the range of human hearing just that the amplitude is too faint to be heard by the human ear. When the volume played back, it is turn all the way up the same goes for audio editors. We found it necessary to use headphone amplifiers in aiding us in identifying the voice anomalies, audio spectrum analysis, and procedures developed along with training to ask questions that would require an extended answer at the point where we would be listening for the response. An extensive understanding, and comprehensive knowledge of Acoustic and Articulatory Phonetics are requires in separating the differences between noise and human speech patterns from the artificial characteristics of a true AVP. The experiments we have conducted show that the entity exists well within our physical plain of existence. 

Addressing EVP Skeptical Arguments
You must understand this is just a beginning there are numerous skeptical explanations all them are true when it comes to the inexperienced paranormal team. For a professional organization to be taken seriously you needs to address every skeptical concern, and there is no shortage of skeptical concerns.

1, 4, 5. Noise Contamination, Stomach Noise, Breathing
Being able to show documented procedures and methods of research will answer most but not all of them.

• Such as an EVP procedure, outlining relaxed breathing techniques, and learning to hold your breath for 15 seconds after asking the question.
• Controlling stomach noise by drinking, plenty of warm water or any other warm drinks even 7-up will work; this will line your stomach. Snacks you could eat a cracker or a piece of bread, and burping when appropriate.

Having written procedures is another way to validate the audio, rotating small groups limiting the number of people at the location.

2. RF Contamination
Let us first understand how a microphone can pick up an EM response. The dynamic microphones' design is very simple there is a cone that attached to a magnet surrounded by a coil of wire. When the cone picks up sound, it vibrates moving the attached magnet up, and down in the coil creating a current through the wire. Now the speaker is simply the same device but backwards. The current moves through the coil causing the magnet attached to the cone to move the cone up and down reproducing sound. The EM field would act upon the coil in the microphone instead of an acoustical response that would act on the cone.

RF Examples

This is the idea behind the coil microphone I built to record RF contamination. It is a coil or RF choke, wire wrapped around a ferrite core to enhance the electronic signal then plugged into a voice recorder to record any RF contamination during the EVP session. This easily built specialize device that is sensitive enough to record electromagnetic fields to an audio recorder that can produce a spectrogram showing any electromagnetic contamination before, during, and after the time of the audios creation, and would address RF contamination.

I wanted to see what a Radio broadcast looked like recorded from a Radio receiver bypassing the speaker recorded directly into the audio recorder. The reason why I am bypassing the speaker is to simulate contamination from the broadcast through the coil built into the dynamic microphone of the audio recorder.

What I am looking for are patterns of human speech with nonhuman characteristics from RF contamination.

Artificial Voice

This was actually easy to do with a speaker-less Radio Shack Radio and a stereo male-to-male patch cable into the audio recorder. What I got was visible human speech, and a lot of station noise shown here.

An artificial voice like a text to speech program has the same characteristics as human speech because how the simulated voice enunciates words. Vowels in the words would create the same formant structure you see in human speech. What you do not see is vibration as air moves through the glottis unless played through a speaker. Then the vibrating speaker would simulate the sound of vibration or air movement. There is one other possibility and that is human speech at a distance. We all know voices can carry from within the location, and from outside. Distance can severely reduce the clarity of human speech. I recorded the same human voice with two audio recorders at varying distances from 10 to 25 feet, and what I found was some similarities to EVPs. It is still similar enough to human speech with a good imagination you might be able to create something out of it, Audio pareidolia. To most novus groups this would be an easy mistake then again any noise recorded from a distance could be mistaken for an EVP. In a spectrogram the formant structure, flatten down to long wavy lines. The greater the distance the less unintelligible the sound becomes as speech. This is just another way to show what "speech like sounds" look like that picked up by the audio recorder. There is no example of speech human or otherwise that can compare with the audio recorded from the entity we picked up an undisclosed location.


3. Human Speech Mistaken for an EVP
When comparing human speech to the response from the entity. You can clearly see vowels in human speech will usually have four or more distinguishable formants followed by vertical striations caused by air movement through the glottis to drive vibration. It is the lack of these characteristics such as vibration of the vocal folds. That distinguishes human speech from a valid an anomalous voice response. In the entities response there is no physical signs of a throat, mouth, or breath.

6. Echo:
In the example of an echo, the frequency reduces as it reverberates, dropping lower in the spectrogram. One very notable observation when the frequency reduces in human speech the formant structure collapses dropping lower and lower. The more distant the sound source is from the audio recorder the lower the frequencies causing the formant structure in human speech to collapse into one or two lines at the bottom of the spectrogram. The quality of speech at the lower frequencies are indiscernible as speech being realistic of what comprises the phonology of any particular language. As formant, structures collapse the AVP show up as one or two short events high up in the spectrogram from 800Hz-4kHz at a bandwidth between 28Hz-38Hz higher amplitude AVP above 60Hz move into another category known as the disembodied voice.

Echo vs. Reverberation
A reverberation is reflected sound waves combine with your original sound waves, both characteristics of the echo, and reverberation as described has no resemblance to responses recorded from questions asked. These responses are well-documented observations. The problem with an echo, or reverberation as an explanation for electronic voice phenomena would not explain why most responses carry specific meaning attributed to the researcher. I have seen echo phenomena mistaken for responses from only the most inexperienced of paranormal teams. Document throughout the location and in each area the ambient temperature. This is another way to answer yet another skeptical explanation. Used together with floor plans measure the distance from static audio devices to the nearest reflective surfaces can help validate the audio as other than an echo.


Remember you need to address every skeptical explanation on why your data should be taken seriously.

Sound Examples