History of Electronic Voice Phenomena

Thomas Edison was asked in a 1920 interview published in the Scientific American.

“If our personality survives, then it is strictly logical and scientific to assume that it retains memory, intellect, and other faculties and knowledge that we acquire on earth...”

“...I am inclined to believe that our personality hereafter will be able to affect matter. If this reasoning be correct, then, if we can evolve an instrument so delicate as to be affected, moved, or manipulated...by our personality as it survives in the next life, such an instrument, when made available, ought to record something.”

American photographer Attila von Szalay was among the first to try recording what he believed to be voices of the dead as a way to augment his investigations in photographing ghosts. He began his attempts in 1941 using a 78 rpm record, but it wasn't until 1956, after switching to a reel-to-reel tape recorder, that he believed he was successful. Working with Raymond Bayless, von Szalay conducted a number of recording sessions with a custom-made apparatus, consisting of a microphone in an insulated cabinet connected to an external recording device and speaker. Szalay reported finding many sounds on the tape that could not be heard on the speaker at the time of recording, some of which were recorded when there was no one in the cabinet. He believed these sounds to be the voices of discarnate spirits. Among the first recordings believed to be spirit voices were such messages as "This is G!", "Hot dog, Art!", and "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all". Von Szalay and Bayless' work was published by the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research in 1959. Bayless later went on to co-author the 1979 book, Phone Calls from the Dead.

In 1959, Swedish painter and film producer Friedrich Jürgenson was recording bird songs. Upon playing the tape later, he heard what he interpreted to be his dead father's voice and then the spirit of his deceased wife calling his name. He went on to make several more recordings, including one that he said contained a message from his late mother.

In 1964, Raudive read Friedrich Jürgenson's book, Voices from Space, and was so impressed by it that he arranged to meet Jürgenson in 1965. He then worked with Jürgenson to make some EVP recordings, but their first efforts bore little fruit, although they believed that they could hear very weak, muddled voices. According to Raudive, however, one night, as he listened to one recording, he clearly heard a number of voices. When he played the tape over and over, he came to believe he understood all of them. He thought some of which were in German, some in Latvian, some in French. The last voice on the tape, according to Raudive, a woman's voice, said "Va dormir, Margarete" ("Go to sleep, Margaret").

Raudive later wrote in his book Breakthrough:

"These words made a deep impression on me, as Margarete Petrautzki had died recently, and her illness and death had greatly affected me."

Raudive started researching such alleged voices on his own and spent much of the last ten years of his life exploring EVP. With the help of various electronics experts he recorded over 100,000 audiotapes, most of which were made under what he described as "strict laboratory conditions." He collaborated at times with Bender. 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)

In 1971, Pye Records Ltd. invited Raudive to their sound lab and installed special equipment to block out any radio and television signals which they could detect at that time. They would not allow Raudive to touch any of the equipment. Raudive used one tape recorder which was monitored by a control tape recorder. All he could do was speak into a microphone. They taped Raudive's voice for eighteen minutes and none of the experimenters heard any other sounds. But when the scientists played back the tape, to their amazement, they heard over two hundred voices on it. Observers accepted the validity of EVP since some voices addressed Raudive as his nickname, "Kosti" or "Koste," and Raudive's deceased sister said her name three times "Tekle."

Consequently, English edition of the book "Break through" was published. In the next year, more controlled experiment was took place. The 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 that had just been shipped from the factory was used. However, 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."

EVP Continued: Konstantine Raudive

Well, is there such phenomenon? So many people have researched EVP since its long history (about 40 years). The most famous person who cooperated with scientific research would be Konstantine Raudive.

He contacted Jürgenson after reading his two books, and asked him to demonstrate some of his tapes to a small private audience. Jürgenson is one who tried to spread the study of this phenomenon worldwide for the first time. Since the demonstration was successful, Raudive started some research with Jürgenson on his estate in order to gain some personal experience. Soon Raudive started his own experiments in 1965. His classic research Unhoerbares Wird Hoerbar (The Inaudible Becomes Audible) was published based on 72,000 voices he recorded. Several things happened when it was translated into English.

On 16th November 1969, Peter Bander, who tried to introduce the English translation of this German book, was assailed by the gravest doubts. At that time, publisher Colin Smythe told him that he experimented on a tape recorder following the procedures outlined in Konstantine Raudive's book, and mentioned that at one particular point, a certain rhythm was clearly audible and also a voice but he could not make sense of it. When Bander played it back, he heard nothing. Then he rewound it and let it play. After about ten minutes, he got the following conclusion:

"I noticed the peculiar rhythm mentioned by Raudive and his colleagues .., I heard a voice .... I believed this to have been the voice of my mother who had died three years earlier."

Bander and Smythe were working to publish the English version, "Breakthrough" without any doubt after this incident. However, unexpected interference came from the English vice prime minister in those days. He told them that he would ruin their company if they insist to publish such junk, evil book. Then, Bander and Smythe proposed to have a controlled experiment with Raudive, so that they can assert their rights to publish the book.