Scientific effort (EVP)

EVP is the short word for Electronic Voice Phenomenon. EVP voices cannot be heard when a recording device such as tape-recorder is recording, but it can be heard when the tape is played back. The simplest form of the experiment is to adjust radio frequency between two stations where no signal can be detected. This setting produces white noise which includes wide range of frequency. Record this noise for one or two minutes after you ask some question. Repeat recording in this style. When you listen the recorded result after the experiment, you might hear something in the part when you were silent, and you sometimes notice the voices give you an answer for your question.

Well, is there such phenomenon? So many people have researched EVP since it has 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 ridiculous 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."

Isn't it merely subjective impression? Anyway, 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.

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 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.

What was going on during these experiments? Did paranormal phenomena actually occur? Don't you feel some truth in EVP?