If you leave a tape recorder in a house with "ghosts", will you really hear voices?

Question

i was just wondering because i saw this whole thing on discovery channel with them doing that

Answer 1

yes it is called EVP and it does work. Electronic voice phenomenon. just listen really carefully and be observant on what was going on around you while you were taking this recorder. You will not get a disembodied voice every time you record so have patience.

Answer 2

Yes you will but you will need special gear and luck.

Answer 3

I've done just that on numerous occasions while I was out... guess what sounds I recorded... voices, but not really human like yours or mine... sort of like an animal trying to fake it...in fact these ghosts talk to me in front of other people but no one else hears... isn't that odd?  My friends and family think I'm nuts and that I should have my head examined, haa!

By the way, these voices that I record are able to cut right through any other sounds that may be in the immediate area... I think my ghosts are creatures though... not deceased humans... maybe deceased extraterrestrials because I never see who they are~~~

Answer 4

According to legend.

But in reality what you'll get is a lot of normal house noises interspersed in the white noise of the (usually) poor signal-to-noise ratio of the recorder. The quality in general is bad enough that the power of suggestion is enough to convince many people that they hear words in all that mess.

Answer 5

It is the tv ghostbuster people doing the voices. There are many people needed to film a show. Many people. You think it could just be one of these guys and not a dead person?

They need to catch stuff now and then to justify the need for their employment or to stay famous.

Think if the ghost busters and Most Haunted found nothing week after week.

Answer 6

yes its an evp.  watch Ghost Hunters on sci-fi chanell wednesdays

Answer 7

There is an American Association of EVP http://www.aaevp.com/

where you can listen to examples and learn more about this.

They are of course believers in this activity.

I suspect that any recording left on for any amount of time will detect noises that you don't normally hear. A sensitive enough microphone and taping equipment can easily pick up up squirrels, insects and other house noises one normally tunes out.

I agree that large amounts of static can cause people to fill in what they want to hear. The suggestion for a controlled experiment was refreshing to see as an answer.

However, not listening to those who study the paranormal or to skeptics is (to me) a little like saying don't read a chemistry book or get instruction just start mixing chemicals and find out for your self what happens when you mix things together. I believe you should keep an open mind to both sides and learn what you can from anywhere you can. I also believe you should certainly experiment (when possible and safe) and find out for your self.

That said let me add the suggestion to use a high quality microphone (idealy a music studio mic but they can be pricey) and a high end metal recording tape. Ideally on an excellent recorder (such as you might find on a high end stereo system) This should help eliminate white noise (static). If you can't afford this (or borrow it) then anything will work for a controlled experiment following proper procedure.

This static EVP problem has always been an EVP flaw that can be over come. I myself would also like to see EVP tried with CD recorders. Pure digital recorders (recorder to PC are mostly useless because they are so easy to fake).

Michael John Weaver, M.S., Director

New Mexico Anomaly Society

http://nmas.freeservers.com

Answer 8

Years ago I engaged in a months long investigation of such a claim by a man in Florida.  I finally heard his tape.  He said if he left the recorder on and went to sleep, it would pick up voices from beyond.  It did.  It was picking up voices from nearby Interstate 95.  I recognized them as CB transmissions, since I had used a CB radio quite a bit several years earlier. But his eagerness to believe and to become a celebrity in the world of the paranormal blinded him to the obvious.

   From listening to the short, faint, and mostly garbled transmissions, I was able to tell that there was some highway construction going on nearby.  Sure enough, he told me there was, about a mile south of his house, (which BTW, was only about 100 yards from the highway.)

   So yeah, you might get voices.  CB or sometimes airplane communications will bleed over.  But if it doesn't work for you, take it to someone's house near a major interstate and you will get ghosts galore.

Answer 9

yeah it can happen. but it depends on where it is and how much paranormal activity there is, i wish i could give u a name on what its called but i dont remember, sorry :)

Answer 10

The Discovery Channel embarrasses itself.Shows like that cater to the superstitious and uninformed.It's simple ratings,unfortunately.Pro-ghost= ratings,Scientific investigations that show how silly these things are=no ratings.The answer is no,of course.

Answer 11

You hear claims about this type of thing all the time, but what you never seem to hear about is any actual controlled experiment to try to verify it.  An important part of a scientific experiment is to try to eliminate personal subjective bias; so it's not good enough just to tell somebody you think you hear somebody saying "help me" in the recording, and then ask if they hear it too.  Most people will say "Yes!" just because of the power of suggestion.

A controlled scienctific experiment might go something like this:

1) Generate some recordings in the settings which are claimed to capture spiritual voices.

2) Generate some similar-sounding recordings, but "inject" some faint voices into them.

3) Generate some recordings that sound similar, but which definitely do NOT contain any spiritual voices.  (One way to do this might be to generate them using a computer program whose output is precisely predictable so that no spiritual voices can "sneak in.")

4) Get a group of 20 volunteer listeners.  Have each one of them listen to all of the recordings, ALONE in a room, without conversing with any of the other volunteers or experimenters.  Don't tell them which recordings belong to which category.  Let them rewind the recordings and listen to them as many times as they want.  Have each volunteer write a report of each recording, telling whether they heard voices and, if so, what the voices were saying.

If the evp phenomenon is real, as opposed to just mental pattern-matching, then the results you should expect are these:

* Volunteers would hear more "voices" in Category 1 recordings than in Category 3 recordings;

* Volunteers would tend to agree about what the "voices" are saying in the Category 1 recordings.

(The Category 2 recordings would act as a "control," to demonstrate that the volunteer is able to hear voices when voices are known to be in the recording).

Alas, I seriously doubt that you'll ever hear about any such experiment like this on the Discovery Channel.  It is much more fun--and better for ratings--to just believe in something spooky than to investigate it properly.  Unfortunately, the popular media likes to pretend they're being scientific, while at the same time completely ignoring the most basic rules of scientific investigation.  Rules which (at least in my generation) kids had learned by the 6th grade--but which, in today's world, most Americans seem not to have a clue about.  We seem to have forgotten how to tell the difference between what makes sense and what doesn't...now THAT'S spooky!

Answer 12

No it is not possible otherwise existance of Ghosts could have been confirmed.It was a fake presentation.

Answer 13

I think its c**p but you try it and get back to us on that one. good luck

Answer 14

Voice happens in conflict by the air. No substance has no friction in the air, just as your wise flatulent sound in the universe without air.

Answer 15

Yes and they also write in the Web (of spiders too)

Answer 16

A ghost would have no matter and no vocal chords, and hence no way to produce vibrations of sounds waves in the air - so the answer is NO.

Answer 17

if you leave a tape recorder in a house with "ghosts" and those ghosts are tocking, then you will here them.  that is pretty well known, that is why there are plenty of recordings of ghosts.  you can do it too, and you will also have a recording of ghosts.

Answer 18

Yupper, the only trouble is they always shut the bluidy thing off!

Answer 19

Allegedly that will happen.

I have no idea if that is true or not.

Answer 20

There is a knack to seeing ghosts that you can learn. The way you look at a 3D magic eye picture is the same with seeing spirits according to Psychic Medium and British Ghost Hunt host Sue Treanor. Here are Sue’s top tips for ghost-hunters: http://www.psychic-junkie.com/real-photo...

Answer 21

I tried a few times and got nothing but normal household noises. I know someone who has, and he warns to beware if you are recording, because about 70% of them are really nasty and hostile and sometimes directed directly toward the person recording. It can be kind of freaky.

Like TR said, many people just record white sound, and with distortion they imagine that it is a voice. I have heard them recorded well enough that they are destincly voices speaking clear statements, but I wasnt there when they were recorded, so yes, it could have been faked.

Honestly I am split on EVPs.

Check out this site though, I used to sell this guy (Shane Sirois) cameras and he seems pretty intelligent.

Answer 22

That would depend on many things. When reviewing the recording be objective, don't assume everything you hear is something paranormal. Keeping in mind paranormal only means unexplainable. I would suggest if you do this to try and use an electrical recorder. Don't become discourage if you hear nothing the paranormal world does not work on cue. just try again at another time. The best thing to do is find out for yourself. Don't listen to those who study the paranormal or a skeptic.

addition: if you sway toward one side or the other your objectivity will suffer. So yes it is better to listen to yourself with no outside influences. and regardless what others may think doing a recording and how you listen to the results has nothing to do with making foolish and dangerous mistakes.

Answer 23

Yes.  Your mind will fill in familiar patterns to the sounds in the static on the recorder and you will percieve them as voices.  Kind of like seeing shapes of animals in the clouds.