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Eliminating
Radio Frequency Contamination for EVP
by Bill
Weisensale
The most common explanation for the source
of the voices in EVP that is offered by
people who have not studied the evidence, is
that they are caused by the audio recorder
picking up stray radio or television
signals. In fact, a number of well-designed
experiments have been conducted over the
years by very qualified people, to prove
that such stray radio frequency signals are
not the cause. Reports of two such
experiments are provided below.
There is also an experiment shown below that
was suggested by one such scientists as a
prerequisite to his accepting that EVP are
not stray electromagnetic (EM) signals. We
believe that nested metal containers, such
as the variety found in hobby stores,
separated one from another by foam rubber or
Styrofoam, would satisfy the requirement
while helping to rule out stray sounds.
From the AA-EVP Archive
Here is longtime researcher Bill
Weisensale’s response to concerns expressed
by Dr Karlis
Osis, with the American Society for
Psychical Research, about eliminating
mundane causes for EVP.
From Bill Weisensale’s article in the May
1981 Spirit Voices:
In early 1975 …
the controversy was still raging as to
whether EVP voices arrived via acoustical or
electromagnetic means. (It is generally
accepted now that neither is the case.) At
the time this was most perplexing. It seemed
reasonable to believe that if EVP arrived by
electromagnetic signal, a radio receiver
would be required in all cases, and
yet some methods did not involve any form of
radio receiver. Conversely, if they were of
an acoustic nature, then all methods
would, of necessity, require the use of a
microphone, and yet there were some methods
that do not involve a microphone.
I reasoned either
the voices had to be both acoustic and
electromagnetic, depending upon the method
of recording, which seemed very unlikely, or
they had to arrive by some other kind of
energy, which was of neither electromagnetic
nor acoustic in nature. (We have come to
call this PK energy, for lack of a better
explanation.) In order to find out which was
the case, I used a (steel) 50 gallon drum
with a removable lid …
 I
brought the drum into the house, laid it on
its side on a wooden pallet, and blocked the
sides to prevent it from rolling. Next, very
small holes were drilled in the drum and
lid. A piece of heavy wire, with a solder
terminal, was then bolted to the drum and
run out through a window where another
solder terminal and bolt were used to attach
the wire to a steel stake driven into the
ground. A second wire and solder terminal
was attached to the lid and soldered to the
first wire. All connections, drum to wire,
lid to wire, wire to wire, and stake to
wire, were checked with an ohmmeter to
ensure there was no resistance and
everything was properly grounded. Before
doing the experiments, water was poured
around the steel stake to ensure proper
grounding.
In the initial
experiment, which was to check the
efficiency of the shield, a battery powered
radio receiver was tuned to a strong
station, the volume set rather high, and
placed inside he drum. A battery powered
tape recorder was then connected via patch
cord to the radio, also placed inside the
drum and the lid bolted into place for
several minutes.
Upon removing the
recorder and reviewing the tape, it was
found that the station was quite clear with
the lid off, but when the lid was bolted
into place, the station totally
disappeared and its presence could no longer
be discerned even with the closest
listening. We then adjusted the radio to
between station static, listening carefully
to be sure there were no distant stations
present, placed the radio in the drum with
the recorder and made several recordings
with the lid bolted in place each time.
We found the
voices appeared inside of the shield just as
they did with no shielding. Also, since the
radio and recorder were connected via patch
cord and there was therefore no microphone
involved, this experiment eliminated (to at
least my own satisfaction) both the acoustic
and the electromagnetic hypotheses.
----------------------------
The May 1981
Spirit Voices and other newsletters are
being added to the AA-EVP online document
archive as time allows. We are currently up
to Spring 1987 with the AA-EVP newsletters.
Remember that access to the Archive is a
benefit of membership. We highly recommend
that you take advantage of this growing
library of historical EVP and ITC documents.
A
Suggested Experiment
Initially published in the Fall 2004 AA-EVP
NewsJournal
 Parapsychologist,
Professor Charles Tart, was interviewed by
The Psychic Times, a new British
publication that is already proving itself
antagonistic to EVP. In the article, Tart
was quoted to argue that EVP is stray radio,
and that we who study in this field have not
demonstrated the necessary research
discipline to produce the kind of credible
evidence that he can take to other
scientists.
www.thepsychictimes.com/articles/tart.htm.
The diagram is of a shielded
recording compartment, EVP from which would
answer Tart’s objections. It provides more
shielding than a metal can or microwave, but
it is not as readily available. We would
like to talk to someone who might be able to
make one, or who might have one. If
possible, we would like to send one to a
number of different experimenters in serial
fashion, so that many examples can be
collected in the compartment. Please let us
know if you can help.
MacRae has a Second Article in the JSPR
Initially published in the Winter 2006 AA-EVP NewsJournal
The October 2005 issue of the Journal of the Society for
Psychical Research included a second article by Alexander MacRae. In this one,
Alec details the EVP experiments he conducted in the Institute of Noetic
Sciences screen room. Remember that the JSPR is a refereed, peer-review journal
and that the article necessarily meets the SPR’s high standard for thoroughness
and documentation. Here is the abstract:
Report of an
Electronic Voice Phenomenon Experiment
inside a Double-Screened Room
By Alexander MacRae
Abstract
An Electronic Voice Phenomenon (EVP)
experiment is described which took place in a laboratory screened against e.m.
radiation and also acoustically isolated. The subsequent treatment of the
results through sound-processing is outlined, and the final analysis of the
results through the use of a unique multiple-choice system is described.
Comparative spectrograms of one EVP utterance and the same thing spoken in
normal speech are provided to assess the physical basis of the results. The
conclusion is drawn that voices of no natural origin were received in the
screened laboratory.
Logical Argument That EVP are not Stray Radio Signals
EVP are considered
communication and we recommend that any possible EVP that cannot be understood,
or if it is understood it does not make sense, be discarded. EVP are expected to
have a beginning and end as a complete thought. Most often, the utterance will
be a response to a question or a comment about something occurring in the
environment. It is expected that the voice will be clearly male or female of
reasonably discernable age. In the cases that the voice is thought to be from a
particular person, it is reasonable for the voice and mannerism to be
recognizable as being from that person. Finally, the voice will be in a language
understood by the experimenter or an interested witness.
If EVP were stray radio
signals, then it would be expected that at least some messages should be
portions of statements with missing syllables. It would also be expected that
the message would have frequent commercial references and should not be composed
of unrelated statements. In instances of EVP recorded in non-English speaking
countries, for instance, the messages would be expected to be in that different
language.
It is true that some
audio recorders are able to record nearby, strong radio signals as cross-talk,
but in each case that we have examined, truncated, nonsensical or commercial
messages have made it clear that the recording was not a genuine EVP.
To all who record for EVP:
We believe that it is better to discard a message
than to force meaning out of what might not actually be
an EVP.
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