Electronic Voice Phenomenon (EVP)
Electronic Voice Phenomenon (EVP)
Preferred term for the phenomenon discovered by Friedrich Jürgenson in 1959 and extensively developed by the experiments of Konstantin Raudive (1909-1974). The phenomenon is often referred to as Raudive voices. Raudive voices, apparently from dead individuals, are electronically impressed on tape recordings made on standard apparatus (sometimes enhanced by a simple diode circuit). The voices have also been discovered on the "white noise" of certain radio bands. This discovery, backed by thousands of experiments, has been seen as a way of obtaining communications from dead persons through electronic apparatus instead of Spiritualist mediums. However, some experimenters believe that the voice phenomenon is ambiguous or capable of mundane explanation, such as being the result of radio sources or even wishful thinking. George W. Meek developed an apparatus, the "spiricom," for use in testing the possibilities of more unambiguous Raudive voice data.
Sources:
Bander, Peter. Carry On Talking: How Dead are the Voices? Colin Smythe, 1972. Reprinted as Voices from the Tapes: Recordings from the Other World. New York: Drake Publishers, 1973.
Ellis, D. J. The Mediumship of the Tape Recorder. Polborough, West Sussex, England: The Author, 1978.
Raudive, Konstantin. Breakthrough: An Amazing Experiment in Electronic Communication. New York: Taplinger, 1971.