Tune in Your Radio to Hear Voices of the Dead

Horror films are more than popular. Those who like to feel the rush of adrenaline in their blood are especially fond of horror films that are allegedly based on real events. Communicating with the dead has been one of the most popular horror themes for decades. There is a separate branch in the theme – when a film character communicates with ghosts via radio signals. The phenomenon has a scientific name – the electric voice phenomenon (EVP).

There are plenty of online resources dedicated to this phenomenon. The most distinctive movie of the genre, White Noise, describes a miserable widower who traces radio interferences day and night and discovers messages from the other world once in a while.

Many scientists tried to establish a connection with the other world using various technical devices. In 1920, Thomas Edison put forward an idea that our ego, transferring to the other world, had to preserve its ability to affect matter even from there. If this is the case, then sensitive equipment would be able to register these effects, it just has to be invented. This original idea was used as the epigraph for White Noise.

Friedrich Jürgenson, a Swedish documentary film maker, is one of the most famous researchers of EVP. He accidentally tape-recorded the voices of his diseased relatives. Dr Konstantin Raudive, a Latvian psychologist, was Jürgenson’s supporter and follower. They conducted numerous experiments together, and Raudive soon realized that the best results can be achieved when the recording process is accompanied by white noise. He believed that the dead are somehow using this noise transforming it into sounds of their voices.

The sound of electronic voices usually vibrates at high frequency. The phrase rhythm of electronic voices is also unusual and supernatural. The tempo of speech is generally faster than normal.

Another typical feature of these voices is monotony. The most intriguing part of the phenomenon is that a person who encounters EVP recognizes the voices of her diseased relatives without fail, provided the record is of good quality.

Is it self-deception or reality? A simple experiment will help to find out. All you need is a recording radio with AM/FM reception and headphones to hear electronic voices.

Take a clean audio cassette, insert it in the radio and put your headphones on. Then turn on the radio and look for empty frequencies. You need to find a space between two radio stations when you can clearly hear static but cannot hear radio stations.

Try to relax, press the “record” button and ask those who are dead to talk to you. Do not try to hear the voices while you are recording, it will not happen.

Three to five minutes later, stop the recording and rewind. Start listening with the level of the volume at 20%. Then regulate the volume to a more comfortable level. Concentrate on the sounds of static, get used to them so you can tell the moment when the homogeneity of the sounds is slightly disturbed. Be attentive.

When you listen to it for the first time, notice the timing of the unusual sounds. When you listen to it again, carefully study these moments. Then rewind and listen again, paying particular attention to the most “suspicious” moments.

You will notice a strange thing. The more you listen to the recording, the more clear the “suspicious” moments will sound, as if they are developing. However, do not make premature conclusions since these sounds may have explainable origins, e.g., neighbors’ voices or other noises.

Naturally, such experiments require certain persistence and courage, especially considering the ill fate of White Noise main character.

Egor Dymov