I have always been sort of a skeptic, but recent experiences have convinced me that something out of the ordinary is going on. Being from a technical background, I am perplexed at how the voices appear in the recordings when no apparant sound is present. Of course a magnetic field could do it and I know that people theorize a magnetic nature to spirits, but it would require a very powerful field indeed. You can see this effect by putting your tape machine near an electrical device and record a "buzz", but this noise is not as strong as some voices I've heard.
Also, I've seen that the spirits can impress their voice on one tape machine while another...only inches away...detects nothing. If it is a magnetic force with enough power to impress the tape....then how can it be so focused as to only affect the one tape? The principles of magnetism and electrical fields do not support this theory......then HOW do they do it...anyone have any ideas?

Hi Ty, welcome to SpiritKeep. =)

Well, I am not a sound engineer, nor do I know the technical information about how sound is recorded. However, I do know that EVPs are actual sounds, they're just out of our hearing range. (Below 300 Mhz - or something like that - I don't recall the actual number.)

As for the one recorder picking up the EVP and another not picking it up, perhaps it's the quality of the recorder or tape (if it isn't digital). I really don't know.

I'm sorry I couldn't be of more help... maybe someone else will know more. =)

Kell

Thanks for your reply KellKell. =) and while you as you said are not a "sound engineer"....the problem is...I AM an engineer...worked for years in TV and recording studios. Actually....the hearing range of the human ear extends from 20 Hertz to 20,000 Hertz ...hertz meaning...cycles per second. Devices like TV's and audio equipment have a frequency range (range of frequencies that they are sensitive to or can pick up) which is designed to mimic the same range as the human ear. The voices of "spirits" since they cannot be heard by our ears should not be able to impress on the device either since its range of sensitivity mimics ours. These voices are not "sounds". The recorder does not incorporate any means (frequency doublers or dividers) to change the frequency of any signal arriving at its microphone. In other words if a signal at say 300Mhz (300 million cycles per second) hit the microphone....even if it were to be recorded...which it could not since its outside the frequency response of the device....we could not hear it upon being played back...because it would be recorded at 300Mhz....again....outside our range of hearing. I have heard these misconceptions that the voices are actual sounds outside our range of hearing repeated over and over......but take it from me....and I'm not "talking out of school" so to speak......the ghost voices ARE NOT actual sounds, at least not in our way of understanding. All manner of signals from very low frequencys lower than we can hear all the way up to light waves are all just sinusoidal signals of different frequency. Our eyes and ears are evolved to detect only a minute portion of this spectrum.........I believe these spirits or whatever they are have qualities or capabilities outside the range of our senses.....what the exact answer is...maybe we'll never know....anyone else have any ideas? =)

I know that sometimes when you record, the playback has static that the human ear did not hear when the recording was made. How does that happen?

I've always thought that an EVP is more of an manipulation of energy around the recorder than an actual sound - much like spirits drain batteries, maybe they are manipulating whatever it is that makes the static to form the words they want to say. Does that sound possible?

Hi Connie... =) thanks for your interest! Thats not a simple question to answer....but here goes.....what we hear as "static", was not a "sound" that entered the microphone and was recorded. Recording is a complicated process...even the cheapest tape or digital recorder uses hundreds to even thousands of solid state electronic devices called transistors which are essentially solid state switches....acting kind of like a water faucet.....slowing down or speeding up and/or shutting on/off the flow of electrons which make up the small electric currents used to actually record sound. The "static" you hear is actually a by-product of the recording process.....generated internally to the device.....the actual background flow of current when no other sounds are being recorded....made audible by the device.....high end recorders incorporate circuits that reduce or eliminate this annoyance. In a way though.....I think you're on the right track.......somehow the spirits are manipulating energy (maybe in some form we do not yet understand) to bring about these phenomenon. You know....our sum of knowledge continually grows.....and there are yet many many things we do not understand.....maybe one day we will understand how this works....if this is in fact spirits of the dead....speaking....if we can understand and master the knowledge.....would it be far fetched to imagine that one day in the future.....living people using some device to routinely speak to loved ones who have passed on? hmmmmmmm makes you think...huh? =) Ty

Thomas Edison attempted such a machine. The questions now are, was it ever finished and where are the machine and plans now? Here's a link to what I'm talking about:

http://www.prairieghosts.com/oh-milan.html[/URL]

I'm no expert on paranormal phenomena by any means, but I do know a bit about electronics, and I also believe that spirits manifest themselves as, and have the ability to manipulate, electromagnetic fields. There are many accounts of this, such as unplugged lights and TVs operating, phones ringing, and voices recorded onto tapes where no sound was heard during the recording.

In reality, recorders don't record sound, they record electromagnetic signals. They contain devices to convert sound into electricity (microphone), and another device to convert the electricity back into sound (speaker), but the guts of the recorder are acting on electrical signals, not sound waves. These electrical signals are then stored on a tape by converting them to a magnetic field, or converted into digital ones and zeros and written onto a memory chip, disc, or tape (in the case of digital recorders).

I believe when spirits "speak" using EVP, they are manipulating the electromagnetic field around the recorder in such a way that the electronics pick up the signal (which is in essence interference) and record it on the medium. The microphone doesn't come into play at all, unless it's acting as an "antenna".

It's similar to how radios pick up signals from the air. In fact, if you've ever been "lucky" enough to live near an AM radio tower, or near some punk with a boosted CB radio, you've probably heard their voices come in over your stereo, TV, telephone, etc. It's the same idea. The electromagnetic waves from the transmitting tower interact with the circuits in the device, which then amplify and convert it into sound. Spirits do the same thing, but on a smaller scale. They are like tiny radio stations.

Some people think that the spirit somehow impresses their voice directly onto a tape. I don't believe it works this way, since you still have to be recording to get anything, and since EVP also works with digital recorders, I doubt a spirit would be able to manipulate digital data to impress a voice on a tape. More likely they're doing it at the analog stage, interfering with the mic preamp or something, which then gets their voice recorded.

Hi Kevin,
Thanks for you message! Good to hear from a fellow "techy". I think you may be on to something.....the concept is interesting.....of course it seems every question only generates more questions rather than answers. Who knows if we are even able to comprehend what is going on...it may be like a caveman trying to understand a rocketship...if you will. I do find of particular interest what Connie says about a device Thomas Edison was working on....thanks to her as well! Any other people with ideas out there?