One of the hottest things in the world of the paranormal is the EVP. EVP stands for Electronic Voice Phenomenon Paranormal investigators have insisted for years, that it is possible to record the voices of the dead talking to the living under certain circumstances. People are starting to pay attention to this and many are trying this themselves. But how can the ordinary person do this? Supposedly this is very easy to do and all you need is a recorder, any type of recorder. I heard this explained by a paranormal investigator on TV. He stated that for some reason the voices of spirits are not in the range of human hearing but can be picked up by recording devices. I still don't understand this explanation because how could we hear the playback, but lets continue? EVPs are getting so popular that Hollywood decided to release a movie about them. It will be out this month and stars Michael Keaton. The title of the movie is White Noise. The movie is about a man whose wife died and he is contacted by someone who has made recordings of her voice, after her death. So much for the movie.

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Paranormal investigators state anyone can get an EVP but sometimes you can go for long periods of time without getting one. First, let me make this clear, I have no opinion on EVPs. I guess in this area you would call me a skeptic, but on the other hand there are an awful lot of people that claim they have gotten EVPs. Some even claim they got them by accident. Channel 4 news ran a new program featuring Rob Low (not the actor) reporting on EVPs. It featured a man and woman who claim to have recorded over 500 EVPs in the last couple of years. They claim that sometimes the voices are interactive and this proves that something is aware of the human presence. But not only voices show up on tape, voices that were not heard by humans at the time they were recorded, but also music, and in the case of the tv report, banjo music.

There is an organization in the United States that is growing every year, it is the American Association of Electronic Voice Phenomena. The president of the organization has been reported as saying she has recorded over 20,000 EVPs. It has also been reported that some of the EVPs contain voices of aliens. I have no way to verity this report but I am simply reporting what was said by others about this. But I guess if there are aliens that they would have to die also, giving us the opportunity for alien EVPs. This organization is at least partially responsible for the rapid growth in the interest in EVPs.

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Thomas Edison, the famous inventor, had worked on a machine to contact the dead. Scientific American Magazine had interviewed Edison and the reporter had asked him if it would be possible to build a machine to contact the dead? It is thought that he felt this was possible but no evidence exists that such a machine was ever constructed. Could it be he build it and it so scared him that he destroyed it immediately? Might he have received a message that he didn't care for? But I have to say that as far as the world is concerned the machine was never built.

How do the skeptics rebut the EVP recordings? Skeptics will say that the recordings were staged, came from interference from radio stations or tv stations, were telephone calls picked up from satellites or other sources, or just misinterpreted sounds not words. It is true that we are bombarded with radio waves coming from everywhere. As time moves along more and more devices use this waves for communication. Might some of these waves get picked up by a recorder if the atmospheric conditions are just right? It might be possible. Given the fact that so many people want to believe in life after death it is easy to see how misinterpretation of sound to words can take place. But is every single EVP in error or a fraud? I don't know for sure but I guess I would have to admit that some, a very few, are not explainable. These would be ones taken with a brand new tape in the presence of a large amount of people, in a place where everything was checked out for electronic gadgets first, and where the message recorded contained the name of the person recording it. Some scientists explain these EVPs as the product of our own brains. Somehow we can unconsciously record a message on tape. This doesn't seem to account for hearing a voice that we recognize on that tape, the voice of a deceased loved one.

When did EVPs actually start? Some give the credit to Fredrich Jurgenson in Sweden. It is said he was recording bird calls in the countryside and when he played back his tape he heard a man's voice on the tape speaking in Norwegian. He also heard other voices in different languages he understood. They seemed to be discussing bird song with him and even mentioned his name from time to time. There was no one with him at the time of the recordings and the recorder had a new tape. This is said to have happened in 1959.

So if you want to try to get an EVP, get your tape recorder with a new tape or your digital recorder and head to an area that you think you might have the best chance of getting this type of recording. I would try an historic place, cemetery, or even a room of your house where you suspect strange things have been going on. Good luck and happy ghost hunting.