GHOST SOLDIERS PARANORMAL EDUCATION

DEFINTIONS

EVP(ELECTRONIC VOICE PHENOMENON) A sound of voice that is heard on playback of a digital or analog audio recording device that was not there when recorded.

EMF(ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELD) A measurement of an electric field generated by all living things or electric devices.

GHOST HUNT:  An initial investigation into a location where there may or may not be spirit activity, with the aim of finding out wheter or not a full investigation is needed.

PARANORMAL INVESTIGATION:  A full investigation of a location that has been determined to be active with the end result being that evidence is produced to back up the claims of a haunting.

RESIDUAL HAUNTING:  A loop in time that gets played back over and over and does not react to stimulus.  A spirit or ghost that does not interact intelligently with anyone but merely goes thru the motions many times.

INTELLIGENT HAUNTING:  A spirit of ghost who interacts with people or animals and shows intelligence by its actions, trying to communicate or get the attention of living souls.

ECTOPLASM:  The substance believed by spiritulaists to expel from a medium who is communicating with the dead and resembles a cloud or mist.

ORB:  A ball of light that appears in photos or video and is considered by most to be a manifestation of a spirit or entity.

INFRARED LIGHT:  That portion of the light spectrum that is beyond "visible" light and represents a heat signature.  Used in night vision cameras.

Basic EVP Recording Technique

What is EVP?

Electronic Voice Phenomenon (EVP) are intelligible voices found in recording media that have no known physical explanation. Many of the voices are thought to originate from deceased people. This is the primary reason that people first began experimenting with EVP.

Characteristics of the Voices

The recorded voices may be very quiet and may be difficult to hear and understand. Most EVP experimenters say that they have developed an “ear” for the sounds after learning to distinguish them from background noise. In transform EVP, the voices can often be recognized as male or female, young or old. Messages are seldom longer than two to four words. The words may be spoken very quickly, and there is often a distinctive cadence to the voices. Analysis shows that they are simulations of voice made from whatever sound is supplied, and are often missing voice box frequencies and have oddly arranged formants.

Types of Recording

In controlled conditions recording, it is possible to control ambient noise and supply special forms of background noise. Auric energy is thought to accumulate in a “special” recording area, which is thought to help make contact. In field recording, it is difficult to control environmental conditions or supply background sound, but in known “haunted” locations, the energy helpful for contact may already be present.

EVP formed in an audio recorder by transforming available background sound is referred to as “transform EVP.” In this, it is sometimes possible to recognize the voice of the speaker. EVP Formed by sweeping a radio dial, or with a computer program such as EVPMaker, are referred to as “opportunistic EVP” because sounds for voice formation must be made available on an “as needed” basis. Radio sweep, and in some applications, EVPMaker, depend on the use of “live” voice. The AA-EVP will not use live voice examples for research because of the problem of undetected false positives. EVPMaker using synthesized voice is preferred for opportunistic EVP.

Environmentally stimulated speech synthesis is a relatively new and promising technique, but it should be noted that all speech synthesis approaches currently being tried do not support speaker recognition.

Recording Procedure

Recording Equipment—Digital voice recorders are recommended for transform EVP. Less expensive models produce more internal noise which is useful for voice formation. High quality units will probably require added background noise. A computer can also be used, but will probably require added noise.

Scheduling—Entities will speak at any time of day or night. In the beginning, however, it is advisable to record at a regular time and place. By doing this, the entities learn when there will be an opportunity for contact and expectation of the upcoming session helps focus attention on the process. Try to find a place that will be quiet and free of interruptions. Background sounds are okay, but it is important to be aware of these so that they can be distinguished from the EVP.

Background Sound Source—Research has shown that for transform EVP, the entities use sounds in the environment to help form the words. Most recording situations have some background sounds, but it may be necessary to add noise with something like a fan or running water. Some people use foreign language radio, crowd babble or audio tapes, but the AA-EVP discourages the use of radio static or live voice of any form.

Preparation—Begin with meditation and a short prayer to ask for only those intending the highest good and an invitation to friends on the other side to participate. It is best to recording when personal energy is the highest.

Recording—Vocalize your comments during an EVP session. The entities will often come through as soon as the recorder is turned on. These beginning messages may be the loudest, so it is a good idea to turn on the recorder and wait a few seconds before speaking. Questions should be recorded, and a period of time between each comment should be left for the entities to respond--about ten seconds. At the end, ask if the entity has something to say.

It may help to make an “appointment” with the intended entity the day before, during prayer or meditation. Some also provide feedback before the session so that the entities will know what worked in the last experiment. It is not necessary to record in the dark. People often try different devices and energy sources to help the entities communicate. Leaving written questions in the EVP experiment area the day before has worked for some.

Keep recording short. Recordings should be closely examined, at least until it is understood where to find the voices. A best practice for field recording is to use two recorders. As a rule, EVP will only occur on one recorder or sound track, making it possible to avoid mistaking local sounds for EVP (false positives).

Playback—In transform EVP, the voice is usually not heard until playback. Experimenters report that the voices tend to become stronger and clearer as the entities gain in experience, but at first the voices may speak in whispers. Voices may not be recorded in every session and it may take several sessions to discover the first voice. Hearing the voices is a learned ability. It might take thirty minutes to examine a three or four minute recording.

Classes of Voices—A Class A voice can be heard and understood over a speaker by most people. A Class B voice can be heard over a speaker, but not everyone will agree as to what is said. A Class C voice can only be heard with headphones and is difficult to understand. Class B or C voices may have one or two clearly understood words. Loud does not equal Class A.

Keeping a Log—Maintaining a record of recording results is very helpful. Include the date, time, seconds into the recording, the message itself and the question asked. Be sure to label and save the audio file so that they can be found at a later time. Experimenters report that they feel weather may affect results, but this has not been well studied. The aaevp.com site has geomagnetic and solar reports. There is also a link for moon phase information.

Digital Voice Recorders

Digital voice recorders are recommended for EVP experiments. Today, all sound tracks—digital or analog—should be listened to in a computer and with a headset. Unlike tape recorders, the built-in microphone is usually satisfactory for EVP. There is a selection guide for audio recorders here. The section includes a setup guide for Audacity, which is an effective audio management program that can be downloaded at no cost.

Computer Recording

A computer instead of a digital recorder can be used for recording EVP. It should have an audio input jack, speakers, headphone jack and sound player application such as Audacity. Most experimenters use the computer to analyze and store examples. If the recorder does not have a USB interface, it is possible to play the recording into the computer while recording with a recorder program. The Earphone jack of the recorder can be connected to the Microphone or Line 1 jack via a cable. The sound source should be set to the correct jack via the pull-down menu in Audacity. Recording with a sample rate of 11025, mono and 16 bit resolution is sufficient for EVP. Files should be edited as *.wav format, but shared as *.mp3.

Analyzing the Recording for EVP

Always use headphones when listening to the recording in a computer. The earmuff style that completely covers the ear is best, but also good are the soft rubber ear buds that are inserted in the channel of the ear.

Be sure to set up a method of saving your recordings in your computer that will allow you to easily locate examples. A good practice is to save the raw recording session in a dated folder and then also save clips containing the EVP in the same folder. Field recordings are saved under the name of the location and the date. It is helpful to keep a separate folder for your Class A examples for easy retrieval for demonstration to friends. The AA-EVP follows the labeling practice of: (c)lisa_butler2008-what_evp_says.mp3. The (c) symbol indicates the intention to protect rights to the example. Using first and last name helps sort many examples in the folder for easy retrieval. The underline and dash symbol with no use of capitals helps assure that computer systems and the Internet accept the name. A 200 kb audio file can be reduced to around 15 Kb when converted from a *.wav file to an *.mps file. This makes it easy for sharing files via the Internet.

In Closing

These guidelines represent the most common technique for recording transform EVP. EVP may occur in any technology that will record voice. With this in mind, it should be clear that there are no hard and fast rules. There is additional information at the http://aaevp.com, including membership information. The AA-EVP Idea Exchange (a benefit of AA-EVP membership) is excellent for asking questions and receiving help in analyzing examples.

AA-EVP is an association of people who are EVP and ITC experimenters and people who have an interest in this phenomenon. Membership helps fund efforts to bring information about EVP to the public. With the help of the public, the AA-EVP is also funding research via the Sarah Estep Research Fund, so please consider joining in this most important endeavor.

Selecting an Audio Recorder

Audio recorders models on the market frequently change, and for this reason, we do not recommend particular recorder models. Instead, we will try to provide a list of recommended characteristics and note specific model problems as we learn about them.

In general, an audio recorder that is effective for EVP will have the following characteristics:

Voice Activated Recording Mode: This is essential if you plan on making many recordings, say at a haunted site, and do not have a lot of time to review sound files. We prefer Voice Activated Recording (VOR) because it does save us considerable time for review, and because the added noise caused by the VOR switching on and off seems to help in voice formation. Interestingly, the communicating entity is apparently able to trigger VOR when it is ready to speak. A good recorder should give you the option of using VOR or not.

We have found that the Olympus DS2 has a relatively slow VOR that tends to clip the first part of first words.

Low and High Recording Quality Settings: Some studies have shown that digital voice recorders work best for EVP, as compared to cassette and disk recorders. They work about as well as reel-to-reel, but we think this is because of the use of vacuum tubes in reel-to-reel recorders. The same studies have shown that digital voice recorders, operating at relatively low sample rates, produce more EVP than at higher sample rates. The point of this is that low quality or long recording options usually have lower sample rates, therefore more internal noise and therefore more EVP.

(Please note that we recommend the use of inexpensive recorders because of the internal noise they have, but we also recommend that you try the higher quality recording option because some experimenters have produced very good EVP with high quality recorders, and when they do, the EVP is usually not as overshadowed by the background noise. Experiment!)

Adjustable Microphone Sensitivity: Field recording often involves recording in places with many people talking or a lot of traffic noise. It can be very difficult to avoid these external noises and they may be too much for EVP recording. Decreasing the sensitivity of the microphone may help. At the same time, there are occasions in which the recorder is not producing sufficient sound for voice formation, and the room is too quiet. Increasing the sensitivity of the microphone may help.

(By the way, some people are creative and do things such as putting the microphone end of the recorder in a box to capture the "sea in a shell" effect. Others sometimes rub the microphone against cloth. Be creative.)

A "Hold" or "Lock" Feature: Using this feature will save you many accidental recordings that can use up your batteries.

Interface to a Computer: Newer audio recorders provide a USB port for transferring audio files to a computer; however, if the recorder does not provide a way to save the files as a Windows PCM (*.wav) file format, then we recommend the use of a cable between the earphone jack and the Mic In of the computer, and then the use of an audio management program to record audio files into the computer. See Recording Sound into a Computer for instructions.

Quality Enhancement Features: Some recorders have settings that allow you to "enhance" the recordings to optimize voice quality. The features use special algorithms that enhance some frequencies and suppress others. We are not very familiar with these features, but it may be wise to make sure that, if your recorder has such a feature, it also has a way to turn it off.

Save audio as mp3 or Windows PCM (*.wav) files: We have learned that some recorders that allow transfer of audio files via a USB connection save only as WMA formatted files. WMA is proprietary and Audacity will not open a WMA file. Some Olympus recorders are this way. Be sure that your recorder will save in a format that you can open with your audio manager. See the Audacity setup instructions for a format conversion tool.

======================================

These are the main considerations when purchasing an audio recorder for EVP. We no longer recommend the use of a cassette recorder, although experimenters have used them for years before computers became available. If you just want to see if you can record an EVP, and only have a cassette recorder available, then us it. It will work. When using a digital recorder, remember that you will need to use your digital recorder with a computer for file storage and analysis.

Anything that can record voice will work. You can use a cell phone, the sound track for your video recorder or your mp3 player/recorder. Just remember that the rule of thumb is: The higher the quality of audio recorder, the more you will need to supply background sound.

Panasonic RR-DR60 Reset Instructions

Provided by James Jones

I received a DD DR60 in the mail today and when putting batteries in the unit it would not record because it showed that the recorder was "full" even though there wasn't one file being saved. I found out that the unit just needed to be reset because if it is without batteries for a long time it can get confused the next time you put batteries in. Apparently there is some kind of flash memory in there that doesn't depend on battery power and once you put some new ones in if things don't match up properly, it gets confused.

I was able to reset the unit by taking out one battery, then holding the "mode" button and the push button "Play" wheel down while inserting the battery. This reset the unit and now it works.

I found this procedure on the paperwork included with the unit.

ITC Recording Technique

Steps in recording Video ITC

A Brief Discussion of the Pictures

The ITC images described by Lisa provides an interesting study in ITC photography.  The initial video was taken with a Cannon 8mm ES2000 analog camcorder set about six inches from a Sony KV20TS32, 20 inch Trinitron color TV.  The camera was focused just beyond the screen surface and the composite video out of the camera was connected to the video input of the TV so that the camera was “seeing” its output in a video loop.  The camera was zoomed so that about five inches of the screen was revealed to the camera.

The resulting video clip was loaded into a computer and Pinnacle Systems Studio DC10 Plus was used for review.  The video was examined frame by frame and interesting frames were captured as individual pictures.  Figure 1 is an example of these “grabbed” video frames.  Because we were focused on an area of the screen that had a lot of optical texture, the resulting frames tended to be dark.  The screen was also flashing from light to dark.  While this seems to have given us ITC, it has also frustrated our attempts to display the images with our method of printing this newsletter.

We sent two of the more interesting frames to AA-EVP member, Erland Babcock, who edited them to produce Figure 2.  Erland uses editing software that came with his Toshiba PDR-M70 digital camera and it is more effective than any of the editors we use.  Lisa had seen other possibilities in Figure 1, but I was focused on what looks like a full-bust image of a man in the middle of the frame.  If you look at the upper left quadrant of the Figure 1, you can see that I have highlighted what looks like a hat.  Figure 2 is that region enlarged and enhanced.  With this image, and other renditions not shown, you can see a man wearing a hat.  It looks like he has a full beard.  There is evidence of blue sky above him and shrubbery at his right.  His shoulders may also be visible.

It is important to note that the resolution of the original frame should not support the fine shading of the shape of the hat.  In other words, I believe that the ITC image has higher resolution than the original frame.  Also, if this were an illusion, we would expect to more often see other familiar objects.  Erland has pointed out to us that he has captured pastoral scenes and what looks like aerial views of land and water.  But we are mostly collecting faces, which raises the question again, why faces, why whole faces and who are they?

We have included an image showing a full head of a person in Figure 3.  The original frame was almost completely black, so what is shown here is an enhancement.  It is hard to tell, but the person looks a lot like an extraterrestrial standing in front of a round window.

Figure 1
a full video frame
Figure 2
This picture was cropped from the frame in Figure 1 from the area marked with a white box. The intensity and contrast has been changed in a photo editor to make the feature more visible. No color has been added.
Figure 3
A feature that has been cropped from a different video frame that was almost black before the intensity was changed in a photo editor.
 
Figure 4
Typical texture in video frame when the camera is three to five inches from the television screen. Notice that you can see the texture of the pixels. All of the examples in Butler Gallery 1 and 2 in the Examples pages were collected with the camera very close to the screen. You will notice that the pixels tend to dominate the features. (Please note that the framer has been rotated 90 degrees.
Figure 5
Typical texture in video frame when the camera about three feet from the television screen. Notice that you do not see the texture of the pixels. All of the examples in Butler Gallery 3 in the Examples pages were collected with the camera three feet from the screen. You will notice that the features tend to be softer in texture.
Steps in recording Video ITC

We use what is known as the Schreiber method for Video ITC. The technique of connecting the output of a video camera to the input of a television set, and then taping the video noise that can be seen on the television screen, was apparently first developed for Schreiber by Martin Wenzel.

1. Preparing the Video Loop: Position the camera about three feet in front of the television screen. Connect the Video-Out of the Camera to Video-In of the television and select Video-In on the television set. Aim the camera at the television set and slowly adjust the focus, and zoom until the dark to light flashing is visible on the television screen, with cloudy or foggy texture in various colors during the bright flashes. The focus should be six to twelve inches past the surface of the screen when the equipment is ready to record. The most important objective is to see swirling clouds.

2. Preparing Yourself: Follow the same preparatory process you use for EVP sessions. Remember that there are nonphysical entities who are present and able to “witness” your activity. Consider using the same music each time as a “signature” or “signpost,” indicating that preparation for a session is underway. Also consider conducting a short meditation or prayer.

After meditation, we change from music to the background sound that we use for EVP. The background sound of white noise is used because we always listen to the video sound track. Also, an IC recorder is usually recording during the sessions. This, of course, is optional. Speaking out loud, we talk to our team about the last session and discuss the various successes or failures of that experiment. Asking for their assistance in bringing the images through, we announce that we are going to begin the experiment. This is all done just as if they were standing in the room with us. Each session brings different discussions and questions. Ask for information on how to improve the experiments, and for specific people to show themselves in the video.

The experimenter is part of the circuit and we feel that meditation and/or prayer helps bring the experimenter into a more balanced state. This helps to focus the experimenter’s intention and better helps those on the other side create a link to the experimenter.

3. Conducting the Experiment: Speaking out loud, tell the entities that you are about to begin recording. State what you wish to see in your video frames, and perhaps, offer feedback about the previous experiment. Turn on the equipment and wait a few seconds for the feedback loop to stabilize. Record for about thirty seconds. You may record longer, but remember that the camera will record around twenty-nine frames a second, and that thirty seconds represents a large number of frames. Turn off the video camera and verbally thank the entities for their help.

4. Analysis of Video: Transfer the video onto a computer. You can alternatively include the computer in the recording circuit during the experiment and record the video with the computer rather than with the camera. Once in the computer, examine each frame of the video and "grab" frames that have optical texture, such as blotches of color. Examine each grabbed frame in a photo editor as if it were a photograph. Use magnification, intensity changes and rotations while looking for features.

We highly recommend that you read the section about Video ITC in the book, There is no Death and There are No Dead.

WE ACKNOWLEDGE THE HELP OF OUR FRIENDS AND COLLEGUES WHO ARE OPEN TO SHARING INFORMATION ABOUT PARANORMAL RESEARCH WITH OTHERS.  SPECIAL THANKS TO DAVE AND THE SOUTH JERSEY GHOST RESEARCH TEAM.  FOR MORE INFORMATION AND CLASSES GO TO WWW.THEGHOSTHUNTERSTORE.COM  AND APPLY TODAY FOR SOME OF THE BEST CLASSES YOU WILL EVER TAKE!

WATCH FOR MORE EDUCATION INFORMATION AND CLASS SCHEDULES HERE ON GHOSTSOLDIERS.TV