Pursuing the paranormal [They HEAR dead people]

Cape Cod Times ^ | March 6, 2005 | By JOE HEITZ

[johnny7]

West Barnstable group uses tools to identify voices from beyond

YARMOUTHPORT - Three words. "Did anybody answer?" And David Sircom ripped off his headphones and backed against the wall. Just three words. His disbelief vanished. "I always believed there was something after death," Sircom said, "but not that you could interact with them." He'd asked out loud if there were any spirits in his home that wanted to communicate.

The first time he heard nothing. A few hours later on that fall morning in 2000, he tried again. Sircom started his tape recorder, asked his question and waited a few moments. Then he transferred the silence he'd recorded onto his computer and played it back. And there it was. "Did anybody answer?"

This query represented the first of many voices he's recorded, both in his Yarmouthport home and places like the Dennis Cemetery. "I believe they're dead people," Sircom said. "But who knows?" Sircom, a public insurance adjuster, is now a member of the Cape AndIslands Paranormal Research Society, a nonprofit organization that researches the supernatural.

White noise

Proponents of Electronic Voice Phenomena - spotlighted in the 2005 movie "White Noise" - maintain that spirits of the dead can speak through electronic recordings. The American Association of Electronic Voice Phenomena also suggests the voices may be those of extraterrestrials or "entities who might best be described as angelic." What EVPs are is complex, with even its staunchest supporters sometimes in disagreement over where they come from or what is said. However, the process by which EVPs are obtained can be relatively simple, Sircom said. He recommended using any tape recorder - ideally with an external microphone - and a low-noise, high-sensitivity tape. He then announces himself and records any palette of white noise, ranging from a silent room or radio static or water rushing down the drain. Sircom finally runs the result through a computer program that optimizes any unusual sounds on the recording. Because you can't hear the phenomenon as it's happening, you never know until you analyze the recording if any voices were captured, Sircom said. Sometimes it happens, but often there's nothing. "They either want to chat," Sircom said, "or they don't."

That's one of the reasons EVP should not be used as a bereavement tool, he added. The voices are unreliable and their words are oftentimes garbled - after all, the clipped, harsh EVP voice that said "I will see you no more" could have said something less poignant like "I was seeing the war." Essentially, you can't continue any meaningful relationship with a deceased loved one through a tape recorder and a computer, Sircom said. "I've asked to speak to my parents," Sircom acknowledged. "But I've never really gotten anything."

CAIPRS role

The Cape And Islands Paranormal Research Society, based in West Barnstable, now uses EVP in its supernatural investigations. "It's pretty good," said Derek Bartlett, CAIPRS founder and president. "That's evidence, if it's answering specific questions." CAIPRS did 22 paranormal investigations in homes, cemeteries and businesses across New England last year. The tight group, Bartlett emphasized, is not Ghostbusters. They painstakingly research reports of hauntings, examining and re-examining data they collect, rather than rid a house of what may be haunting it. EVP is simply one more tool in their arsenal, he explained. "My team - I know - will not find absolute, 100 percent evidence of ghosts," Bartlett said. "I hope we are stepping stones for those who will."

Coincidence?

Not everyone is nearly so enamored with EVP. Indeed, the whole notion of spirits communicating via electronics from beyond the grave elicits a thorny tangle of scientific and religious questions. "If you look at the world around us, there's a huge amount of background noise," said Craig Christensen, an electrical engineering professor at Suffolk University in Boston. Christensen said he's extremely skeptical of EVP, both for scientific and religious reasons. So where, then, do the voices that emerge on such recordings come from? Christensen, a Mormon, said everything from far-off vacuum cleaners to halogen lights to radio waves - even the agitation of atoms - can produce tiny amounts of noise that could comprise the phenomenon. Add it all up and mix in some chance, he said. "The question is whether it's just a random coincidence or if it's intelligible," Christensen said. "It gets into the realm where someone has a potato chip that looks like Jay Leno."

But he added that he couldn't definitively discredit EVP - especially since he views the matter as residing partially within religion. "I also believe religious experiences don't always fall within scientific method," Christensen said. "When you mix science and religion, I don't necessarily see a conflict."

Selves as critics

Now ask Bartlett who CAIPRS' biggest skeptic is. "Myself," he replied. "We are the biggest skeptics and critics of what we do. We have to have proof and evidence." Sircom and Bartlett both say they don't rely on psychics or visionaries in their investigations - no crystal balls or seances or ouiji boards. The tools of their trade are technological. Sircom uses tape recorders and his computer. Bartlett has a more elaborate collection of items like an electromagnetic field detector and a non-contact thermal scanner. And if they can explain any possible paranormal event a more conventional way, they do. "If we can disprove it, that's what we do right away," Sircom said, a tendency he credits in part to working as a licensed public insurance adjuster.

However, Bartlett added ghost-hunting requires a balance of skepticism and curiosity. "You don't have to have a Ph.D. in parapsychology," he said. "All you need is an open mind." That one three-word question almost five years ago has evoked countless more for Sircom. "I thought it was baloney," he said, " 'til I got that response." Who exactly answered? Or what? And why?

"Where are you?" Sircom once asked. "Closer than you think," came the recording cryptic reply. In the netherworld between science and the supernatural, little is definitive. "Did anybody answer?"It depends who's listening.

[johnny7]

"But who knows?" -David Sircom

For me, this sums up EVP... UFO's and the Kennedy-assasination, conspiracy theories.

I've seen/heard this type of 'unexpalnable' stuff myself. But IT IS because you can't explain it... that your mind comes up with the most plausible explanation.

One thing is certain. These 'things' do happen.

[FreeManWhoCan]

ping curly......

[sticker]

If the dead can vote (democrat of course) why shouldn't they be allowed to talk?

[evets]

Familiar spirits

[johnny7]

Yeah... so what's 'yer point?

[NewHampshireDuo]

If the dead can vote (democrat of course) why shouldn't they be allowed to talk?

If the dead can vote and if indeed they do, then we can verify that there is a sudden Democrat conversion at the time of death, regardless of party preference before death.

[Graymatter]

Duhhh! I can hear whole cocktail parties in running water (like from fountains or leaks) and in vacuum cleaners. Doesn't make them ghostly. It's the audio counterpart of meaningful pattern recognition. You find pictures in the clouds or the wallpaper or in the stars or the moles on someone's back. Are they there? No, it's just your brain doing its thing. Try eavesdropping on the vacuum cleaner sometime. I'm not gifted and I hear people chatting without using a tape recorder. Can't make out what they're saying because there is no they and they aren't saying anything!

[Graymatter]

My kid just gave me another example. You can hear music in white noise too. Try the running water, or a dripping leak. The brain filters out some of the sounds in a search for meaningful sounds. Result, melody.

[MaryFromMichigan]

Dunno, but...
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

:)

[Graymatter]

"...any palette of white noise, ranging from a silent room or radio static or water rushing down the drain. Sircom finally runs the result through a computer program that optimizes any unusual sounds on the recording."

The human brain has such a program.
Resting my case.

[verity]

If one consumes enough spirits I am certain one can hear the spirits ;-)

[OldSmaj]

But IT IS because you can't explain it... that your mind comes up with the most plausible explanation.

Can you say "Boooool Sheeeet"?

I can, and this is that.

The dead don't talk; they're dead.

[johnny7]

'Zactly. We send out radio signals into space everyday... hoping to get a response from ET's who are thousands of light-years away. These 'ghostly' transmissions might fall into something akin to this.

Ghosts and UFO's are perfect answers for human's who lack the information to explain the unexplained!

[Cowman]

The voices told me to post this.

[johnny7]

"Boooool Sheeeet"

Actually, that's as rational an opinion as calling these 'sounds' dead people.

A couple of years ago, a coworker and myself headed out of the office for lunch. Right over the tree-line, I saw a slowly moving, metallic sphere and stopped dead in my tracks. So did my associate.

Instantaneously, we both turned our heads to see if the other saw it.

We quickly turned back to see it again... and it was gone.

All I know is that I saw something that looked 'wrong'... 'outta place. My coworker saw it... but right away... he was 'yellin UFO!

[wizr]

Thanks for the post. An open mind is a wonderful thing.

[Zechariah11]

Nephilim -- only complete idiots play around with them.

[johnny7]

You 'talkin Ouija boards?

[Zechariah11]

Ouija boards, automatic writing, crop circles, white noise, etc -- you name it. The Nephilim are the offspring of intercourse between fallen angels and women. They are angelic/human hybrids judged in Genesis 6, confined in Tartarus, and depicted on stone tablets in Egypt and elsewhere. They are mentioned in the Scriptures in Judge and extra-Biblical texts like the Book of Enoch.

[Zechariah11]

" Judge" = Jude