mused76

One more quick story and I would like to know if anyone experienced this as well.. Has anyone ever left a tape recorder behind in a supposidly haunted house or area? They say it's suppose to pick up the noises and voices you normally can't hear for some reason. 1. Is this true? 2. Why does this work this way? Awhile back my friends and I did leave a tape recorder behind in a house in Greene Township of Ohio. We left it in a scarey house in the middle of nowhere to come back an hour later to pick it back up. So.. we played the tape and we did hear a voice and nobody would owe up to doing that on the tape recorder. In fact.. you can hear us all running out of the house on the tape and getting into our car after we left the tape recorder there.. and a distinct womanly voice is on it a few mins later saying " get out of here " which also sent chills down my spine. Either way - my ghost hunting days are over of my youth.

niethan

It probably was the wind

Acutsef

In New Zealand it is said that when in the Ben Ohau Ranges a voice will warn you of avalances and rock falls, a long gone climber maybe. I think voices can be projected but it does seem a bit sixth sense(the movie) if you know what i mean.

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onewolf

It was probably Donald Rumsfield, disguising his voice.

hulk

There's a few recordings around the net, they'll freak the shit right out of your colon if you listen to them at night. One sight, I don't know if it's still up, is www.ghoststudy.com.

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beofotch5

that is completley untrue

CityOfAngels

I heard that if you shove a tape recorder into your colon, and play the tape back later, there will be strange sounds...
Please don't let the butt-ghosts get me!

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Nancy

a little sceptical are we?

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I think my mask of sanity is about to slip.

DJMala

I've always been very skeptical of, but fascinated by, EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena, which is the 10 cent word for ghost voices on tape). I went to school for audio engineering, and I still work (at least perhiperally) in the recording business. I've heard plenty of recordings that creeped the hell out of me, but I'm still not entirely convinced they are what they seem to be.

First, almost all EVP recordings I've heard are very noisy and poor quality. I've rolled plenty of hours of tape in controlled conditions using high-quality mics, including recordings made with a portable rig in old churches and performance halls. I've never heard anything that wasn't audible in the room at the time of the recording.

Second, I can't see what the mechanism for these recordings would be. Sound is the vibration of air molecules. A microphone takes the mechanical energy of vibrating air and converts it to electricity. The electrical current is then either used to power an electro-magnet and the signal is stored in magnetic media (analog recording) or it is converted to 1s and 0s and stored (digital recording).

EVPs are not audible in the room at the time of recording, so that rules out any vibration of the air.

Perhaps the magnetic media is being influenced directly? This would seem to imply that an EVP could be captured simply by bringing a tape into a haunted place, with no recorder. I've seen no evidence that this is possible. The strongest argument against this theory is the fact that people claim to have recorded EVPs on digital recorders. Unless ghosts can speak binary, this is simply not possible.

Perhaps the phenomena is electrical, being picked up by the microphone wires or the recorder itself. This is the most likely possibility. The major problem here is that cables and recorders are designed to reject exactly this kind of interference. If they weren't, you'd constantly pick up stray radio signals of all kinds.

That pretty much covers the entire signal chain. I really can't see how else these sounds could not be present in the room at the time of recording and yet somehow be printed to tape.

I've always wanted to investigate this sort of thing using proper equipment, but I've never had the opportunity or (I'll admit it) the nerve.

hulk

Generally, most authentic (or at least as authentic as you can get in this business) tapes have been left unattended. Apparantly, the best way to get results is to find a known haunted place, then ask the permission of the ghosts to record them. Plonk the recorder down and leave the room/house/graveyard/whatever. As for the science behind it, well, the ghost could be really really really close to the microphone. Or something =)

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"'There's a tendency among the press to attribute the creation of a game to a single person,' says Warren Spector, creator of Thief and Deus Ex."
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StickODynomite

I believe it. If you can see ghosts/ spirits why can't you hear them? I've heard them before--It's bone chilling stuff... And I swear I'm not crazy !

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Drider_it

http://www.apple.com/trailers/universal/white_noise/

watch it they finally made a movie about all this.. cool..

also www.ghostpix.com has plenty of these recordings to search though.

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Kagemusha222

yeah EVP is very interesting... I believe in ghosts having had several experiences but never tried this. Some of my friends and I are actually planning to go to a haunted house and see if we can record any EVP (idea that was initially inspired by us scaring the shit out of each other with ghost encounter stories). White Noise looks interesting and Keaton seems to be finally back from the dead (okay that was really bad...)

weapon26

My friend and I have both tried this. I tried it in my college town's old armory. I asked a few questions in a room and left the recorder in there while I left for 15 minutes. There wasn't any speech on the tape, but a wierd whistling sound that I've never heard in the building before.

My friend tried it at another friends house that he was house-sitting for. This particular house was full of creepy happenings. My friend woke up in the middle of the night to scratching noises on the ceiling and walls. He decided to turn on the tape recorder at this point and try to go back to bed. The scratching continued through the night and finally my friend when he woke up the third time yelled - "I hate this fu**ing house!" Right after he said that a strange noise appeared on the tape that he didn't hear himself. It was a strange moaning noise.

feloniouspunk

Being a fellow audio junkie (I got my first degree in Telecom witha heavy emphasis in audio) I have to say I think you answered your own question. I don't think ther eis much evidence for these being ghost tapes, but if it works by manipulating the electrical signal in the mic or mic cable, and high quality cables and equipment are shielded, then only poor quality equipment will produce recording like these.

MSD

I've recorded voices before. I don't open tapes until they're about to go into the recorder. I'll try leaving a blank tape next to the recorder next time I do it. There's a hot spot with fairly continuous paranormal activity within walking distance of my house, I'll try it and report back.

One thing I can tell you is that a voice-activated recorder will pick up EVP only some of the time; whether it's being imprinted directly onto the tape or if it's actual noise is questionable.