6.4 KiB
| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Electronic voice phenomenon | 4/5 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_voice_phenomenon | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T09:19:18.072267+00:00 | kb-cron |
== Organizations that show interest in EVP == There are a number of organizations dedicated to studying EVP and instrumental transcommunication, or which otherwise express interest in the subject. Individuals within these organizations may participate in investigations, author books or journal articles, deliver presentations, and hold conferences where they share experiences. In addition, organizations exist which dispute the validity of the phenomena on scientific grounds. The Association TransCommunication (ATransC), formerly the American Association of Electronic Voice Phenomena (AA-EVP), and the International Ghost Hunters Society conduct ongoing investigations of EVP and ITC including collecting examples of purported EVP available over the internet. The Rorschach Audio Project, initiated by sound artist Joe Banks, which presents EVP as a product of radio interference combined with auditory pareidolia and the Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Biopsychocybernetics Research, a non-profit organization dedicated to studying anomalous phenomena related to neurophysiological conditions. According to the AA-EVP it is "the only organized group of researchers we know of specializing in the study of ITC". Parapsychologists and spiritualists have an ongoing interest in EVP. Many spiritualists experiment with a variety of techniques for spirit communication which they believe provide evidence of the continuation of life. According to the National Spiritualist Association of Churches, "An important modern day development in mediumship is spirit communications via an electronic device. This is most commonly known as Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP)". An informal survey by the organization's Department Of Phenomenal Evidence cites that 1/3 of churches conduct sessions in which participants seek to communicate with spirit entities using EVP. The James Randi Educational Foundation offered a million dollars for proof that any phenomena, including EVP, are caused paranormally.
== Demographics ==
=== United States === In 2015, an investigation by sociologist Marc Eaton on the demography of United States paranormal groups that used electronic voice phenomenon found an overrepresentation of white participants, raised in the Roman Catholic Church (which is only 21% of the U.S. population), mainly with some post-secondary education. Although a preponderance of research shows that women and "less socially integrated individuals" are more likely to believe in ghosts, the demographic samples in Eaton's research did not reflect this.
== Cultural impact == The concept of EVP has influenced popular culture. It is popular as an entertaining pursuit, as in ghost hunting, and as a means of dealing with grief. It has influenced literature, radio, film, television, and music.
=== Groups === Investigation of EVP is the subject of hundreds of regional and national groups and Internet message boards. Paranormal investigator John Zaffis claims, "There's been a boom in ghost hunting ever since the Internet took off." Investigators, equipped with electronic gear – like EMF meters, video cameras, and audio recorders – scour reportedly haunted venues, trying to uncover visual and audio evidence of ghosts. Many use portable recording devices in an attempt to capture EVP.
=== Films === Films involving EVP include Poltergeist, The Sixth Sense, and White Noise.
=== Video games === Sylvio is an indie-developed first-person horror adventure video game released on Steam in June 2015 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and, OS X, utilizing the Unity engine. The game is about an audio recordist called Juliette Waters, who records the voices of ghosts through electronic voice phenomenon. She finds herself trapped in an old family park, shut down since a landslide in 1971, and she now needs to use her recorder to survive the night. A sequel, Sylvio 2, was released on October 11, 2017. Phasmophobia is a co-op horror video game, in which a team of one to four players play as ghost hunters who try to identify hostile ghosts in varying locations. The game features a Spirit Box item used to capture EVPs of certain ghost types, which helps the players identify the type of the ghost they're dealing with. EVPs in Phasmophobia consist recorded lines from news broadcasts: "Act of killing", "Elderly victim", "From far away" are a few of the examples the ghost might give. Alternatively, the game has a sound recorder that can be used to record words directly from a ghost or laughing. It has been featured on television series like Ghost Whisperer, In Search Of… (1981), The Omega Factor, A Haunting, Ghost Hunters, MonsterQuest, Ghost Adventures, The Secret Saturdays, Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files, Supernatural, Derren Brown Investigates, Ghost Lab and Buzzfeed Unsolved: Supernatural
Coast To Coast AM hosts George Noory and Art Bell have explored the topic of EVP with featured guests such as Brendan Cook and Barbara McBeath of the Ghost Investigators Society, and paranormal investigator and 'demonologist' Lou Gentile. The Spirit of John Lennon was a pay-per-view séance broadcast in 2006, in which TV crew members, a psychic, and an "expert in paranormal activity" claim the spirit of former Beatle John Lennon made contact with them through what was described as "an Electronic Voice Phenomenon (EVP)." The Doctor Who episode "Dark Water" features a fictional facility which was allegedly based on this principle. The Egyptian series Nasiby w Kesmetk episode 6
=== Novels === Legion, a 1983 novel by William Peter Blatty, contains a subplot where Dr. Vincent Amfortas, a terminally ill neurologist, leaves a "to-be-opened-upon-my-death" letter for Father Dyer detailing his accounts of contact with the dead, including the doctor's recently deceased wife, Ann, through EVP recordings. Amfortas' character and the EVP subplot do not appear in the film version of the novel, The Exorcist III, although in Kinderman's dream dead people are seen trying to communicate with the living by radio. In Pattern Recognition, a 2003 novel by William Gibson, the main character's mother tries to convince her that her father is communicating with her from recordings after his death/disappearance in the September 11, 2001 attacks.