By far the most intriguing evidence that an investigator can get is an EVP.
EVP stands for "Electronic Voice Phenomena" which is considered by many to be voices from beyond the grave. These voices appear on recordings on playback, which means that the person recording them was not able to hear them while recording. Many of these "voices" and "sounds" are below the human hearing range.
Science has been unable to explain the phenomena and as Grant Wilson of TAPS put it, "Frankly, I don't care how it works, I just know that it does!"
But how does one capture Electronic Voice Phenomena?
It is quite easy to do as well as credible evidence. All that you need is a recording device (a portable voice recorder for taking notes works fine), an external microphone, and some patience.
The first thing that anyone attempting to record an EVP file should do is get into a comfortable position. The less moving that you are doing during the actual recording, the less noise you will make, and the less noise you will get when you playback the file. This obviously will help you out a lot if you do catch something as you will be able to hear it clearer. You will also not have to worry about, "Did I make that noise?"
Some people recommend using white noise, which is a steady background noise such as static on a radio or television set, but I personally have never used white noise. The theory behind white noise is that it allows sound wave energy to fill an environment thus allowing for the spirits to communicate easier by piecing this noise together.
Once you find that you are ready to record, you can turn the recorder on and start recording. Ask a serious of questions as you would ask a living person while the recording is happening. After you ask each question, leave a blank space of 20-30 seconds so that you can hear an answer back.
Remember, ghosts were people too so please respect them as you would respect a living person!
Some questions that many ask include:
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What is your name? |
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Do you live here? |
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How do you feel? |
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What is your favorite room here? |
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Do you have anything you wish to say? |
You want to keep the questions to open ended questions, which means you have to answer them with something more than a yes or no. This way you will get a more conclusive answer when you listen back as yes and no can often be confused with background noise.
Keep the questions simple as you must remember it takes a lot of energy on their end to answer.
When you are done recording with the spirit, make every noise possible to have something that is able to compare your findings with. Cough, breathe, talk, yell, kick your feet, etc. This will give you a canvas of noises with the acoustics of the location.
When listening back to your EVP recordings, it is recommended that you use headphones as many of these voices are very low in the hertz range and this will also help you get rid of background noise.
When you are ready to import the files from your recorder into a computer (if you chose to), you will need a male-male audio input cable that will plug into your recorder's headphone jack and into your computer's microphone jack. You can find these cables at places like Radio Shack for under $10.
Using a program like Adobe Audition or Audacity (free), you can bring the recordings in from your computer and analyze them. You ALWAYS want to save the original imported file for evidence. Consider this your master copy and then create a copy off of that one to edit and amplify.
The MNPSG uses Adobe Audition 3 as we enjoy the tool set that it does have.