My method for debunking EVP (electronic voice phenomena). I doubt we'll ever see "Ghost Hunters" use this method.

tepidpond · 1 year

Amazing! Look Jones, we've found someone who takes Ghost Hunters seriously enough to not simply mock it!

All kidding aside: Yes, that'd likely be the most trivial and instantly testable way to disprove the idea of the dead speaking in some kind of high-pitched quiet garble. Or you could ask five randomly-chosen novices to interpret the noise. If three or more agree on what's been "said", then you consider not dismissing it as hogwash.

nickiwest · 1 year

I've often wondered about that. Since the TAPS team usually has a professional cameraman with the people doing "EVP work," shouldn't the pro footage corroborate the "evidence" from their handheld recorders?

jherazob · 1 year

Somebody made an AMA here a while ago (a search failed me, if somebody remembers it please post the link), he was the producer or something for one of those ghost hunting shows. He said that none of those shows is done seriously, they're all out to very deliberately bamboozle the poor people that go to them. So i highly suspect you won't find anything like that in there.

Edit: Found it, but the guy deleted both his account and every post on it, so unless there's some cached copy somewhere we're toast :(

voyetra8 · 1 year

Speaking as an audio engineer, I can tell you that constant noise (like the background "hiss" you hear from certain recordings, or the kind of hum you get from poorly grounded/electrically demanding equipment--high wattage lights and professional cameras, anyone?) is trivial to remove with professional sound editing software. Any decent (e.g. mid-range condenser) mic would have a low enough noise level and high enough dynamic range that amplifying gain and filtering noise out of a recording should not affect one's ability to understand any voices. So TAPS shouldn't have any problem getting clear EVP without a bunch of noise, considering the shit they carry around.

Furthermore, professional field recorders (Zoom H2 and the like) have two or more condenser mics built into them to pick up stereo signals. To perform the experiment you're talking about would merely require subtracting the channels from each other. Any sound picked up by both mics (like ambient noise) would be removed, anything picked up in the range of one particular mic (someone talking on the left/right side of the device, EVP maybe) would be isolated.

cjdaniel · 1 year

This will work nicely for random noise. However, a lot of the "EVP" I've heard on "paranormal investigator" recordings have sounded an awful lot like creaking in the house and other ambient noises. This method won't make a difference there.

[deleted] · 1 year

I wish I could remember where I read it...maybe on Cracked, but it pointed out that we know the outcome of every ghost hunter TV show before we even watch it: They find nothing conclusive.

We know this because if they did find something conclusive, you'd be hearing about it on the 6 o'clock news and not some stupid ghost hunter show.

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