The EVP as Scientific Evidence

People love electronic voice phenomena (EVP) for personal validation of paranormal activities. I don't know any ghost hunting teams that don't use them, because you can get an EVP just about anywhere, any time. What is done in every case I've seen is quite unscientific - fortunately, I'm going to offer a remedy for that situation.

My biggest issue with EVP recordings is the captioning of ambiguous environmental sounds: It could be the person's fingers moving on the body of the recorder (which with digital models, that is really loud!), it could be the person's own subconscious vocalizations, or stomach gurgling or joints creaking... or a person speaking in another room or outside the building. Captioning (or otherwise telling someone what to listen for) just triggers the brain's natural pareidolia function: It finds meaning, even when meaning isn't really present. To get a better handle on this, you must read my post about the use of Spirit Boxes, EVP recordings and the like.

We're not talking about hoaxing, here. There is plenty of hoaxing to be found, too, especially on YouTube. We're talking about sincere attempts to find evidence of paranormal activity. Mostly, it's just audio pareidolia - something the human brain does by its nature. And here we come to the crux of the problem: In order to rule-out pareidolia, we have to show that there are scientific controls going on (such as recording in a soundproof room or box). Nobody does that, although I'd like to help rectify this issue.

On another page, I've written about how audio pareidolia may still have a paranormal component, but having said that we must also admit that if it is paranormal at this level (psychic) then it still isn't scientific evidence; just more personal validation. And with normal EVP procedures as presented to us, we have only personal validation.

There's nothing wrong with personal validation, of course, it's  just that it isn't scientific evidence. Yes, you are sure you heard something. Do other people hear the same thing without you telling them what to listen for? Is it just your fingers brushing the body of the recorder? Did you breathe-in at that moment, thus making a sound? Did your clothes rustle a bit? Did your joints creak? Did a floor board pop? Did your stomach growl? Did someone say something in another room or outside the building?  Don't know? Of course you don't know - nobody can say for certain what a sound might be, when you make open room recordings.

There are all kinds of sounds going on - even in a "quiet" room - of which you may be consciously unaware. When you play back the recording, those sounds you didn't notice while you were making the recording will suddenly seem paranormal - but only because you didn't notice them when they happened.

I'm proposing that we stop playing ghost hunter and start developing scientific controls so that IF we get something on a recording, it is no longer mere personal validation but actual evidence. It can be done...

The Pagani Controlled EVP Experiment

What you will need:

• Two identical digital recorders
• A carry-able soundproof box with a door and battery powered light in it.
• A video camera on a tripod.
• Computer software that can put two audio tracks side by side for comparison. I am currently using the Acoustica MP3 Audio mixer program. It allows for side by side synching of tracks without changing them, and you can amplify any interesting points within the program, also without changing the original audio. There are probably other programs that do this, too.

You might search "How to build a sound proof box" ...like here. That's a start. You need a box small enough to be carried by two people (or one) but not tiny. You'll want to make it as soundproof as you can, but also realize that nothing is perfect, which is why we have a control mechanism (the second recorder).

I'd put a battery powered light in the box, because I want to make it as friendly as possible. - and of course a digital recorder set on maximum quality. Note: Always set digital recorders to maximum bit rate, otherwise you get compression artifacts.

You will be taking the box an all of your equipment to a proposed haunted location. Hopfully, you will thoroughly scout out the location in advance and determine a relatively quiet area within the proposed haunted zone to place your box.

Experiment Procedure:

1. Set-up the box near the center of alleged haunting activity, if you can. Hopefully, it's fairly quiet, but you will have a control recording to help you sort out environment noise from possible EVP activity.
2. Place the video camera at a location opposite of where you intend to stand and start the video.
3. If there is a particular item that is associated with the haunting, or an item belonging to the suspected spirit at that location that is small enough to fit in the box, place that item inside and turn on the light.
4. Have both recorders in your hand and start them simultaneously. Place one recorder inside the box, and announce, "I'm placing recorder 1 inside the box."  Close the door, and announce "I'm closing the box door."
5. Walk away from your set-up, as far as is possible in the room, while still in range of the video recorder.
6. Announce your intentions.Something as simple as "I want to communicate with anyone present, and I've placed a box with a device in it to help."
7. Ask questions!  I might begin by asking, "Are there any spirits present?" And "Do you wish to communicate?"
   
   • "Please enter the box, if you can, and see what is inside."
   • "Please answer my questions using the device inside the box."
   • If you have an item in the box, say so. "There is an item inside the box in the room, can you identify it?"
   • "Are you associated with the item inside the box?"
   • "What is your name?"
   • "Why are you here?"
   • "Do you need help?"
   • "Do you have any messages you would like to give us?"
   Add any questions germane to the situation. Allow plenty of time between questions for answers. When you are done, thank the spirit for their help. It doesn't matter if you think maybe there's nothing happening: There MIGHT be, and being polite is appropriate even when you don't know if anyone is there.
8. Announce that you are going to close the session. Walk back to the box and announce when you open the door. Announce when you are removing the recorder. Stop both recordings simultaneously.

Post-Experiment analysis.

1. Download both recordings to your computer while preserving them on the devices. The preservation part is important in case any questions about sound sources arise.
2. Line up the two recordings in your audio software so that you can compare tracks.
3. Look for sounds from the box recording that do not appear in the external control recording. 
4. Amplify as necessary but do not apply additional filters. Everything you do must be logged and the original recording must be preserved. This means that any amplification work you do will be saved as a separate file.
5. Document everything!
6. If you get something, share it! Save a separate file of your evidence and play it for several people, one at a time, without giving them clues as to what to hear. Do they hear a message? Do they generally agree as to the content of the message? The video of the session will provide supporting evidence in that case. Don't be disappointed if nothing happens, though. There are so many possibilities: For the skeptic, the only answer is that spirits don't exist, but for more open minded people we realize that it might be difficult for any spirit to understand your instructions or use the equipment provided. And we're not even mentioning willingness to communicate!  If you get nothing, nothing is proven. Lack of evidence is not evidence of lack; there are too many variables. All you can do is keep trying and keep your controls tight.

So there you have it, the first EVP experimental method with scientific controls. It's not perfect but it's a whole world away from what everyone else is doing. And yes, it is a lot of work, but think of it this way: You might be the first researcher to provide scientific evidence of hauntings.  That would be worth all of your trouble, wouldn't it?

TV Show "Ghost Stalkers" Full Body Apparition Video Analysis

(Updated 19 November with new information)
(Updated 20 Feb 2015 with new revelation from John E. L. Tenney, conclusions in BOLD - old analysis remains as strike-through text to keep the record straight)
The clip from "Ghost Stalkers" - Or you can go to the Destination Discovery page here: http://www.destinationamerica.com/tv-shows/ghost-stalkers/ghost-stalkers-video/ghost-apparition-caught-on-camera.htm

Enhance & Zoom

I did my usual analysis of the video. It took awhile to get just a clip of the figure, which I enhanced at maximum brightness to help us understand what is going on here:

NOTE: Use the little square-ish box at the lower right of the video to make it full screen. The clip is very short! You'll have to watch it multiple times to get a sense of what is going on here.

Analysis

When we watched the show, it was pretty dark and hard to see. This enhanced excerpt, however, gives us a definite figure. Unlike my previous analysis of a claimed ghost caught on video by an Oregon paranormal team - but which disappeared in the frame by frame analysis, there is a figure here: You can see moving legs, arms, etc. The shape, although lacking detail, seems clearly human. What was it?

There are three possibilities:
1. They faked it.
2. It's a person
3. It's an apparition/spirit/paranormal event captured on video.

Did they fake it? It's a TV show, after all - but if they ever got caught doing that it would be the end of them. It's important to know that John E.L. Tenney, the star of Ghost Stalkers, is a legit paranormal investigator whose whole life work hinges on his credibility. It's extremely unlikely that he would be a knowing party to a hoax - to the point where this explanation is not believable. (Turns out that while it may not have been a hoax, John Tenney confessed in an interview on a skeptic podcast that he thought it was a homeless guy, despite the fact that he sold it on the show as a possible paranormal entity - LINK TO JOHN's OWN WORDS AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE). If there was any hoaxing going on, my vote would be for it being perpetrated by a bored crew member: They would be the only people who would know enough about the positions of the static cameras to be able to get in and out without detection. Or there is also Chad. He was my prime suspect from the beginning. Sorry, Chad, if it wasn't you.

Is it a person? Well, it has all the characteristics of a living being. If it's a person, then it might be someone who sneaked into the building to perpetrate a hoax. And if that were true, they also did a shitty job of it. This tiny clip is all there is to show for their "work." Really, who would do that? But that only speaks to a person who is not part of the show perpetrating a hoax. A crew person is another possibility but I'm told the crew people aren't even there at night; they just set up the equipment and leave. After my conversation with John, this seems unlikely. But again, it could be a person who was accidentally caught on camera, in which case John should know better than to suggest a paranormal cause. I can only go by his word at this point.

Is it an apparition? It has a very solid form and even though it's as gray as the back wall, you can see moving arms and legs. Watch it about 10 times. Or more. It looks more like a solid thing - a human being, than a spirit - but I can't draw a firm conclusion about this. (UPDATE: My inability to draw a conclusion was based entirely on John. E. L. Tenney's equivocations on the subject. His words led me to think there might be something here. My apologies to all!) What would a ghost look like? I would expect something a little  less solid but that's only an expectation.We'll have to have additional information. With what we have, a person seems the slightly more likely explanation (except for a detail or two). However, a captured apparition is a definite possibility!

Oh yes, the detail!  Or two.
1) Well, John. E. L. Tenney, the legit investigator of this show, is adamant that there was no sound as the figure walked by; no footsteps, whereas one could hear Chad walking around. Okay, that makes it interesting. I'd like an audio comparison of Chad walking in the hall versus this figure, so we could see if this is a big deal or not.
2) The figure was never seen on any of the other cameras, nor by Tenney, Chad or the crew. This is odd. Evading detection by the cameras would be tricky. One may imagine ways to get in and out of the building without being seen, but how would a person pass in one direction down that hallway - toward the room where Chad was located at the time - and never be seen coming back from that direction or anywhere else? The world wonders....

4) Finally, an actual person would be walking around in total darkness: The light you see is infrared, recorded by an infrared camera. This is John's big selling point; the thing he reminded me about in emails when I questioned his evidence. HOWEVER, on viewing several more times; to me, the figure does appear to reach out for the wall on his left, as if to feel his way along the dark hallway. In mid stride, you can see the right arm raise and appear to cross over the front of the body, and just before he exits the view area you can see his shoulders rotate left, as if reaching out. It's hard to tell for sure but if my sense of this is accurate, it lends credence to the idea that this is an actual person walking in a dark hallway. John E. L. Tenney says I'm wrong about that. (UPDATE: Yes, he said that, but he knew I was right).


On a blog one of the stars, John E.L. Tenney,  said this:

"Honestly, I don’t know what it is.

I took the footage to our head of photography for the show and had him check it out. I wanted fresh, skeptical eyes to see it. Our head of photography has worked on hundreds of paranormal reality shows and after seeing this footage and running it through all kinds of image processing software eventually told me, “This is the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen working on a paranormal show”

"The building was sealed off and sweeped by the crew before they left, we do this at every location to make sure no one is in the building. Since Chad and I are alone when we investigate it is a safety measure we take to make sure there isn’t anyone who might hurt us when we’re alone in the building.

"I saw the figure I saw it in real time.

"Although it’s often mind-numbing to stare at the check-in camera monitor all night long it’s necessary and in this case was worth it. I honestly didn’t even know if I saw what I saw. By that I mean the camera is a live feed I have no way to go back and look at it until the morning. So I saw the figure and then I was like, “what did I just see?” It wasn’t until the morning after Chad was done that I could go retrieve the camera and check for what I thought I saw."

The fact that one of the show's cast members isn't selling it as totally real is interesting. (UPDATE: And as it turns out, it was because he was selling it as possibly paranormal when he never actually believed that was the case). It may mean that there is a lot of room for a more natural explanation. Or maybe he's just trying to maintain a certain distance from it, in case a more prosaic explanation comes to light. That's an excellent policy,  now that I think about it.

SUGGESTION TO PRODUCERS OF THE SHOW: Invest some money in a recording FLIR heat detection camera and add it to the check-in site. Two would be even better; one to carry with whomever is in the building at the time. If this figure had no heat signature, we could rule-out an actual human messing with you. Please consider this.

VERDICT: Possibly paranormal phenomenon captured, with some caveats and subject to further revelations and information. As a matter of intellectual honesty,  we have to consider the possibility that there's a crazy naked homeless guy living in that building who only comes out at night (or a bored crew member who decided to pull an unethical stunt... or Chad, who is always pretty wired and seems like the kind of guy who might do this). If it was a homeless guy, it would be easy enough (a necessity, in fact) for him to find a never-visited crawl space/attic/duct system to hide in. On the other hand, it is strange that he wasn't caught on any of the static or perimeter cameras, so there's that. And that's the only reason I mention a crew member: John E. L. Tenney wouldn't pull anything like this, in my opinion, (UPDATE: But he has no problem with misleading his audience. In John E. L. Tenney's skeptic interview, he tells us that he doesn't believe that ghosts exist, or "any of that" - so any statements he has made in the show suggesting paranormal phenomena were disingenuous) but we know nothing of the crew people and they alone would have the information necessary to evade detection.

FINAL VERDICT: Debunked, thanks to John Tenney's candid admissions on a skeptic podcast show. If we just went by what was on television, I couldn't say that. On Ghost Stalkers, his show, Tenney referred to this image over and over as an entity and an apparition, and suggested various supernatural explanations. But when John Tenney recently spoke to skeptics, he informed them that he didn't believe that, that he doesn't believe in ghosts or anything else. He told the skeptics he thought it was a homeless guy. I don't know if that is true, but I know he never told the Ghost Stalkers audience anything like that.

Who was it? For what it's worth I DID tell John E. L. Tenney in an email way back when this all started that I thought it was a homeless guy - or maybe even Chad, which he assured me was wrong. Now I'm more inclined to think that I got it right from the beginning and I let Tenney mislead me into thinking he had something genuine. After his interview on the skeptic podcast (A MUST LISTEN!) it seems pretty clear that you can't really take Tenney at his word.

ONLY John E. L. Tenney's disingenuous commentary made it seem real. He never thought it was paranormal. Even when he commented on this post back in November (you can still see that comment below), he was still selling the high points of what he thought made this video paranormal... but now we know he didn't believe that. Listen to the skeptic interview of Tenney and get the inside scoop. (Link below)
FINAL THOUGHT, February 20, 2015. Well, here we are, with me doing a mea culpa. I'm all about honesty with my readers, so I have to confess that I was duped by this one. John E. L. Tenney did a good job of selling this video as paranormal evidence on the show, and in email communications to me. Even though he tempered that position in his own blog, he still left it out there as possible paranormal evidence. And I was gullible enough to buy his testimony, since I wasn't there and I misread his character. Well, that just goes to show you: Never ever trust anything on one of these shows, or any of the people on them. They will say and do anything for ratings. In the end, you'll just get burned.  

Buyer Beware!


^{HERE IS THE LINK to the Skeptic podcast where John E. L. Tenney confesses that HE DOES NOT BELIEVE IN GHOSTS and never found anything paranormal. According to Tenney, he acts like he believes in the paranormal so that he can get people to come to his lectures where he hopes to convert them.}

HELPFUL TIME CODE GUIDE FOR THE PODCAST! Although the host of this podcast is nice as pie to Tenney (because he's talking to one of his fellow non-believers) the guy is a major dick in general and has a hugely smug sense of superiority (rather unjustified from what I've heard). So you may want to avoid the smugness oozing out of his mouth and skip to the highlights (not that John Tenney seems to have any better opinion of those who believe in the paranormal, but I can't fix that for you):

• 19:10 The show is NOT about figuring out if a place is haunted
• 24:10 "It shocks people when I tell them I don't believe in ghosts."
• 30:40 "It's really funny that someone who doesn't believe in any of this snuck onto a show." (Referring to himself).
• 42:00 John E. L. Tenney refers to himself again as a non-believer.
• 45:50 Reiterates once again, "I don't believe in ghosts."
• 46:20 Refers to what he is doing as somewhat manipulative. In this whole segment, (from this point on) John E. L. Tenney details how he uses the idea of being on a ghost hunting show to get people to come to his lectures so he can "rip down the fabric of what they think they believe." (John's words, again).

This John Tenney revelations reminds me of something from professional wrestling known as the heel turn. You have a guy who says he's on your side, then when your back is turned - BOOM - you get hit in the head with a chair. The "chair" in this case is that John is a nonbeliever who isn't looking for evidence of hauntings at all. In fact, you were foolish if you believed that, according to Tenney.

But who is supposed to be impressed by John's heel turn? Are his new fans now the fundamentalist materialist skeptics? I doubt it. They don't believe John is one of them, despite his insistence that he is a total skeptic and his believer fans are idiots, they aren't buying it.  And the skeptics are skeptical of John for some very good reasons. The first being that he constantly sells his "findings" as evidence of paranormal activity on the show. Tenney tells them it's just an act, but they aren't so sure.

Then, if you just plug John Tenney into a Google search, you'll come up with John declaring the Devil is real! And other such religious pronouncements.All from a guy who says he is a skeptic and doesn't believe in anything. Who is the real John Tenney? We'll probably never know.

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DISCLAIMER: Nothing in this post or blog is meant to suggest that the supernatural or paranormal does not exist. The fact is, I don't know. All I can do is look at the evidence to see if it stands up to the test of very simple scrutiny. If it passes, yay. If it fails, oh well... there's always next time. Investigators are human. I'm human. We all make mistakes. My pointing out the mistakes that others make should not be taken to imply that they are wrong in general, or that the things they investigate are only the product of imagination.  And the number one lesson of this post: TRUST NOTHING ON A PARANORMAL TV SHOW! Assume they are lying (because they probably are).

Investigator John Tenny enters the room (same camera). John is 6'2"

           ...... photo courtesy John E. L. Tenney

Old Wheeler Hotel, Ghost Caught on Video?

When I first saw this ghost video, I was blown away. It just blinks when you see it at normal speed, but in the slowed down version (second half of the posted video) it made me feel like a figure really crossed in front of the television screen! Wow, proof of the supernatural at last. Why aren't these guys on television?


Oh yes, this video is a few years old - I only found it because I read a review of the Old Wheeler Hotel, where this event takes place. You can see the paranormal investigator sleeping in the bed. There's a blip on the screen. Can't tell what it was. But then the video has a second half where it's shown in slow motion, and the blip now looks more like a figure. Sort of. I was stunned. Be sure to watch the video before you continue reading! These are investigators from PSI of Oregon, located in Coos Bay. They don't have much on youtube but this one certainly got my attention! Feel free to check out their web site.

But seriously - watch the video first! Twice!

***
Did you watch the video? No, really, you need to do that first....

I was able to break the video down into frames, and brighten it a bit, just to see what is going on here. When you do that, it looks much less impressive. First, though, I want to mention that I applaud their work. People who want to provide evidence that paranormal activities are real should be thorough and open in their investigations. I'm always excited to find anything new and different, and this one got me excited.


Looking at the frames from the slow motion portion of the video, brightness enhanced but no other changes:

Time stamp: 8 hrs 14m 17sec

You'll want to focus on the television set. This is an old old picture tube type television. The kind you can't buy anymore. You might want to look-up the process of how they work. Basically, an electron gun at the back of the tube shoots a beam of charged particles at the front of the tube, the inside of which is coated with phosphor, so the particles cause the phosphor to glow momentarily. It's a single stream of particles, the gun itself is moved back and forth very rapidly by electromagnets. They're a big bunch of wires surrounding the neck of the tube, should you ever get to look at one.  Obviously, as with any mechanical process (and this IS mechanical) stuff can go wrong.  Here you can see that the very bottom right of the picture is pulling in just a tiny amount. In other words, the electron scan is missing a little at the corner. The picture tube is probably pretty worn out, so this is no surprise.

8hrs 13min 31 seconds

Here we see that the tired picture tube scanning has lost a few dozen pixels or so wide stretch from the bottom right to the right middle - and now the scan failure is creeping across the top of the picture. Again, this is old mechanical picture tube equipment - and it's been left running for hours. This thing happens with old tvs left on for long periods. The static (rather than an actual picture) provides no information so the electron gun has to hit every pixel. It's more than it can handle..

8hrs 14min 02 seconds

Now the scan has filled in at the top, but expanded the scan failure along the bottom - AND it's overscanning a little on the left side, about two thirds of the way down, creating a little bright spot.

We've captured our ghost!  Very interesting. When you watch the video,  it really looks like a shadowy figure walks in front of the tv. This is an optical illusion. The TV is the source of light, it's right in front of the camera AND it's the brightest object in the room by several orders of magnitude.When you look at the frames, you see the only thing happening here is electron gun scan failure in the old picture tube. The illusion of motion comes from how the scan failure creeps around the corners of the screen - and as it does so, it darkens the room a little (since it is the primary source of light) and the smearing of the whiteness of the screen (because it's the light source) means the darkening of the picture also appears to spread vertically from the image. That's the camera's sensor having trouble with the sudden light change.  And with this frame analysis, you can now see that the only thing darkening the room is the slight loss of light from the television. There is no intervening figure.

Disappointing. I really thought they had something at first. Oh well, try try again!  No apparitions. No ghosts, just the appearance of failing 20th century technology, as far as I can see. If you have an alternative explanation, I will be interested to hear it. Oh well... Now, if you want to say the scan failure was caused by paranormal phenomena, that's a different question. I'm answering the main question: No, there isn't any figure present. The root cause of the apparent picture tube failure is something that is a bit beyond me. Perhaps some technical experts would like to weigh-in..

So, I'm sorry (very), PSI of Oregon investigators. Sorry Old Wheeler Hotel.  I wanted very much to believe you. But alas ....at least as far as the presence of a full body apparition of some sort -  u debunked.

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DISCLAIMER: Nothing in this post or blog is meant to suggest that the supernatural or paranormal does not exist. The fact is, I don't know. All I can do is look at the evidence to see if it stands up to the test of very simple scrutiny. If it passes, yay. If it fails, oh well... there's always next time. Investigators are human. I'm human. We all make mistakes. My pointing out the mistakes that others make should not be taken to imply that they are wrong in general, or that the things they investigate are only the product of imagination. I named this blog "U Debunked It" to be cute, but I actually hate the debunking mindset. One should go into every investigation with an open mind. It's the only way to find out what is really there. That is what I do.