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?

Show "The Dead Files" and the Problem with TV Psychic Mediums

In my previous post, I discussed a potential paranormal entity caught on video by the Ghost Stalkers tv team, which is led by paranormal investigator John E. L. Tenney. It occurred to me that these ghost hunting shows are lumped together when there are actually stark differences, which led me to examine another variety of paranormal inquiry; the highly entertaining (but dubious, as we shall see) show, The Dead Files.

The show has an an interesting duo, and they are definitely entertaining together: You have Steve DiSchiavi, a retired New York City police detective who went on to an acting career, appearing in a short film "Stake Out" before being cast in The Dead Files. His job is to interview the people involved and do background research on the location. He is joined by Amy Allan, who now bills herself as a psychic medium (except on a page on the Travel Channel web site, where she is called a physical medium. Really? Physical mediums are known for moving objects, remotely playing trumpets, stuff like that).[see footnote 2] Although scrubbed from her ImDB database, a little Google research tells me that she had previously appeared in episodes of the fictionalized ghost hunting TV show, A Haunting, in at least one of those she played a scientific paranormal investigator doing research on locations rather than using psychic powers. The episode everyone can a see is  "A Haunting in Georgia" - you can Google that. Other blog posts on other sites mention additional roles she's had. But before that she was in Season 1, Episode 4, Cursed. I have the DVD set.[see footnotes] So she's basically an actress. I don't know anything more about her. Here's a sample of her work from the episode we will review in this post:


The set-up of the show is Amy does a walk-through of the haunted location, accompanied by her husband (or former husband, depending on what database you believe) and camera man, Matthew Anderson.

At the end, Amy the psychic and  Steve the detective get together with the people involved in the haunted location, where they present their findings. It's very dramatic. Steve always has some tale to tell and Amy has some dramatic hits (and some misses) to present. Everyone is amazed.

The Evidence

For the purposes of this discussion, I will confine myself to the episode filmed at The Barbee Hotel in Warsaw, Indiana. The air date was November 15, 2014.  The clip I posted above is from that episode, and you can find more at http://www.travelchannel.com/shows/the-dead-files/episodes/intolerance

Analysis

The only paranormal things that one might look at are the impressions that Amy gets as a psychic medium. We see those in the filming of her walk-through, where she throws out a bunch of stuff. It's very cut-up and we can't even tell what she's trying to describe, half the time. Obviously, not everything makes it into the final cut, but it's fair to say she has misses and hits - maybe (as the show portrays) more hits than misses. "Hits" are combined with her pronouncements about the presence or evil entities, and such - which aren't really "hits' because they can't be verified by anyone. And this is the first problem we have: There is no way to judge her accuracy from what is presented on television. She looks good, but you'd expect the producers to make her look good, otherwise they'd have no show. So the one and only thing that could be analyzed for possible paranormal activity, really can't be analyzed at all.  We can only say she looks good on the show, and that's it.

The Problem with TV Psychic Mediums

This brings us to a critical point when dealing with shows that feature psychic mediums: Even if they have a huge number of hits, where did that information come from? Is it from a paranormal power, such as psychic mediumship, or are the hits coming from something much more ordinary and unexciting?

The show's premise is that Amy's psychic walk-through and Steve's mundane plowing through library files and old newspaper clippings happen separately, without any contact between the two. This is obviously necessary, since if Amy were told what Steve found, her "impressions" would be ...well, quite UNimpressive!

So the premise is that they don't communicate. Okay, let's buy into that for a moment. Does that mean her impressions must be obtained by paranormal means? No. It could be that they are - that's what they're selling. But one thing I noticed about this episode: ALL of Amy's "hits" - the stuff everyone oohs and ahhs about at the end, can be found on the first page of Google by just typing in "Barbee Hotel Warsaw Haunted."

Did Amy do that before her walk-through? I'm sure she'd say no - so then we have to consider her personal credibility..

Amy Allan - like all psychic mediums - has a reputation built solely on her ability to obtain "hits" - that is, accurately describing a situation or thing without having apparent direct knowledge of it. Her "credibility," then, stems not from her personal integrity but from her performance.
With that in mind, we can readily see that Amy Allan has every incentive in the world to hit that Google search button before she does her walk-through, and basically no incentive not to (other than the incentive to not get caught). There's just no upside to Amy being honest in this situation, and no down side to her cheating.

That doesn't prove that she cheats, of course, it just shows that she has no reason in the world to not cheat. And when you add that to the fact that her hits can be found online without any real effort, there is strong reason to doubt her. I would add too that this is only "cheating" in the sense that the show's premise is that she has no information about the location.

When you watch the various ghost hunting shows, you should keep this in mind no matter who is involved. Scientific investigators and psychic mediums with TV shows are coming at this issue from opposite directions, and they have diametrically opposed motivations driving them.

Oh, and about her sketch of the entity haunting the upstairs - and what the people involved made of that... .and GOOGLE.  On the first page of Google using the search term shown above, you get a reference to Al Capone having stayed there. That's who her sketch looked like, and she was claiming at least three entities haunt that location: The one on the main floor was the original owner, she said, and there was another more ominous man upstairs, which she had a sketch artist render for her. It's Al Capone. But the the people involved in the haunting didn't pick up on that in the big reveal; they thought the sketch looked kind of  like the original owner of the place (Steve brought a picture with him). This made Amy shift gears and change her claim: now it was all really just one entity, using different disguises on different floors. Google didn't work so well for her this time - she had hoped to get credit for finding Al Capone haunting the place - but since the people thought the sketch looked kind of like the original owner, it was declared a "HIT" anyway. So it was a win for Amy, even though her skills really failed her. Oh well. 

VERDICT: There's nothing to see, here. If Amy is using psychic abilities to obtain her information, she's doing it the hard way: Google can be utilized without any travel, any hotel reservations, or any walking around  in a haunted house. And we haven't even mentioned potential information obtained from the cast and crew. Google explains everything. Except maybe Amy's propensity for finding evil entities everywhere she goes. That is contrary to the experience of just about every other ghost hunter you'd want to give any credibility to. She is especially fond of "finding" evil men - men are just evil in Amy's world. She never finds a friendly one or even an indifferent one. Men are evil. Amy has told us so..

Since we're on the topic, I will add that I am acquainted with a psychic medium: William Becker of Paranormal Insights. Personally, I consider him to be a man of integrity, and I tend to trust his impressions. This trust comes from my assessment of his own moral compass, and his work. But he doesn't have a TV show, he isn't under the same pressure to get hits, and he isn't out to wow anyone. He also gets things wrong and there's no TV producer standing by to edit out those flops.

I'm not dismissing the field in its entirety. Psychic impressions are very hard to verify and essentially impossible to establish scientific controls for, so it's one of those things that you can either take or leave, depending on your persuasion. Just bear in mind that professionals with TV shows have nothing to lose by deceiving you. Never forget that.

Let's look at this question by examining two intellectual propositions:
1) TV production companies are driven to bring you the absolute truth. They would never lie or fake anything because truth is their highest priority, ratings be damned.  Or...
2) TV production companies only care about ratings, because that is how they make their money. They want the show to have maximum ratings and the longest possible lifespan. If the truth gets them that, that's great. If they have to lie, cheat and fabricate, oh well... see the first sentence of this proposition.

As a logical, rational and intellectually honest viewer, which proposition seems most likely correct to you?

If Amy Alan wants to sit down with me for a reading, and she comes up with something you couldn't find through Google or cold reading techniques, then I will tell you that. Mega bonus points if she comes up with something even I don't know, but can verify through research. I'm totally open to the idea that Amy or someone else out there might be the real deal - and it if ever happens I will definitely tell you. Otherwise, it's just an act. Sorry.


Footnotes:
1. IMDB discussion of Amy Allan's appearance on Season 1, Episode 4 of A Haunting - this episode is titled Cursed. Amy plays a "researcher" and in this episode she actually demonstrates how she researches a location (a private home) before she goes there. This episode will answer any questions one might have about Amy's ability to research private homes and develop a profile of them so she knows what to talk about when she goes there.

First Aired: November 18, 2005 - is about a private home in  Tucson, Arizona. In this episode, Amy the researcher shows you how thoroughly she researches a private home without actually going there. It's probably why they scrubbed this and all other previous acting credits from her IMDB.

Doesn't this make you wonder about why they might have scrubbed Amy Allan's previous acting credits from her IMDB and Travel Channel profile? Is it just that they don't want you to know that Amy Allan is an actor? Or is it that her appearance here reveals too much about her real technique?

2. Strangely, some fans have decided to argue with the definition of physical medium! Amy has tried to create a niche for herself by changing the meaning of a term that has been around for over 100 years, Well, it doesn't work like that, Sorry, Amy (and fans) you're just wrong and making stuff up doesn't help your credibility at all.
 "Physical mediumship is defined as manipulation of energies and energy systems by spirits. This type of mediumship is claimed to involve perceptible manifestations, such as loud raps and noises, voices, materialized objects, apports, materialized spirit bodies, or body parts such as hands, legs and feet. The medium is used as a source of power for such spirit manifestations. By some accounts, this was achieved by using the energy or ectoplasm released by a medium, see Spirit photography.[24][25] The last physical medium to be tested by a committee from Scientific American was Mina Crandon in 1924.

"Most physical mediumship is presented in a darkened or dimly lit room. Most physical mediums make use of a traditional array of tools and appurtenances, including spirit trumpets, spirit cabinets, and levitation tables." (Wikipedia)

I could add multiple references to this but those not satisfied should just try doing their own research. If you enjoy the show, that's great, enjoy the show! But let's stop trying to re-write history in order to make the show more believable, okay?

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DISCLAIMER: Nothing in this post or blog is meant to suggest that the supernatural or paranormal does not exist. I believe that there is something there, but I cannot prove it. 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 fictional. 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.

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.