Electronic Voice Phenomena: Terrifying.

[Ununnilium]

And, of course, there's *no way in the world* that it could actually be what it seems to be. >>

I'm all for letting the burden of proof be on the extraordinary claim, but way too often, people are being less "skeptical" and more "doubting for the sake of doubting".

Andrew "NO .SIG MAN" "Juan" Perron, annoyance.

 

[RangerWickett]

The pottery idea I'd heard of was that some types of ancient pottery were decorated by inscribing spiral lines into the pot with a cactus needle or something like that while the pot was spinning on the wheel - essentially creating a record* that could now be played back to hear what was happening near the wheel, presumably after a lot of signal processing. I've had this story in my head forever, it seems like, but can't verify whether it's ever really been tried or seriously proposed.

Heard in an episode of the X-Files, paraphrased:

"This ancient bowl was inscribed with a needle, and I rotated the bowl and traced the line the needle left, basically letting me play it like a record. What it said, after I translated it from ancient Hebrew, was: I am the egg man, I am the walrus, goo goo gachoo. Except ancient Hebrew doesn't have a word for walrus, so it literally said I am the large-tusked sea cow."

 

[Ferret]

I'm not saying it couldn't exist, when I see something I believe could be a spirit from the after life I'll go 'wow, that looked real'. None of them seemed real.

What was freaky was the 'Get out of my house' recording, sounded to real but was cool.

But hey, if you were dead you'd want people to hear you not think you were static.

 

[Guilt Puppy]

At one time I heard where some group was going to try and pull sound from pottery and brick, the theory was that sound is imprinted onto items during creation. Never heard any more about it but this make me wonder...

Did you happen to hear this in a Visual Arts class at UCSD, circa 2000? I had a TA bring up this "research", and later admit (in private) he just thought it was a cool idea, and wanted to see if we'd believe him... I haven't ever heard of it existing elsewhere (although the cactus-needle thing is similar, it's not the same, whereas the "imprinted in pottery and brick" thing is exactly what he said...)

Regarding EVP, it's fun and creepy, but I think it's just examples of normal radio interference. We hear it all the time in white noise, it's just that 99 times out of 100, it's something mundane, and we don't notice it... It's only when we hear something creepy that it stands out.

My closest personal experience is kind of funny: I was at a friend's house several years ago, playing Mortal Kombat II... At one point one of us, I don't know, fell off the couch or something, and somehow the controller got jerked out of the machine, which caused the game to crash. It kept on playing the buffered portion of the sound sample -- it was the "Flawless Victory" phrase, in that evil voice, except it was only playing part of it, so it was repeating "Victor" over and over again.

My friend's name was Victor. It happened on Halloween. And we were teenagers to boot So while it can hardly be called supernatural, it was still superbly creepy.

Anyway, as a plot point, it's a very good one... Hell, if you got some good tech people behind it, it might just justify a LARP.

 

[Dragon-Slayer]

If you played these clips to someone who did not speak English, chances are they will not hear anything at all.

This ability of our brains to piece together an image (audio or visual) from fragments accounts for a lot of strangeness that we experience. The brain is a funny thing. Damn science ruining everybody's fun.

Actually, this is not true. I have over the years heard EVPs recorded in different languages and I can hear words, not just static. As a matter of fact, my girlfriend (from Spain) listens to a radio program that is much like the Art Bell/George Noory Coast to Coast radio show that deals with such things. Everything is in Spanish and I can make out words from the static and I do not speak the language. The brain is a funny thing. Maybe one day science can explain EVP, but not yet.

 

[Umbran]

And, of course, there's *no way in the world* that it could actually be what it seems to be. >>

I'm all for letting the burden of proof be on the extraordinary claim, but way too often, people are being less "skeptical" and more "doubting for the sake of doubting".

Might be better to say there no known way in the world that it could actually be what it seems to be. And while it fits in with legend and myth, it goes against most folks' everyday experience. While that doesn't render it completely impossible, it does tell us how to bet.

It isn't doubting for the sake of doubting. It's doubting because it isn't very plausible, given what we know. We also doubt when someone claims to be able to travel in time, or have a perpetual motion machine. If you don't doubt extraordinary claims that have little support behind them, you're likely to make big (and often costly) mistakes.

It is important to have an open mind. The trick is to not open it so much that your brains spill out in a mess on the sidewalk

 

[The Goblin King]

I want to believe. I really do. In high school my nickname could have been Fox Mulder. (but X-files wasn't on then) I have been interested in the paranormal for as long as I can remember. However, in that time I have yet to see something that makes me say, "There is no scientific explaination for that. It HAS to be _____."

 

[Krug]

What I want to know is... do the dead have blogs?

(Man the voiceover on the trailer is prob worse than any EVP phenom!)

 

[Torm]

I hadn't actually heard of this before, but it does fit with a theory I've had for a while on how ghosts work - not entirely scientific because it requires some speculation, but a lot more reasonable IMHO than a lot of the "paranormal" stuff I've heard, and at least as plausible:

The brain is an electromagnetic pattern. If an electromagnetic pattern is in one place for long enough - say, where the person's head always rested in a favorite chair over many years - then, just as putting up a polluting factory can alter the weather patterns in the area, this person's brain pattern may begin to alter the local electromagnetic "weather" pattern of the room they are in in a specific way. Later, when someone else has moved into the house, at some point, they may have their head in just the right position in the house's pattern to "pick up" some of the patterns from the first person. This could result in a stray thought being overlaid on the new person, or maybe a bit of visual data, or what have you. You can probably imagine what effect I'm implying this might have.

The only thing I haven't figured out is how this would tie into the temperature drops that have supposedly been measured by equipment. There must be a way, though.

If my theory above were correct, it could also lend itself to a possible explanation for EVP, as well.....

 

[Torm]

However, in that time I have yet to see something that makes me say, "There is no scientific explaination for that. It HAS to be _____."

This may dance around the rule about discussing religion, but I have to share an observation I've made with you:

SCIENCE is the exploration of the universe using emperical data and specific experiment techniques and the scientific method.

RELIGION (and paranormal study frequently falls under this a bit) is the exploration of the universe using faith, and emotion, and senses not easily explained by science for us at this time.

BUT - they both describe the SAME universe. So if they disagree, one or both is not true religion or true science.

Or, put another way - don't be disappointed if your Magick CAN be explained by Science. Be disappointed if it CAN'T. Cause in the latter case, you're doing something wrong.