History of EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena)
The accidental discovery of "Spirit voices."
Frederich Jurgenson 1903 - 1987 was a Russian born Swedish man who wore many hats. He was an archeologist, philosopher, linguist and a painter. One of his hobbies was using his reel to reel recorder to document bird songs. On June 12th, 1959 he retired to his country cottage which, being located near a lake a forest and meadows was the perfect place to record the birdsongs he so loved.
He loaded his recorder and pointed the microphone towards a finch that he could hear singing nearby. He continued to record for about 5 minutes and replayed the tape. He could hear the finch on the tape but it sounded far more distant than he felt it should be considering the distance of the bird to the microphone. He also heard a strange rushing sound that resembled a shower running. He felt perhaps there was something wrong with his recorder so tried the recording again.
He could hear the finch, although still distant as well as the rushing sound of water. Seemingly out of nowhere he then heard the sound of a trumpet solo which he did not hear with his ears. The trumpet sounded like it was heralding something, like an announcement was about to follow. He then heard a male voice speaking in Norwegian. The voice was quiet but clear and was talking about bird songs at night. This was followed by an entire chorus of whistling and chattering sounds as well as what sounded like something large splashing in water.
What perplexed him most about these sounds is that he didn’t hear any of this with his ears, he could also pick out the song of a sparrow which was not present in the area at the time. In the middle of the recording the choir of other birds stopped, along with the rushing sounds and was left with just the sound of the finch he originally intended to record. Everything else sounded normal for the rest of the recording and matched what he heard with his own ears.
Frederich initially thought he was picking up pieces of a local radio broadcast, but still felt it odd that the voice he heard was talking about birdsongs while he was in the act of recording birdsongs. Although possible, the chances of this happening seemed unlikely. He checked the radio receiver in his home and found this turned off at the time. he returned to his cottage and continued to record without any other strange noises occurring. He recorded for several weeks without anything unexplained being captured. Then something truly unbelievable happened.
He captured a male voice which seemed to be speaking directly to him. “Frederich, you are being observed,” the voice said. The voice spoke in German, a language he understood quite well, and spoke to directly to him. It was as if someone he could not see was in the room with him and communicating with him. This event must have been fascinating and a little unnerving. Frederich was now hooked. He put his painting on hold to dedicate time to figuring out what was truly going on. The next voice he captured was even more intriguing since he recognized the voice.
This message seemed broken up into several parts but was the same female voice which said the following. “You love … you live in love … in me lives Elly … Freidel lives, you live … alas we live. Elly, Freidel, Papa lives … many live. Alas, alas … you love Helene.” Things are now getting interesting. Frederich played the message for his wife Helene and his sister Elly who all agreed that this voice was their deceased mother. Freidel was a term of endearment his mother used while he was a child. Frederich now knew that he was onto something unexplained and ongoing which he needed to share with others.
He goes public and is vetted by scientists and researchers, thus beginning the paranormal journey which continues to this day. Frederich needed to figure out what it was that he was capturing and more importantly how. This was all taking place in the 1950’s and 1960’s and during that time, the UFO craze was in the collective consciousness. So one early theory considered by Jurgenson and others was that he was capturing the voices of UFO pilots, or perhaps transmissions from space. This is the premise of Jurgenson’s book, Voices from Space. By 1964 he captured approximately 140 voices of friends and family that had passed away which supported the theory that he was capturing the voices of the dead.
Once Jurgenson went public with his findings, he was disappointed with the attention he received as most established scientists were uninterested in taking him seriously. This could have been in part due to some of his claims as he claimed to have captured a heated argument between Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin, as well as the voice of Albert Einstein, Van Gough, and Vladimir Lenin. In 1964 this all changed.
A Latvian Psychologist named Konstantin Raudive would read Voices From Space and although was initially skeptical of Jurgenson’s claims he was intrigued by the concept that there my be life after death. Raudive was a Jungian trained psychologist who was interested enough in Jurgenson’s claims to meet with him and challenge his claims. In April of 1965 the two meet and Jurgenson plays some of his recordings for Raudive, who found them difficult to make out. He could hear some voices and agreed to conduct some joint recording sessions to witness this phenomena for himself. For the reminder of 1965, the two met and conducted many recording sessions which were described as tenuous at best.
This all changed for Raudive when he received a bombshell of a voice which said clearly, “Do you know Margeret, Konstintin?” Although he didn’t recognize the voice, he felt the voice was referring to his friend Margeret Petrauski who had recently died. Mr. Raudive was now hooked and immediately returned to Germany to continue his research in his own surroundings and with his own equipment. Perhaps conducting how own research away from Jurgenson would yield different results. So what were his findings?
Over a 3 year period, Raudive captured over 72,000 discernable voices. Dr. Raudive conducted recording sessions with over 400 participants which included family and friends, but also physicists, psychologists and parapsychologists. Raudive involved others in his recording sessions not only to corroborate and witness his findings but also to help him to figure out what he was capturing. In 1968 Raudive published his first book, Breakthrough where he highlighted the best examples from his vast number of spirit voices. The attention Raudive received brought with it a challenge from a local newspaper.
Raudive was invited to Pye Records, a local sound studio to conduct an evp session in a sound proof environment. They recorded for 18 minutes during which no one present in the studio heard anything with their ears. The studio technicians were floored while replaying the tape and heard over 200 voices which did not sound like Raudive or anyone else present. Frederich Jurgenson’s findings have now been replicated by Dr. Raudive completely separate from him, with different equipment and witnesses. Dr. Raudive was just getting started in his pursuit of evp’s
Returning to Germany and replicating Jurgenson’s findings, Raudive began with the same equipment setup. This consisted of a recorder and 2 microphones, one for the interviewer and the other for the invisible guest. Raudive took his research in another direction; he invented what is called the Raudive diode. In place of a microphone, he wrapped the bare microphone wire around a piece of Germanium. Germanium is a metalloid semi-conductor in the carbon group used in transistors and circuits. A scaled up version of this diode is what’s called a “Cat’s whisker.” A diode large enough can pick up nearby radio signals, but one small enough should only pick up signals in the immediate area. This set up without a live microphone prevented the voices of people present in the room to be picked up, but still somehow captured unexplained voices.
In addition to this technique, Raudive also experimented with tuning a radio between 2 radio stations to produce white noise. He would then ask questions and receive responses among the radio static. The technique in my opinion was the birth of the SB-7 spirit box which is used by many paranormal investigators around the world today. This device sweeps through radio frequencies automatically at varying speeds through the RF (radio frequencies) spectrum. In my experience it is rare, but voices speaking entire sentences have been captured on this device. It shouldn’t be possible to receive an entire sentence spoken in the same voice which appears over several different RF bands; but it happens.
Another technique Raudive would use involved the “Mediator.” Jurgenson also experienced this mysterious voice that would appear on a recording before any other voices would be heard. They called the voice the “mediator” since it seemed to open the door for communication. Both Jurgenson and Raudive recognized the voice. The voice which was male would be the same voice recording after recording. Raudive would slowly rotate the radio dial waiting for the “mediator” to chime in, telling him when to stop turning the dial. Communication would then begin at this area of the radio dial between radio stations consisting of nothing but static.
Who or what was this “mediator?” Beth O’Brien and I had a run in with this “mediator” character during an investigation of the Bellaire House in Bellaire, Ohio. I asked Kristin Lee who owns the property if she had any experience with a particular voice that appeared to herald ongoing communication with other voices. She said she in fact did find a consistent male voice that would be heard in her ghost box made by Steve Huff. This male voice would be heard first, followed by many other voices. On our second investigation of the home I did hear this voice and recognized it from our previous investigation. The voice was of a male, very deep and authoritative. Even though I have encountered this phenomena countless times first hand, I am still no closer to a concrete explanation.
What are evp’s? Were these early investigators capturing the voices of the dead, or were they somehow recording manifestations of their own consciousness? Are spirits of the dead able to use radio frequencies to reach out to us, or are we just hearing snippets of radio stations? I can say that based on my experience as an investigator that we are in some cases capturing intelligent voices that respond directly to our conversations, sometimes without realizing there is another presence in the room answering us. On occasion I have asked a question of another investigator and received a response from another voice that doesn’t belong that commented on the topic of conversation. Somehow this mysterious voice knew what was being discussed in real time. The longer I investigate, the more strange experiences I have. Sometimes voices are captured and not heard with the ear which fits the definition of evp. Sometimes a loud and clear voice is heard but not captured by multiple recorders in the room. Typically we classify this as a disembodied voice; why is the voice heard but not recorded? We may never prove the phenomena beyond any shadow of doubt, but one thing I can tell you is the pursuit of it is both fascinating and rewarding.