Ghost boxes… my, my, my.

–Cap’n Casper

The latest and greatest EVP craze these days is the ghost box. Reminiscent of Spiricom and the Phychophon, these devices are claimed to be a live link to the dead. Don’t get too excited just yet, it gets better. There are also some organizations selling sessions (sound familiar?) for contacting deceased relatives and other loved ones using these devices. Now, those are pretty amazing claims. I would be amazed too, if they actually produced results.

What is a ‘ghost box’?

Also called ‘Frank’s Box’, the idea was brought forth by Frank Sumption. He began constructing devices that he claimed would provide a means of communication with the dead based on a few simple ideas. His original designs utilized the AM tuning section of a car stereo as the primary reception device. The receivers operated via a VCO, or voltage controlled oscillator to tune in a particular station. A white noise generator based on the base-emitter thermal noise of a standard bipolar junction transistor (BJT) was used to provide a ‘random tuning voltage’ to the VCO. This setup caused the AM tuner to randomly tune across the AM spectrum (sounds a lot like EVP maker software). This randomized AM reception was then fed into a speaker mounted in an ‘echo chamber’ (box) along with a microphone. The microphone was of course, fed to a recorder. In principle, the thought is that the random reception of broadcast stations provides a kind of ‘raw material’ to facilitate the construction of intelligible phrases by non-physical beings.

Why not a ‘ghost box’?

While it seems a tempting setup to try, this method has some obvious drawbacks. First, I have listened to many ‘EVP samples’ recorded with methods similar to this, and they are subject to interpretation at best. I have heard (and recorded myself) much, much better samples than even those presented on Mr. Sumption’s website. All of the recordings that I have heard made with this method can be termed “un-impressive”.

Second, let’s think about the skeptics’ major beef with any EVP: electromagnetic interference, radio or otherwise. The setup of a ‘ghost box’ is the epitome of radio interference. Since it uses an AM receiver, all sorts of non-paranormal sources could be picked up such as baby monitors, cordless phones, and two-way radios just to name a few. To make matters worse, lately many have been constructing these boxes to simply sweep the AM spectrum (because that is easier to accomplish, not because it works better) even though Sumption says in his construction notes that it seems to be the ‘randomness’ of the reception that allows the device to work. At bare minimum, these devices should only be used within well-constructed Faraday cages and as far as possible from high-power broadcast AM sources, but then that would defeat the primary principle of operation… interesting.

Third, there have been hundreds of thousands of acceptable EVP samples recorded with tried-and-true methods. For many years, the setup for recording was a simple dynamic microphone and a high quality recording deck. Why not improve this method? Not only does a dynamic microphone respond to acoustic events, but also electromagnetic events as well. Since they pickup electromagnetic events via induction, they respond primarily to the magnetic portion of an EM wave. In an electromagnetic wave, the magnetic component loses amplitude much more quickly than the electrical component (a function of the inverse cube of the distance from source). This means that even electromagnetic interference at a distance of several feet will typically not be picked up at the microphone. Local disturbances however (just in case EVP is really electromagnetic in nature, which some research suggests), will be picked up within a few inches of the microphone element. So if a ‘personality’ wanted to interact with the microphone element, that task could be accomplished either acoustically or electromagnetically. Dynamic microphones also have another distinct advantage: they’re cheap. I just purchased a lot of 10 studio microphones on Ebay for a grand total of $76. I plan to construct a dynamic ‘array’, similar to the infra sound arrays used by seismologists. I will post results and details as they are available.

Finally, let’s all remember that the tendency of the human brain is to make sense of what it hears. Our brains rely on memories to process input, which is why voices can be heard to faintly appear out of static. Subconsciously we need to recognize our sensory input, and the mind is a powerful thing. Because of this, I believe it is folly to accept anything less than a class A (fully intelligible, no interpretation needed) voice. I do not analyze anything that requires straining to hear or multiple listens to decipher.

The verdict…

While an intriguing concept, we must remember that live communication with the ‘other side’ has not been accomplished since the days of Spiricom, and it now seems that that may have been a sham (more to come on this). We must continue to be vigilant in the face of those offering an easy solution without much to offer us in the way of evidence. Many investigators claim to be all about collecting hard scientific evidence, but in the end they just open their wallets wide for every roadside ‘snake oil’ stand. Fancy gadgets will not good research make. I have seen many websites touting to be the only group in the area that uses a ‘constanflabuglator’, or whatever the gadget of the week happens to be. I have also noticed that these groups have little, or nothing at all to offer in the way of data supporting any kind of theories.

If we work smart and work together we will find the answers. We are fortunate to exist in the most exciting age of discovery in human history. Let’s not squander that gift just for the sake of the ‘easy way’.

Thanks for taking the time.

-Cap’n Casper