# How to put the Paranormal to rest. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 4, 2010, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-put-the-paranormal-to-rest/559462 "2010-11-04T15:04:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-put-the-paranormal-to-rest/559462/221 "2010-11-08T15:05:11Z")
Following is a hypothetical conversation that may sum up this thread. **Acid Lamp:** Look at this! It sure is strange, and needs to be investigated, cause it might reveal some new force of nature! I never saw this before. **Musicat:** I see that all the time. That’s a good example of an unwanted interference signal, magnified so greatly that it creates patterns that look familiar to humans. And I think my colleagues would agree. **Acid Lamp:** But we need to investigate more! ---
**Author:** ![Acid\_Lamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Acid\_Lamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acid_Lamp)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-put-the-paranormal-to-rest/559462/222 "2010-11-08T15:14:55Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > Following is a hypothetical conversation that may sum up this thread. > > **Acid Lamp:** Look at this! It sure is strange, and needs to be investigated, cause it might reveal some new force of nature! I never saw this before. > > **Musicat:** I see that all the time. That’s a good example of an unwanted interference signal, magnified so greatly that it creates patterns that look familiar to humans. And I think my colleagues would agree. > > **Acid Lamp:** But we need to investigate more! Let me fix that for you. **Acid Lamp:** Look at this! It sure is strange, and needs to be investigated, cause it might reveal some new force of nature! I never saw this before. **Musicat:** I see that all the time. That’s a good example of an unwanted interference signal, magnified so greatly that it creates patterns that look familiar to humans. And I think my colleagues would agree. **Acid Lamp:** Cool beans. Can you define the source or show me how to eliminate the problem? The people whose home I recorded this in are also hearing occasionally and it weirds them out. **Musicat:** It’s technical, and I’m not going to waste my time on it. I already told you what it was. Tell Ma and Pa yokel to be satisfied with the explanation and ignore it. **Acid Lamp:** Yeah but it is bothering them and they’d be a lot more comfortable if I could at least point them to the source or give them some advice to eliminate it. **Musicat:** Quit chasing ghosts Acid Lamp. **Acid Lamp:** (Head explodes) ---
**Author:** ![PlainJain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5daacb/32.png) [@PlainJain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlainJain)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-put-the-paranormal-to-rest/559462/223 "2010-11-08T15:27:43Z")
> [@Acid\_Lamp](#): > > Here let me give you an example that will illustrate my position. > > At the home I lived in previously we were across the street from a large cattle pasture. It was about 3/4 of mile to the other side. Located centrally there was an irregular shallow pond in the pasture. Along the fence line on our side were occasional thick clumps of brush. One cold, clear, night We started noticing arguing voices coming from outside. Being fairly late at night, I decided to make a round of the house and be certain there wasn’t anybody outside. Once out there, it was obvious that the voices were coming from just behind on of the brushy areas. After a few minutes of no response to my inquiries I decided to call the police. The fight seemed to be escalating, and I didn’t want it spilling into my yard, or someone getting stabbed or shot. The police responded, but by the time he had got there the voices had subsided quite a bit. He went and had a look briefly along the fence line. He was about to give up when the fighting started up again, quite clearly coming from the brushy area. He hopped the fence and took off after the voices. After a few minutes he came back confused. We waited around for a few minutes more and the voices resumed fighting. It turns out that on that specific night, sound was somehow traveling across the water, and bouncing onto the brush pile, making it sound as if the people really were right there. It fooled everyone and made us pretty nervous. > > Now imagine that something similar but less obvious is happening in someone’s home. Something is acting as a resonator and it only is audible when things are nearly silent, and occurs only occasionally. It could very well give someone the creeps. You hear a voice, you go and look, there isn’t anyone around. If it only happens when conditions are just right, like in my example, it might only happen once a month or even less. Those incidents have a way of sticking in your lizard brain though, and for lots of people that isn’t a far jump to haunted house. It doesn’t occur frequently or for long enough for them to track it down. Get it? And this is why you cannot devise an experiment to make the paranormal believers go away. There are people out there whose default explanation will be ghosts. They will want each and every instance to be debunked. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-put-the-paranormal-to-rest/559462/224 "2010-11-08T15:30:11Z")
> [@Acid\_Lamp](#): > > Anything out of the ordinary **Dio** , and you know it. This statement means nothing. “ordinary” means nothing. > [@](#): > > I’ve been really polite while you and **Czarcasm** hijacked this thread to hell and back, but I’m losing patience really quickly. We haven’t hijacked the thread, we’ve given you direct answers to direct questions. You just don’t like the answers. > [@](#): > > I’m speaking in generalities, because I am asking for criteria that would support “clean evidence”, not nit-picky criteria for one test in one place at one time. I’m quite aware that being specific is how science is done. unfortunately, people who resort to woo can’t usually be more specific, than “I see weird lights out there” or “we hear strange noises”. If you’re going to ask questions about scientific testing, you can’t be general. You have to be specific. You have to know what question you’re asking, what your hypothetical explanation is and how to test for it. Teasting for “anything out of the ordinary” is a scientifically senseless endeavor. > [@](#): > > So for example, Let us say that you are presented a videotape. On it you have footage from three cameras running at the same time. on your nightvision you see nothing. On the IR you notice a light briefly flaring, on the thermal you see a small heat blob that coincides with the IR footage. Now, we can see plainly in the footage that there isn’t anyone there, nor is there an animal. So we have a weird little light that would stump most people. If this has happened before or with any regularity it might scare the crap out of people. So you have to determine if someone is playing silly buggers with you. The point of the thread, was how to ensure that your evidence was as clean as possible. Evidence of WHAT? You can’t talk about evidence without a hypothesis. What you have with your videotape is a possible observed phenomenon, but an observed phenomenon is not evidence in itself, because you don’t have a hypotheses - a proposed explanation - yet. Evidence is that which confirms or falsifies a specific _hypothesis_. You can’t have evidence without a hypothesis. You have to have something specific in mind that you’re testing _for_ not just wildly fishing for woo. > [@](#): > > If it turns out that you are filming a real oddity What is a “real oddity?” You use these terms that have no scientific meaning. > [@](#): > > it might be worth investigating the cause of that weird little light. Will it change the world? probably not. Is it interesting and will solving it make someone else feel better and more secure in science to explain the world? Absolutely. Your OP asked how to “put the paranormal to rest.” There is no possible test that can do that, and it’s a waste of time to investigate every possible claim without some very compelling reason to do so. A flash of light on a videotape (although not worth investigating, in my opinion) cannot be proven not to have a supernatural cause. There is no test that can do that. ---
**Author:** ![PlainJain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5daacb/32.png) [@PlainJain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlainJain)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-put-the-paranormal-to-rest/559462/225 "2010-11-08T15:32:45Z")
> [@Acid\_Lamp](#): > > Let me fix that for you. > > **Acid Lamp:** Look at this! It sure is strange, and needs to be investigated, cause it might reveal some new force of nature! I never saw this before. > > **Musicat:** I see that all the time. That’s a good example of an unwanted interference signal, magnified so greatly that it creates patterns that look familiar to humans. And I think my colleagues would agree. > > **Acid Lamp:** Cool beans. Can you define the source or show me how to eliminate the problem? The people whose home I recorded this in are also hearing occasionally and it weirds them out. > > **Musicat:** It’s technical, and I’m not going to waste my time on it. I already told you what it was. Tell Ma and Pa yokel to be satisfied with the explanation and ignore it. > > **Acid Lamp:** Yeah but it is bothering them and they’d be a lot more comfortable if I could at least point them to the source or give them some advice to eliminate it. > > **Musicat:** Quit chasing ghosts Acid Lamp. > > **Acid Lamp:** (Head explodes) I’ll tell you how to fix it, stop recording with cheap equipment and playing it back really amplified. ---
**Author:** ![Acid\_Lamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Acid\_Lamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acid_Lamp)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-put-the-paranormal-to-rest/559462/226 "2010-11-08T15:40:52Z")
> [@PlainJain](#): > > And this is why you cannot devise an experiment to make the paranormal believers go away. There are people out there whose default explanation will be ghosts. They will want each and every instance to be debunked. We’ve done this before. Those type of people aren’t worth trying to convince, but don’t let them color the entirety of people who claim to have encountered something unexplained. They are vocal minority, the paranormal equivalent of the frothing anti-evolution crowd. What I’m saying is that while an explanation might be correct, without being able to reliably demonstrate and eliminate it, you basically have done nothing more than offer a more plausible explanation. Good as that explanation might be, it is no more real to the person than the ghost is. The point of the thread was ask how can we do good science when we run up against the wall of our knowledge? I understand some common causes of EVP. If i gather one that seems really odd, I’d like to take it to **Musicat** for his opinion. If I cannot prove that i didn’t hoax it, then his opinion, if he even agrees to give it, is useless. see? I’m neither trying to prove ghosts, nor categorically eliminate every bit of woo from the planet. It can’t be done. What we CAN do is try to create guidelines to insure that evidence of any sort is hoax free and as a legitimate presentation of the actual phenomena as possible. We also should be making every effort to help eliminate these problems wherever possible. THAT is how woo will be mostly destroyed. by nibbling away at it case by case, making a thorough and sound approach until the real weight of negative evidence grinds it away. By proving the concept and eliminating the occurrence. ---
**Author:** ![Acid\_Lamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Acid\_Lamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acid_Lamp)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-put-the-paranormal-to-rest/559462/227 "2010-11-08T15:43:14Z")
> [@PlainJain](#): > > I’ll tell you how to fix it, stop recording with cheap equipment and playing it back really amplified. I’ll be sure to tell them to get those ear transplants lined up then.:rolleyes: Try reading for comprehension. Not all EVP is played back amplified to all hell. A lot of it is just barely out of normal everyday hearing range. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-put-the-paranormal-to-rest/559462/228 "2010-11-08T15:44:18Z")
“See that cloud? It looks like Scrooge McDuck.” “Hey, yeah, it does look like Scrooge McDuck!” “Why does it look like that?” “What do you mean?” “What causes it to look like Scrooge McDuck?” “Well…I mean…it’s a cloud. They move around randomly in turbulent air, and sometimes they’re going to look like things.” “But can we rule out the possibility of the supernatura?l” “Well,uh, I suppose, we can’t, strictly speaking, but why would you go there? It’s a cloud.” “That’s it? That’s all you’re going to say? You haven’t proved anything! I demand tests! strict protocols! flights to the cloud thoroughly investigating it.” “That sounds expensive and time consuming. Also it doesn’t look like Scrooge McDuck anymore. Now it looks like a salmon mousse.” ---
**Author:** ![Acid\_Lamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Acid\_Lamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acid_Lamp)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-put-the-paranormal-to-rest/559462/229 "2010-11-08T15:46:45Z")
**Dio** , all I’m hearing from you is: Since I cannot disprove a supernatural causation there is no reason to investigate any phenomena that has ever been associated with one. That makes no sense. In my example you admitted that there was something on the tape. Neither us know what it is, You don’t care, but I think it is interesting so I’d like to take it to an expert who might have a better idea. How do I show that it is not a fake? THAT IS THE QUESTION. nothing else. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-put-the-paranormal-to-rest/559462/230 "2010-11-08T15:48:28Z")
> [@Acid\_Lamp](#): > > Anything out of the ordinary **Dio** , and you know it. I’ve been really polite while you and **Czarcasm** hijacked this thread to hell and back, but I’m losing patience really quickly. I’m speaking in generalities, because I am asking for criteria that would support “clean evidence”, not nit-picky criteria for one test in one place at one time. I’m quite aware that being specific is how science is done. unfortunately, people who resort to woo can’t usually be more specific, than “I see weird lights out there” or “we hear strange noises”. > > So for example, Let us say that you are presented a videotape. On it you have footage from three cameras running at the same time. on your nightvision you see nothing. On the IR you notice a light briefly flaring, on the thermal you see a small heat blob that coincides with the IR footage. Now, we can see plainly in the footage that there isn’t anyone there, nor is there an animal. So we have a weird little light that would stump most people. If this has happened before or with any regularity it might scare the crap out of people. So you have to determine if someone is playing silly buggers with you. The point of the thread, was how to ensure that your evidence was as clean as possible. If it turns out that you are filming a real oddity, it might be worth investigating the cause of that weird little light. Will it change the world? probably not. Is it interesting and will solving it make someone else feel better and more secure in science to explain the world? Absolutely. You say that there is “evidence” that needs to be examined, the you put forth yet another in a long line of hypotheticals, followed by an personal anecdote in a later post. Forget the rigged hypotheticals-we can’t investigate those. Forget the personal anecdotes filled with selective memories-we can’t investigate those. Give us the best piece of evidence you’ve got that you think should be investigated. Give us the solid reason why we shouldn’t frackin’ give up and walk away from this several-thousand-year-old dog and pony show. While you’re at it, tell us why you think developing the perfect test will do jack in discouraging new ghost stories from popping up elsewhere. ---
**Author:** ![Acid\_Lamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Acid\_Lamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acid_Lamp)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-put-the-paranormal-to-rest/559462/231 "2010-11-08T15:52:14Z")
> [@Larry\_Borgia](#): > > “See that cloud? It looks like Scrooge McDuck.” > “Hey, yeah, it does look like Scrooge McDuck!” > “Why does it look like that?” > “What do you mean?” > “What causes it to look like Scrooge McDuck?” > “Well..I mean…it’s a cloud. They move around randomly in turbulent air, and sometimes they’re going to look like things.” > “But can we rule out the possibility of the supernatura?l” > “Well,uh, I suppose, we can’t, strictly speaking, but why would you go there? It’s a cloud.” > “That’s it? That’s all you’re going to say? You haven’t proved anything! I demand tests! strict protocols! flights to the cloud thoroughly investigating it.” > “That sounds expensive and time consuming. Also it doesn’t look like Scrooge McDuck anymore. Now it looks like a salmon mousse.” um… no. my OP was aimed at: “Hey check this out, this video has a cloud shaped like Scrooge McDuck!” “You shopped that.” “No I didn’t I took it on vacation.” " You totally shopped that, no cloud could ever look like that much Scrooge Mcduck. Besides even if it WAS real, that doesn’t mean it looks like Scrooge Mcduck." ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-put-the-paranormal-to-rest/559462/232 "2010-11-08T15:53:30Z")
> [@Acid\_Lamp](#): > > **Acid Lamp:** Cool beans. Can you define the source or show me how to eliminate the problem? The people whose home I recorded this in are also hearing occasionally and it weirds them out. > > **Musicat:** It’s technical, and I’m not going to waste my time on it. I already told you what it was. Tell Ma and Pa yokel to be satisfied with the explanation and ignore it. > > **Acid Lamp:** Yeah but it is bothering them and they’d be a lot more comfortable if I could at least point them to the source or give them some advice to eliminate it. > > **Musicat:** Quit chasing ghosts Acid Lamp. > > **Acid Lamp:** (Head explodes) You keep trying to assure us that you’re a non-biased impartial observer. The essence of your posting is “I never said I believed in ghosts, but there’s strange stuff going on that should be investigated.” Then you try to make it look like your interest is to help others cope with all that strange stuff, because somehow it’s the worst of their problems. You want to know what the limit of research should be? OK, picture this: you assemble a comprehensive team of certified scientists and researchers. They’re not TV personalities, and they have no desire to make this excursion a spectacle. They have all the state-of-the-art equipment, no time constraints, and every conceivable method of analyzing the results. You tell the people with the noisy attic you have the best team on the planet to investigate their creepy noises and ease their fragile mental state. Then you tell them they have to foot the bill. There’s your cutoff. ---
**Author:** ![Yumblie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/76d3ee/32.png) [@Yumblie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yumblie)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-put-the-paranormal-to-rest/559462/233 "2010-11-08T15:54:44Z")
> [@Acid\_Lamp](#): > > **Dio** , all I’m hearing from you is: Since I cannot disprove a supernatural causation there is no reason to investigate any phenomena that has ever been associated with one. That makes no sense. In my example you admitted that there was something on the tape. Neither us know what it is, You don’t care, but I think it is interesting so I’d like to take it to an expert who might have a better idea. How do I show that it is not a fake? THAT IS THE QUESTION. nothing else. What do you mean by “fake”? That’s what’s confusing everyone. If a tape plays a sound, clearly it’s not fake anything, it’s a real tape playing a real sound. If you take it to every sound engineer in the entire world and none of them can come up with a natural explanation for it, the most radical thing you can say is “we don’t know”. You can all it a “ghost” if you want, but in this case it’s just a place holder for a lack of knowledge, and doesn’t actually further knowledge. You could equally call it a “snortblat”, which would probably be better since “ghost” is such a culturally loaded term, but still all you’ve done is dress up “No one knows” in a pretty word. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-put-the-paranormal-to-rest/559462/234 "2010-11-08T15:56:28Z")
> [@Acid\_Lamp](#): > > **Dio** , all I’m hearing from you is: Since I cannot disprove a supernatural causation there is no reason to investigate any phenomena that has ever been associated with one. That makes no sense. In my example you admitted that there was something on the tape. Neither us know what it is, You don’t care, but I think it is interesting so I’d like to take it to an expert who might have a better idea. How do I show that it is not a fake? THAT IS THE QUESTION. nothing else. How do you show _what_ is not a fake?? A “Ghost”"? To test something to see if it is fake or real, you must first what its claimed abilities are. There is no possible way to test if something is an an anomaly _until we have a description of what the anomaly is and what it can do._ I’ll make you a deal, though-I will do my best to devise your tests for ghosts, if you do _your_ best to devise a test for certain people to gleaneur at will. ---
**Author:** ![Acid\_Lamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Acid\_Lamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acid_Lamp)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-put-the-paranormal-to-rest/559462/235 "2010-11-08T15:58:52Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > You say that there is “evidence” that needs to be examined, the you put forth yet another in a long line of hypotheticals, followed by an personal anecdote in a later post. > Forget the rigged hypotheticals-we can’t investigate those. > Forget the personal anecdotes filled with selective memories-we can’t investigate those. > Give us the best piece of evidence you’ve got that you think should be investigated. Give us the solid reason why we shouldn’t frackin’ give up and walk away from this several-thousand-year-old dog and pony show. While you’re at it, tell us why you think developing the perfect test will do jack in discouraging new ghost stories from popping up elsewhere. No one is asking you to look into it. What I’m asking in the OP is how to we be certain that collected evidence is free from the accusation of hoaxing? Surely you could come up with generalities to address that. Instead you’ve spent the better part of a two hundred post thread, shitting all over the premise, accusing me of trying to prove the existence of something I don’t believe in, and arguing semantics about meteorites. My premise is nothing more than if someone wants to investigate the paranormal, and reliably explain it away and correct the underlying causes, they will have to be certain of the veracity of their data. When they inevitably run into the limit of their personal knowledge about a particular phenomena, they will need an expert to look at it. If the expert can’t be sure they aren’t being trolled then they will decline to look, and a real problem will go unsolved. I don’t understand the problem here. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-put-the-paranormal-to-rest/559462/236 "2010-11-08T16:00:40Z")
> [@Acid\_Lamp](#): > > I’ll be sure to tell them to get those ear transplants lined up then.:rolleyes: Try reading for comprehension. > > Not all EVP is played back amplified to all hell. A lot of it is just barely out of normal everyday hearing range. Cite for EVP played at the recorded level that is used as evidence for the supernatural, please. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-put-the-paranormal-to-rest/559462/237 "2010-11-08T16:03:37Z")
> [@PlainJain](#): > > I’ll tell you how to fix it, stop recording with cheap equipment and playing it back really amplified. Right on. Or if you’re looking at “anomalies” in JPG images, stop using a compression scheme that creates random patterns that weren’t in the original. **Acid Lamp,** if you really want to know how some of the phenomena is created, why not just ask? I might not have the time to analyze any specific example to the Nth degree, especially if it has been done well before, but I’ll be glad to suggest some likely explanations. Do you really want to learn, or will you insist on skipping over the logical to the fantasy? Since you didn’t ask, here is one explanation to EVP phenomena: Cheap recorders are poorly shielded from RF (radio frequency) signals. Almost any short length of wire can act as an antenna and electronic devices commonly pick up RF. Better devices will filter it or reduce it; cheaper ones don’t. When radio stations are recorded at very low levels, they are lost in the noise. Noise can be generated by Brownian motion, weak static discharges, motors rotating and vibrating, tape scraping against the guides, heating and air conditioning units in the room, wind, and cheap circuitry. To hear anything other than noise, EVPers might amplify the signal, which enhances the random noise as well as the “wanted” parts of the signal. Distortion is added to distortion. Now you have a bunch of total acoustic junk. If you listen very carefully, you may be able to pick out speech, words, phrases, music – humans are great pattern-matching animals, and even if what you are listening to came from the wind, you might be able to just make out something you recognize. And not everyone may hear exactly what you do unless you prep them for it first. Experiments have shown that humans, if they are looking for something like “Paul is dead,” will tend to find it due to the power of suggestion. This is what gives rise to the funny misheard lyrics videos on YouTube. Another name for it is [pareidolia.](http://www.skepdic.com/pareidol.html) > [@](#): > > Pareidolia is a type of illusion or misperception involving a vague or obscure stimulus being perceived as something clear and distinct. While this may not explain every EVP example, it seems to explain most of it. So the next time you hear someone claim it is a paranormal event they have captured, see if it might lend itself to the explanation I just gave. What is your explanation? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-put-the-paranormal-to-rest/559462/238 "2010-11-08T16:04:19Z")
> [@Acid\_Lamp](#): > > **Dio** , all I’m hearing from you is: Since I cannot disprove a supernatural causation there is no reason to investigate any phenomena that has ever been associated with one. Your question in the OP was about how to “put the paranormal to rest.” I’m trying to tell you that such an endeavor is not possible. There is no conceivable test to do that. Scientific method does not permit it. There are an endless number of claimed “paranormal” penomena. Thousands of these claims have already been investigated. Nothing “aparnormal” has ever been discovered. These claims test positive at a rate of 0%. How many more thousand of these things do we have to investigate before that 0% success rate can be accepted as meaningful? It is not possible to debunk each and every claim, and a waste of time to try. To put it simply, impossible claims may be safely dismissed out of hand as impossible until proven otherwise. If someone says they saw SpongeBob Squarepants at their local supermarket, I do not have to investigate anything to know he did not see SpongeBob Squarepants. It is the same with the “paranormal.” The claims are just as ridiculous, and there is no necessity to investigate them to knw they’re ridiculous. ---
**Author:** ![Acid\_Lamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Acid\_Lamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acid_Lamp)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-put-the-paranormal-to-rest/559462/239 "2010-11-08T16:09:06Z")
> [@Yumblie](#): > > What do you mean by “fake”? That’s what’s confusing everyone. If a tape plays a sound, clearly it’s not fake anything, it’s a real tape playing a real sound. > > If you take it to every sound engineer in the entire world and none of them can come up with a natural explanation for it, the most radical thing you can say is “we don’t know”. You can all it a “ghost” if you want, but in this case it’s just a place holder for a lack of knowledge, and doesn’t actually further knowledge. You could equally call it a “snortblat”, which would probably be better since “ghost” is such a culturally loaded term, but still all you’ve done is dress up “No one knows” in a pretty word. I’m not understanding the misunderstanding. Guy calls you up: Hey **Yumblie** you are a smart guy, We keep hearing weird shit in our house, and it’s scaring the missus. Could you come over and help me figure it out? You go over and do some recording work and send everyone away for the night so that it won’t be contaminated. Turns out you DO hear some weird shit on that tape. Being the scientifically inclined person you are you look for some answers to help out. not having a masters in audio engineering, and being at the end of your knowledge, you decide to consult with someone who might know what is going on. You take your tape in, and explain the circumstances of the recording and that you couldn’t isolate the source. They decide you are playing them for a fool, and ask you to show that your tape was gathered honestly, and not just someone screwing around. How do we do that? That’s all I’m asking. In these days of photoshop, after effects, and easy home recoding, how can we show that something beyond the observers level of knowledge is honestly captured? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-put-the-paranormal-to-rest/559462/240 "2010-11-08T16:09:07Z")
EVP is exactly the same as making pictures from clouds. It’s a complete joke. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-put-the-paranormal-to-rest/559462.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-put-the-paranormal-to-rest/559462.md?page=13)