Hearing Voices - Ghost Gab Week, Day 2

From Philly’s Eastern State Penitentiary to California’s Missions and everywhere in between, average, normal people witness hauntings every day. The question is: are these things real or are they figments of our overactive imaginations?

Paranormal speculation suggests there are two types of hauntings. The first is residual energy, meaning that the same activity plays over and over again like an imprint of time left on a particular place (e.g. an apparition cooking by the stove who can be seen once a week at the same time doing the same activity but does not react to a living person’s presence). The second is considered an intelligent haunting where unseen entities can respond to a living environment, like investigators’ questions, by communicating through sounds (tapping on a wall), appearing physically, or replying verbally.

Paranormal investigators use a slew of equipment to try to capture the other side on tangible evidence. Probably the most popular method is the use of EVPs (electronic voice phenomenon) which record voices/sounds supposedly from the other side. Some investigators use digital recorders in controlled settings (no other people are allowed in the vicinity who could create sounds which would interfere with a recording). In “haunted” houses, investigators search for signs of intelligent spirits, so they often ask questions and hope the recorder will pick up answers not heard by human ears. The thought here is that spirits communicate on different frequencies which aren’t always heard by the living.

For those not involved in investigations, EVPs provide an interesting and entertaining possibility. Is communication with the dead achievable? However in this day and age with advanced technology, it can be very easy to fake an EVP. Unfortunately, we have to take the investigators’ words for it, which to a skeptic or a believer trying to convince non-believers just isn’t good enough.

Still, the idea of hearing the dead or, even better, speaking to them is intriguing. What if it is possible?

Check out the recordings below. If they’re fake, at least they’re interesting. If they’re real, there are some wondrous and terrifying entities lurking around us.

Ghost Adventures EVPs (Travel channel)

Ghost Hunters EVP (SyFy channel)

Paranormal State – What is an EVP? (A&E channel)

And…just because…Paranormal State with Father Bob expelling evil spirits (NOTE: the first minute of the video just sets up the rest)

Source: Image (Al Capone's cell at Eastern State Penitentiary)