Mar.ch 1984 PSI RESEARCH March 1984 PSI RESEARCH Approved For Release 2000/08/1 CIA-RDP96-00792ROO0701010001-8 SOME FINDINGS RELATING TO THE ELECTRONIC utterances, although it is doubtful if it was actually VOICE PHENOMENON quality in the Hi-Fi senses of bandwidth, and absence of distortion, that was being assessed - instead there was a Alexander MacRae vague idea of signal/noise ration involved. Skye, Scotland One of my first suggestions was to try to assess the probability of recording an utterance in a given time Born ii, Skye, Scotland, MacRae studied electronics period, from which one could then derive a measure for the in London, for a time under Sir Geoffrey quantity of "communication" being produced, by which various Housfit!ld, FRS, joint Nobel laureate. Working at systems - then being adjudicated, sometimes quite viciously, Palo Alto, he designed communications systems for by reference to reputation - could be objectively evaluated. NASA - one design being used as recently as the I suggested also that simply establishing that there was a first Space Shuttle. He currently lectures in correlation between a stimulus (a question f rom the Scotl;-~nd on Information Technology, and is a experimenter) and a presumed response, was sufficient direc-, or of a small electronics company. His evidence - if replicable - of a phenomenon. But all this studiei of "paranormal" voices on tapes represent fell on deaf ears. a scientific approach to one of most controversial I virtually abandoned the whole thing, but one factor kept nagging me. I had observed that almost all EVP phenomena of our time. - Ed. had a duration of between 0.7 and 2.2 seconds, Introduction with a pronounced probabLtity peak around 1.75 secs. Now this was against nature. If the phenomenon was purely a random event, a cliance recording of bits of This caper relates some recent findings in EVP by the author, and suggests that the Electronic Voice Phenomenon (or paranormal voices) is a psi phenomenon which - with current equipment - can be produced frequently and predictably by anyone trained in its use. Because of the availability of results it ftas been possible to come to some preliminary conclusions, and these are the subject of this paper. EVP - the electronic voice phenomenon - first came to my attention in 1979, and having read about it, I decided to try some experiments - but without any noticeable success. In 1982 1 got in touch with some of the f ew remaining EVP investigators left in the UK. The "field!' seemed to proceed in the most unscientific manner, nothing was ever measured, although the words 'Iresearch!' and "expert" were bandied around like tokens in a game of "let's play scientists." Instead of measurement, judgment by recourse to reputation was the rule, indeed 11reputation" was the name of the game, it seems. There was a sort of subjective scale for rating the "quality" of telephone conversations, radio plays, or the like - then the spread of durations for the utterances should show.this randomness. There is no good reason why an utterance should lie in this slot around 1.75 secs. Various time constants were considered - but none of them could provide a plausible explanation for all circumstances. It seemed to be a definite phenomenon, extending even to longer statements, which might consist of one 1.75 sec. segment, then a pause, finally another 1.75 sec. segment. When all looked black, I clung to this one little bit of objective truth, ignored by the "experts." In early 1983 1 started producing my own EVP, using a piece of equipment designed for another purpose. The "quality" was very poor, but results were being obtained predictably. At first I could not believe it and felt sure it was CB. breakthrough, or ship-to-shore radio, or somesuch. But these were gradually eliminated. The first voice recorded used a characteristic phrase of my late father - a factor suspicious enough to make me very careful of my own -3-E 37 Approved For Release 2000/08/15 ~IA-RDP96-00792ROO0701010001-8 March 1984 March 1984 PSL KLbi~Axun judgment, in case desire for a result should lead to unjustifiable approximations. Following my own rule, which I had tried to convey to Cothe EVP fieid, 1 ignored what was said and simply counted ,~the number of voice-like utterances per unit time. QInitially inis was running at 0.05 utterances per minute C) CD(U/M). Witain a few weeks it had improved by a factor of V_ Q 10, to about 0.5 U/M. By March of 1983 it peaked around 2 U/1-4 and with that the next surprising development occurred. CD 1- This was a direct response. One af ternoon 1 was about to CD cD explain who I was, and began with the rhetorical question, Q 11who am I. The immediate response was "voice radio W c,4 operator." In succeeding experiments other direct responses CP I- were obtained, on one occasion I found I was the responder! CD CD Voice: "This is the voice of Cass Evitt" of CD 14e: Say again" (L Voice: "This is Sugar Roll's voice" 1twhoV Me: Voice: "Sugar Roll's - voice" (Later) "What is that" LD Me; "It is a (thinking desperately for a suitable V_ I- term) a 'Voice-Radio'.Fl 00 CD (Later) 1- Q "How can I communicate to you better?" CD C) Voice. "Just talk." C*4 This was also the most prolonged sequence obtained. By this U) Wtime my own research was brought to a halt. A growing (D demand for units, and an extensive trials program to prove 75 that I was not the only person able to use the equipment, meant that all my units were out in the f ield, and anyway I 0 LL did not have sufficient time to conduct research - hazards of the one-man, underfunded research efforts. Nevertheless the following preliminary findings are offered. > 0 L_ CL 1. A General Phenomenon. CL The results obtained by others, in other locations, at other times, using the equipment, are at least as good as, and sometimes better than, my own. 38 2. Results not due to Radio Broadcasts: 2.1. Utterances generally fall into the 1-2 seconds time -slot - an improbable event. 2.2. A large percentage of utterances contain names -C0 unlikely if these were random snatches of radio plays and-IL the like. Q CD 2.3. A signif icant !percentage of utterances containcD T_ one s own name. CD 2.4. The number of responses is in some way propor-T Q tional. to the number of stimuli (questions, requests from~-_ the experimenter). CD Q 2.5. Different experimenters at different times anc~Xo places pick up, on occasion, identical phrases. C*4 2 a) .6. Some utterances use a non-standard form ofi:~: English - a sort of "stick-talk," or slang, that creeps i r8 now and then. I to 2.7. In some utterances, unnaturally prolonged vowel~m sounds occur - with a greater frequency than might NB expected if radio plays were their source. 2.8. Synthetic voicing occurs too frequently to bqgj natural. 0 2.9. A percentage of utterances consist of relevan& comment, or direct response. Lo 2.10. Words such as 'tvoice!l and "message" occur wit' WS abnormal frequency. CD CD Q 3. Speech Formats generally are of a non-Glottai Typea Speech forms which have been recorded include thV following: (a) Natural voiced speech - infrequent. (b) Synthetic voiced speech -more frequent -this breakZ down into two categories, W W A type in which the synthetic voicing is relative'-- 0 ly periodic, giving the "robot-like" om "Mechanical" sound of present day computer speecto (ii) A type in which the synthetic voicing is relativea) > 1y random, but within frequency constraints, give2 a sound mucti like hoarse whispering, with thOL random low frequency perturbations giving the§~ utterances an unwarranted sinister aspect. 39 7 March 1984 J-1, I (c) Whisper speech - fairly trequeat. (d) Whistle speech - most frequent of all, this type requires skilled listening, as the modulation of the' whistle (both in terms of frequency and amplitude) is CO fractional compared with the normal deviations. CD What is significant is that apart from the relatively C2 Lntrequent type (a) all the above formats are independent of C7- vthe possession of vocal cords. The afficianados of the Q~ ,-radio play" and "CB breakthrough" schools might care to Rexplain why almost everybody coming through on our equipment r-z Cseems to have lost their vocal cords! CD CD W 4. Qlanges in Acoustics C*4 CD The following effects depend upon one factor; an echo; I- C)echoiness, reverberations, acoustic liveliness, choral geffects. The factor in question is time delay. 4.1. A significant proportion of the utterances (Lexhibit one or more of the above effects, indeed there are Oexamples of changing acoustics - e.g. reverberation - during D~an utterance - a rather improbable event. Furthermore, :5normal broadcasting studio, radio room, or vehicular Obroadcasts are made from an acoustically "dead" environment. LO 5. Evidence of Intelligence CO low quality of the voices, and CD Because of the CD principally because of the quite exaggerated dependence of CD earlier researchers on the significance of what was said, I CD C*4 have decided to concentrate, rather, on measurable factors. (D My main effort, therefore, in looking for evidence of CO intelligence, has been to look for evidence of communica- 0 2tions theory being applied. In particular, communications theory (after Shannon et ai.) states that the more predictable a message becomes, the greater the probability 0of its being correctly received. There are many ways in LL which this can be applied. ,a a) 5.1. By sticking to a regular schedule, same place, >same time each day, the U/M is found to progressively 0 8increase. C L CL 5.2. Evidence of "redundancy" being applied. <(a) Undue prolongation of vowel sounds is sometimes found (the sort of thing one does when hailing against the 40 ""i , -) 0 ~ - - - - - I . - . wind, or across a valley, which ggives the listener's PaLteru recognition means a better chance). (b) Repeated messages. The best example was 10 successive repetitions of one simple phrase. 5.3. The raLiler too regular periodicity of some synthetic voicing, suggesting - but not necessarily implying - the use of technology. CD 5.4. The time correlation between the initiation of aCD Q stimulus and the reception of a response. 'r" 15. The fact that certain questions produce not' just Q T no response, but such a diminution of background noise, toc) I almost complete silence, that the change in minus dbs ISCD itself a signal of noticeable magnitude! Such questions asQ CD "How can I improve this equipment?" produce negativeW it C*4 signals" of this type, implying an appreciation of the(D question, and thus, intelligence. C) CD 6. Evidence of Integrity CL Integrity is here used in the sense of comprising a 0) CL whole, as in structural int#--grity. The fact that differentO experimenters can pick up identical phrases; and that oni~ occasion, the same names for the correspondents have been< used, does tend to indicate a degree of integrity. Agairistc), that, the probability ot being able to access the same'' LO correspondent repeatedly is low, but this may be due to.- system defects or our own ignorance of the rules involved. C-0- CD 7. Evidence o-t purpose CD 7.1. This, at one level, may be thought of as th CD desire to communicate, and this is supported by such(D evidence as there is of communications theory being applied,(O delityerateiy or intuitively. CO 7.2. Generally, at least 90% of all utterances area) comprised of messages, warnings, instructions and proriounce-W merits - that is of directed statements uttered, apparently,"O with some purpose. It should be mentioned, however, thatLL there seems to be a considerable conflict, and no singleD ~a) mutual purpose is as yet evident. > 0 CL CL 41 March 1984 PSI RESEARCH 8. Other 1b, I e & 1. The system itself consists of a radio frequency spectrum, the positioning of the lines being related to a 00 .measure of the dielectric constant in the vicinity of the abserver, compared with line positions of a dense spectrum oextending f roM the audio to radio f requency range - CD 8.2. Evidence was gradually accumulated indicating V- Ot hat rules of as yet unknown communications theory may V- oexist. This would seem to be a more advanced, broadly based I- intheory than our late 20th Century communications theory. COMe commuitications theory of Shannon et al., may, by Q Wcomparison, be rather like, "A handyman's short guide to Npractical communications," admirable in its attention to a) [*-details and instructions for using tools (mathematical), but Q Qhardly a full treatment. The rules of Shannon and others (6would be e-cemplifications of those more general laws, yet Tundiscovered. But one of those laws is just coming into IL ofocus, and it would seem that Sheldrake's Morphogenetic Laws 115would actually be communications laws., although he has detailed description of his equipment which would 0 enable interested readers to attempt to replicate L CL the findings. We received the diagram (Fig. 1) CL and an explanation of operating principles of the < device (called by MacRae MKI Alpha) which we present below. - Ed. 42 March 1984 PSI RESEARCH There are two main inputs. One is a monitor of Galvanic Skin Response or skin resistance. What happens here is that current is applied to the skin of the hand and We potential difference between the electrodes is applied 00 to the non inverting input of an operational amplifier which "! has 100% DC feedback so that it is always conductive within CD CD any reasonable limits. But: what we are really interested in CD V is not so much the potential difference across the hand but CD V changes in poteritial difference. CD That operational amplifier also has an AC gain which . [* is CD variable according to the setting of another-control. By AC CD I am talking about low frequency perturbations or broad QW blips. That output, which consists of a standing level on C*4 a) which from time to time are superimposed long term blips, is I- taken to the voltage control oscillator (VCO) input of a CD phase-locked loop (PLQ and it is then capacitively coupled 9 to to the VGO input of another PLL so that the output frequency a) of the first PLL is proportional to the standing level and (L 0 the output of the second PLL is proportional to the change W in standing level. The first PLL is set at about 100 Hz which is about the Glottai frequency and the output of the second PLL is about 5 KHz range. Those two outputs f rom the PLL's are then taken to two Lo of the three inputs of a I of 8 Data Selector Mips. The TZ 00 third selector input is taken high. So what happens is, CD depending on the combination you select, that determines Q Q which output pin of the Data Selector Chip is connected to Q the input. Both output pins on that chip are taken high and N the input is taken to ground so every time the Input gets (D U) connected to, for instance, output III - then that output goes low. The pullup resistor goes directly to VCC. Now on the other output, let's call it 110, the pullup resistor W goes instead to the tull wave rectified version of the long " 0 term blips on the output of the operational amplifier. LL GettLng back to the output of the operational amplifier -0 - that was capacitively coupled to one PLL. That capaci- Lively coupled output is taken also to two comparators. 0 L- Both comparators are biased such that their outputs are CL setting at ground. The output from the operational CL -t < amplifier is capacitiveiy coupled to the non-inverting inpu of one and the inverting input of the other. This means 43 7 7 March 1984 PSI RESEARCH X C*4 9 CO CY) [L LO T_ oo 0 0 C14 (D U) co (D (D 0 LL (D > 2 CL CL < that when the signal is a positive going blip one comparator output of the other comparator will go high. Those two outputs then feed into the bases of two emitter followers which join together to drive a tri-color LED. Now, the full wave rectified version of this is picked off via two diodes which are commoned together and that through a pullup resistor goes back to the output of the I of 8 Data Selector. So what is happening is that the two relevant outputs of the Data Selector go to emitter followers and each emitter follower goes to a socket output. Now you can plug a coil into either of those outputs and take thac coil up to a radio, or simply place the unit beside a radio. Tune to, for example, 260 KHz. If you plug the coil into the 'V' output what you will get is a continuous tone indication of what is happening to the two "LL's. It is continuous because the pul-lup resistor at that output goes to VCC. If you plug it into the other one then you won't hear anything until a blip comes along which gets fuil-wave rectified and you get a positive voltage appearing on that other pullup resistor and so for a moment you will get the tones coming through. So in one case you get continuous tones - or, if you don't want those, you can get momentary tones indicating that something has changed. In the Mark One version the blip was further f ed to a 555 to turn it on momentarily and if the blip was positive then you ran the 555 at one rate and if it was negative you ran the 555 at another rate. This was done through selection diodes. So what you've got for a positive blip was, shall we say, three low frequency pulses which sounded like three raps and in the other case you got one rap. That earlier system is now dispensed with. It's really just duplicating what shows up in the LED. None of that is really the interesting part. Remember I mentioned that the Pll~s were running at different frequencies. The frequencies of the PLL are set not just by the resistors, but by the capacitor on each one. Now, you unplug from the R input and you are still monitoring Galvanic Skin Response or body capacitance, whichever you prefer, and you plug it in now and this C input is actually in series with the timing capacitor on the 44 March 1984 PSI RESEARCH first PLL. So what you now get is a f requency in the 100 KHz range which is proportional to body capacitance, if you like, and this swoops all over the place and varies a lot. The other frequency from the other PLL is fixed and because 00 its down in the Kilo-Hertz range, it has a set of fixed harmonics at, let's say, 5 KHz Spacing all the way up intoo the 3 MHz range. So that's what's happening in the Alpha. As to the exact meanswhereby "EVP" enters the system research must continue. My original premise was that av- variation in either permeability (A) or permittivity (E by altering the "electrical space!' - could accomplish phaseO r frequency modulatiorL Interestingly, the article in th 0 eo ofm December 1983 issue of Psi Research, "The Physical Fields cm Biological Systems," mentions remote monitoring o fC* permittivity on the bases of UHF radiation. indeed, them; first phenomenon noted on the Alpha was not the EVP buto. pulse-rate. The USSR researchers have remotely monitoredW_ heart rate by monitoring change in skin surface charge, but(L have to use a Faraday cage - equipment riot needed with thEQ Alpha (as using narrow-band radio pick-up the noise power JW. considerably reduced). Where Do We Go from Here? LO 00 (Concluding Editorial Remarks) We asked Alexander 14acRae to send us a sample EVP tapeO 0 We received it but were not greatly impressed: much aoisecm whistle and something barely audible which (with a certairo d U) egree of imagination) can be interpreted as words*m However, we still believe that the f ield is worthy ojL(b inquiry. If, through continuing research, we do not obtai(D a method for recording "voices from beyond," but rather a. reliable method for monitoring force fields of biologicalO LL systems without using a Faraday cage, or even evidence tha~_O he process of concentration on "white noise" enhances ESPW t > the endeavor seems to be- worthwhile. 2 CL SKYETECff CL 7-2 Industrial Estate Portree, Skye, Scotland IV51 9H1 45