It was the season ending episode of Paranormal Challenge and it was evidence review time and the evidence was being shown that I really had to create this rant.
The problem I see with any paranormal evidence has to be with consistency. For example, it's now a foregone conclusion that chances are that there aren't any orbs on a picture. 99.999% those round things are either dust or bugs. No way around that. The sampling rates of the pictures will no doubt cause people to think there is a person's face or something like that in a picture. In those cases it's called "matrixing" and is considered a think with your mind and not a piece of evidence.
Now, the question I have, is why aren't these concepts translated to audio evidence? Since joining a paranormal group with a legacy of prolific EVP generation, I do question the validity of two devices. The first being the notorious spirit box or sometimes called Frank's box. The other is a device called the ovilus.
Frank's box (named after its creator Frank Sumption) is pretty much a radio set to continuously scan the radio dial. The so named Shack Hack as it's made from a radio shack radio literally is a radio with the scanner set to not identify when it's hit a station. Occasionally you'll hear little verbal bloops and bleeps, but supporters of it claim that a voice can come across several stations and say a short message. This is fraught with problems. First is that the message is subject to interpretation. The second is that it's completely possible that a close station tower will broadcast across several positions on the dial.
Just like with "matrixing" there is a version of "audio matrixing" which means that a nonsensical part of a word will appear to sound like what you're expecting to hear. Or you're hearing a phrase from a radio station and mistaking it for a spirit voice.
The ovilus is a rather unique device but it too is fraught with problems. The idea of the ovilus is that a spirit can use temperature changes and emf fields to select words from the ovilus dictionary and relay them through the device. The problem here, is that it's not practical in a investigative sense.
First the spirit isn't going to be up to speed on the ovilus. The best you can hope for is that the spirit trips across the words its looking for at some ease. Only with long sessions with the ovilus could one hope the spirit becomes adept enough to be coherent.
The part where it all falls apart for me, is that EVERYONE (and I do mean that literally, as I have done it as well) is always repeating what's being said from these items. Either they aren't sure they heard it correctly, or they just heard it wrong. Whichever reason it is, it would be difficult for a spirit to confirm whether the statement is correct. For the ovilus, if it's not clear, it's lucky you got the word in the first place. With the franks box, it's a matter of being out of the frequency range following the message.
I do want to point out that early versions of the ovilus do not have a word display on the device, so even then the electronic voice can be misinterpreted.
I think that if there's any question about the validity of a piece of evidence, then that evidence must be thrown out. Asking questions to confirm ovilus/box audio seems to fall under this guideline.
So I guess that comes down to the big question: Should audio retrieved from a Frank's/spirit box or an Ovilus be considered evidence?
I would totally say it isn't. It's no more evidence than dots on a photo and saying that they are spirit orbs.
Now I am not going to completely rule out the Ovilus for paranormal research, but the device has to be in use for quite a period of time in order to be usable by the spirits at the location. In team research this is a significant amount of time and can take days in order for a spirit to be coherent.
That being said, I do want to take a parting shot at the show Paranormal Challenge. In the Jerome Grand Hotel season ending episode, we are told that medium Chris Fleming would help the team for 30 minutes.
However, the helping was to play a spirit box for 30 minutes.
I thought Fleming was a medium. What is he doing with a spirit box? Shouldn't he be pointing and saying go here, go there and that's where the teams would be getting evidence? However, in looking at the wikipedia article, it's clearer that he's not a medium.
To me, a medium sees, and communicates directly with spirits. Any one who requires a device to do so... is not... ever... at all... even close to being a medium!
Calling yourself a medium when you're not, or portraying evidence when there is none, is just basically a form of lying. You're lying to clients, you're lying to the innocent who don't know better and you're lying to yourself.
I've seen spirits, I can sense spirit energy, and I get EVP's in my own NOT HAUNTED office, but you will NEVER hear ME calling myself a medium or psychic. I'm not delusional like that. I've been called sensitive, but believe you me, when I say that right now, it will give you a stern look.
I just want the crapfest that is staining the paranormal world to stop. Stop trying to say you've got evidence when you don't. Stop saying you've got abilities when you don't. Stop saying you're the best, especially when you aren't. Karma is a rabid bitch, and she's in heat.
IT STOPS NOW!
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