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Sounds of the Paranormal
Electronic Voice Phenomenon One of the most interesting parts of ghost hunting is ghost photography. A lot of people who visit haunted houses get a thrill when they see pictures of globes of light, or misty figures on the pictures they took of an empty room. Of course, this doesn’t go over very well on the radio. A little bit less famous than ghost photographs is something called electronic voice phenomenon, or EVP.
After World War II, tape recorders became affordable for the average person, and some paranormal investigators began taping their séances. Sometimes when they played the tape back, they heard voices or sounds that were not there when the tape was originally made. This has led to a lot of experimentation. Some people just turn on a tape recorder in a haunted location and leave if in place to see if sounds or voices show up. I’ve done this a time or two myself, with some success.
The following is taken from a tape recorded during my night stay at the Vancouver Barracks Hospital. According to the tape, a few minutes after midnight I heard several anomalous sounds. First there were sounds like the creaking of the springs on the stall doors. There were what sounded like footsteps and a man's cough. The sounds got louder and more frequent as time went on, reaching a kind of peak, with a loud series of bangs, then tapering off and ending. The entire sequence took place over a seventeen
minute period. At no time is there the sound of the outside doors opening,
nor were the seals on the doors broken. I have made a transcript of the
tape and included wav files so that you can listen to the sounds. I apologize
for the quality of the sound, but the original wav files were too large
to download and some of the sound quality was lost when I compressed them
down to a more manageable size.
TAPE STARTS: (Listen carefully!) First 28 seconds (conversation between Jeff and Richard) 0:01: Door Slams 0:03: (Richard) "It is now
five minutes of twelve, new tape in…No one has even
(Jeff) "Well, you made the challenge to the ghost." (Richard) "No, you made the challenge to the ghost; he's your friend." (Jeff) "No, like Princess Margaret, I don't believe in ghosts but I'm afraid of them anyway. 0:27: Door opening. 0:28: (Richard) Jeff now what… Door closes (voices continue outside, muffled). 8:02: Metallic squeal. (The sound of the spring on the stall doors?) 8:20: Wood slapping/tapping three times (very slight). 9:06: Metallic squeal, slap slap of wood on wood. (Stall door opening and closing?) 11:56: Cough (This is inside the room, because Richard's and my voices are heard outside the room a few seconds later and they sound different.) 15:27: Several metallic creaks, wood slapping on wood. (This is the longest sequence of alternating squeals and slapping sounds. They get louder and louder, like someone or something is opening the bathroom stall door and letting it close. Each time they do so, the door is opened farther and farther. It gets louder and louder, until the door is open all the way and it slams shut hard enough to bounce several times. 16:53: Low metallic clang. (This is the last odd sound.)
Camp Adair POW Camp Hospital Remote Voice Phenomena Recording This recording took place on or about 21 April 2001, by Christina Bennett and a friend at the Camp Adair POW Camp Hospital.
Camp Adair is now a National Guard facility, located between Corvallis and Interstate Highway 5, in central Oregon. Camp Adair was activated in 1942 as the training camp for three Infantry Divisions, who later fought in World War II.
Training at Camp Adair lasted approximately 6 months each. After that, the units traveled to different bases in the United States, where they completed their training in a variety of different climates and situations, such as Alaska, Southern California and Arizona. When the U.S. soldiers left Camp Adair, some of their barracks were surrounded by a fence and turned into a Prisoner of War Camp, where German and Italian soldiers were kept until the end of the War. Most of them were returned to their own countries after the war. Others remained behind and became citizens. Unfortunately, not all of the POWs left Camp Adair alive.
As often happens in times of war, a small percentage of the prisoners became sick and died in the Camp’s infirmary type hospital. Since it was impossible to return the prisoner’s body his country of origin in a timely manner, some were buried in the United States. Others were cremated in a large incinerator near the hospital and their ashes were returned through the Red Cross. Some people think that an existing Air Force Hangar and the old hospital building are haunted by the spirits of soldiers of all countries how trained and were held prisoner at Camp Adair.
Christina Bennett is an anthropology major at Oregon State University in Corvallis. She contacted me via my website to discuss her curiosity about the paranormal. I had heard about the supposed haunting at Camp Adair some time before. I asked her if she felt comfortable doing some research on my behalf. I didn’t have to ask twice.
After contacting people at Camp Adair and the Camp Adair historical museum (Which is also haunted!) Christina gained permission to visit both the hangar and the POW hospital. The old hospital building itself is a single story, wood structure that’s seen better days. Most of the windows were boarded up and one or two that weren’t were broken. The doors were locked and secured with a chain and a rusty lock. No one had been inside for some time. It is set apart from most of the other buildings, in what is now an open field. It is in a decrepit state. Many of the windows are broken and boarded up. Even though there is equipment stored inside, it has been a long time since someone opened the rusty locks, which secure the doors. As Christine walked up to the building, she and her friend Rick heard the sound of heavy footsteps and clanking inside the supposedly deserted building. The sounds stopped as they hurried up the building and looked inside one of the broken, but not boarded-up windows. They stood on tiptoe and looked inside. Inside they could see that there the building was an unfinished shell, an open bay with no separate rooms. The building was one story, so there was no way anyone could have hidden upstairs. Christina secured a small tape recorder to the window ledge, hanging inside the building and left for approximately 60 minutes. Though she left the building, she maintained a watch on it for the entire interval. Although someone came out into the field with a dog, neither the dog nor it’s owner approached the building or went inside.
The Tape
The entire tape was approximately 64 minutes in length. In transferring it to CD, the recording was filtered to remove background white noise and the hum of the tape recorder motor. Other than that there have been no special enhancements, filtering or amplifications. As most people find when they do this kind of things, there are several minutes where there is nothing but empty sound and the noise of breezes and birdsong. There are also several anomalous noises that are hard to explain. This tape seems to fit the typical pattern where things build up to a peak, with intermittent noises that get louder or last longer, peaking in a sustained burst of noise and then virtually ending. Like a battery wearing out. Starting around 5:30 minutes into the recording, there is a clack that happens once every thirty seconds or so, three times. Something breathes into the microphone at 6:50. The most interesting audio phenomena begins around 35 minutes, there is an intermittent sound of metal bed springs creaking, as if someone is rolling over or bouncing on them. This goes on for about 5 minutes, reaching a peak at around 40 minutes, with a 20 second frenzy of squeaks. This is interesting, because there are no beds inside the old hospital with metal springs! After this last sound bit, the sounds taper off until Christina picks up her tape recorder.
Below is a transcription of audio tape. The highlighted text has an MP3 sound byte. I apologize for the low quality of the sound, but the original sound was a little scratchy and as in the Vancouver Barracks sounds above, I had to balance the length and quality of the sound with the file size and download size.
0:00 - 00:31 minutes: Christina places tape recorder 5:34 minutes clicking noise 6:02 minutes clicking noise 6:29 minutes clicking noise 6:50 minutes the sound of something breathing into the microphone 8:35 minutes the sound of something moving inside the building 10:27 minutes clicking noise 10:37 minutes click 18:25 minutes the sound of a dog barking for several seconds 22:40 minutes birds singing, this lasts several seconds 22:51 minutes airplane soaring above 35:22 minutes the sound of metal bed springs 36:40 minutes the sound of metal bed springs 37:40 minutes the sound of springs/bird singing/knocking? 42:22 minutes birdsong 42:31 minutes springs for around 10 seconds 42:49 minutes footsteps? 43:59 minutes birdsong intermittent for about 5 minutes 59:02 minutes light thump 63:22 minutes Christina picking up tape recorder
Camp Adair POW Camp Hospital Remote Voice Phenomena Recording A lot
of people might listen to this and suggest a different explanation, other than
ghosts. It could be an animal inside the building, running across an old bed. It
could be someone playing a prank on Christina. It could be the old building
settling. Maybe. Except for one interesting fact. Christina got a good look
inside the building. When it was a soldier’s barracks and a hospital there
would have been metal spring beds inside. When Christina was there, there weren’t
any metal beds, just some wooden storage shelves.
Copyright 1996-2001, By Jeff Davis; n |
