Thanks.

What I find even more disturbing is that she is not unlike many other so-called experts in the EVP field who endeavor to justify their ridiculous pretenses to authority on this phenomenon by tearing down anyone who gives any constructive criticism to their recordings in any way. Talbott is clearly demonstrating her own arrogance and sense of self-importance in this field by first telling you that you should have informed her first that you were doing this phonetic EVP analysis and then harshly criticizing you for something small and utterly insignificant in your article (that ‘evidentiary’ typo), by blowing it completely out of proportion and even scolding you in a very condescending and pompous manner by telling you to “Watch your typing!”.

Another clue as to Talbott’s arrogance is that I’m seeing that she never fails to inform members in those various EVP forums that she participates in, as she is doing here in her response to your EVP analysis here too, that her EVP is recorded in complete silence as opposed to using some kind of background noise. By mentioning this little tidbit of information about her recordings, she’s essentially saying that she’s so good at recording EVP, she does not even have to use any background noise to get any EVP to coming into them. Once again, we are seeing another example of Talbott’s need to impress others by pointing out something that she perceives demonstrates her own superiority in recording EVP regardless that most of her EVP are indecipherable and clearly could have used some kind of background noise for clarity and comprehension.

But there’s one more thing too and I’m only bringing this up because you touched on that topic in your article; and that is that you found that Talbott applied filtering to her EVP that you analyzed. I found this surprising because on numerous sites, I’m seeing Talbott saying that she unequivocally DOES NOT apply filtering to and of her EVP recordings. In fact, I’m seeing her often times acting as a ‘watchdog on filtering’ in regards to those EVP posted by members in those forums that she belongs too. Yet, here we are finding out that filtering has been applied to this EVP of hers that you analyzed!

In conclusion, I’m surprised I have not seen an analysis as the one on the internet anywhere and I hope that you will continue doing more of them! But next time you do this, please try to pick out a better EVP recording. I’ve had an interest in this phenomenon for quite some time and I can tell you that there are numerous websites on the internet with much better recordings than the site that you found that EVP on. And I surmise that if you should want more information on the EVP phenomenon, make sure that the “expert” that you choose is also a very good long time EVP recorder. The only way you are going to find that out is to listen to a number of their EVP recordings or better yet, attend one of their EVP sessions in person to be able verify their claims that those EVP they have on their website are their own. No one has any right to call themselves an authoritative voice on the EVP phenomenon if they themselves cannot even record EVP let alone record EVP that falls in the Class A and B category; and this includes being able to record clear interactive EVP too. If they do not want to share their EVP recordings with you then move on to someone else.

P.S. I highly suggest you talk to experts in the EVP field, like Tom Butler, about this particular EVP. Vicki

No offense towards you or your field was intended. My sole goal was to compare human speech and EVP, something that didn’t seem terribly unreasonable to me at the time. As I stated, this was more of an interest piece, and I felt I was careful not to judge your field in either direction. Apparently, you don’t think I succeeded, and I’m sorry you feel that way.

Either way, I’ll reiterate Vicki’s sentiments: If you’re interested in this phenomenon, look elsewhere as well. This is just the curiosity of a phonetician with little EVP background interested to see what was happening here. According to Ms. Talbott, there’s a great deal of better analysis out there.

Finally, I’ve changed the “Mrs.” to a “Vicki”, per your request. Good luck with your EVP and Linguistic pursuits.

Will

For those of you who have read this, I suggest you do some serious research before blindly accepting this opinion piece, which is confusingly skewed toward that which the EVP does not relate to, which is human speech. This is a raw file, by the way–nothing was done to clean it. You have chosen an unclear example and as such, potentially sully the work that I and other linguists do in this area. Perhaps a comparison study instead of a quickly concocted write up on a Praat analysis would be preferable. As linguists, we owe this to our readers. Please contact Tom Butler of the AAEVP for a more in depth analysis of the EVP in question. By the way, my name is not MRS. Talbott; it is Vicki Talbott or Ms. Talbott; I have a sociolinguistic problem with being called my mother. As well, as college professors, we do not suggest that our students use Wikepedia in any research cited for papers in any class. Finally, there are two pronunciations for the word; I was aksing which was preferred, not how to pronounce it. VT

The use of Diachronic linguistics to study the actual speech style of the creators of these signals, whatever they may be, would be really fascinating. Imagine if a signal were to be recorded that was pre-vowel-shift English. Very interesting idea, thanks. :)

Will