April 15, 2006: Recorded Spirit Communications - Brendan Cook & Barbara McBeath
In the second half, Cook and McBeath present new electronic voice phenomena recordings captured with upgraded condenser microphones. The condenser technology has yielded clearer results, and the pair notes that recordings exhibit natural room echo, suggesting the voices are actual audible sounds rather than electromagnetic imprints. Recordings from a mausoleum, a private residence, and the Exchange Building include voices responding to investigators in real time.
Cook and McBeath estimate that roughly 70 percent of captured voices demonstrate intelligent awareness, while the remainder appear residual. They discuss the disproportionate number of children's voices in their recordings and theorize that adult spirits may revert to childhood memories. Art plays multiple EVP samples for the audience, including a woman laughing inside a sealed mausoleum and a child's voice at the Exchange Building.
Key Moments
EVP picked up better on the video camera: Cook describes standing next to a video camera with his audio recorder running; the EVP captured on the camera was clearer than the one on his recorder, suggesting a real acoustic event with a proximity effect.
Mausoleum EVP with natural echo: Inside a mausoleum, between team chatter, an unrelated voice apparently saying 'I'm getting big' is captured - notably with the same marble-hall echo as the live voices.
Woman's laugh after the door closes: Barbara invites anyone to speak, walks out, the heavy mausoleum door shuts - and a clear woman's laugh is recorded inside an empty sealed mausoleum.
The power of suggestion in EVP: Bell challenges Cook on whether the audience is hearing the words or just hearing what they were told to hear; Cook concedes EVP is highly subjective except for Class A clips.
Why the dead sound impaired: Cook theorizes spirits sound like a hearing-impaired person speaking because manifesting a voice takes enormous power - they may be using ambient noise to assemble speech they cannot hear themselves.