Brendan Cook and Barbara McBeath of the Ghost Investigators Society then join Art to present electronic voice phenomena recordings captured on brand new, never-before-used audio tapes at cemeteries, mausoleums, crematoriums, and private residences. The recordings include responses that directly interact with the investigators' conversations, such as a voice identifying Brendan by name and another commenting on laughter with a childlike question. Barbara explains that ghosts retain the same personalities they had in life and should be viewed as people deserving of compassion rather than fear.
The pair describes physical encounters during their investigations, including being slapped and having objects thrown at them, experiences that only deepened their commitment to the research. They discuss how electromagnetic field detectors correlate with voice captures and encourage listeners to try recording EVP themselves using any standard tape recorder with an external microphone.
Key Moments
Edison and the historical roots of EVP: Cook and McBeath push back on listener emails crediting them with discovering EVP, walking through its lineage from 1950s researchers like Konstantin Raudive back to Thomas Edison, who reportedly experimented with using a recorder or telephone to contact the dead before electricity was widespread.
Brendan Cook gets slapped by something invisible in a cemetery: Cook describes a cemetery investigation where, while handing equipment from the back seat of the car to fellow GIS member Jenny Nielsen, he was distinctly slapped on the arm. Jenny was already 20 yards down the road, and there was no living person near him. Rather than scaring him off, the assault made him more determined.
Mortuary recording: 'Talk to the dead': Cook plays the night's most quoted EVP, captured walking into a mortuary where a shadow-figure had been seen passing the embalming room. As GIS member Barry says he hopes there is no body downstairs, the tape returns the disembodied phrase 'talk to the dead', mirroring the slogan on the back of Barry's GIS shirt.
Documented 50-degree temperature drop in a cemetery: Asked about the cold-spot phenomenon associated with EVP work, Cook says GIS uses a thermal scanner and once measured a roughly 50-degree drop in a single area of a cemetery they had only investigated once. He describes it as one of the most extreme readings the team has ever logged.
Cemetery EVP: a woman whispers 'horrific': Cook plays a cemetery recording in which Roger McBeath is heard remarking that he can hear his own tape recorder's wheels squeaking, and a woman's voice never spoken by anyone present is captured saying 'horrific.' Art is visibly unsettled and admits on air that this one bothers him.