Skip to content
From the High Desert book cover

From the High Desert

A Cultural History of Art Bell

Thumbnail for February 7, 2004: EVPs - Brendan Cook & Barbara McBeath

February 7, 2004: EVPs - Brendan Cook & Barbara McBeath

Feb 7, 2004
2h 50m
0:00 / 0:00
Brendan Cook and Barbara McBeath of the Ghost Investigators Society join Art Bell to present electronic voice phenomena recordings said to capture voices from the grave after a first-hour South African UFO account. Art opens with a surprise guest he kept secret from the network: a man identified only as Chris, claiming to be a former brigadier general in the South African Army, who describes ordering the shoot-down of a UFO in November 1982. Chris says an experimental laser weapon aboard an F-1 Mirage struck a disc-shaped craft traveling at approximately 1,500 miles per hour. After it crashed near Kruger National Park, his team found two small grey beings inside. He says he personally transported the craft and bodies via C-130 to Andrews Air Force Base, corroborating details of Bob Lazar's Area 51 testimony.

Cook and McBeath then present new electronic voice phenomena recordings from cemeteries, a mortician's home, and other locations. Among the clearest captures is a child's voice saying what sounds like "it's Daddy's car" at a cemetery where a widower parked nightly to visit his wife and son's graves. Another recording captures a female voice warning "tell your friend to run," followed shortly by a second voice saying "please run."

Art emphasizes that GIS operates as a non-profit, accepts no money, and has maintained this standard for six years. The discussion explores whether consciousness survives death, with both investigators concluding that ghosts represent people stuck between realms rather than at their final destination.

Key Moments

  1. Origin of EVP: birdcalls and a father's voice: Cook explains EVP traces back to the 1950s when a man recording bird calls in the woods played the tape back alone and began hearing human voices - including, at one point, what sounded like his own father calling him.

  2. Listener EVP: 'Dream on, kid': Art reads a fast-blast from 17-year-old Michael in Dinuba, California, who left a recorder running on his bed and captured an EVP that simply said, 'Dream on, kid.'

  3. Most EVP voices are children - even in prisons: Cook reveals that the majority of voices captured on their site are children's voices, and they have recorded what sound like children even inside prisons - places where you would not expect a child ghost.

  4. Deer Lodge prison EVP: 'Oh, yes': While McBeath narrates the story of an inmate who escaped every prison he was sent to, the playback delivers a clear 'Oh, yes' that seems to directly answer her - recorded inside Montana's Deer Lodge prison.

  5. Maximum security: a woman's scream of torture: From the women's wing turned maximum-security section of Deer Lodge, an unattended recorder captures 20 minutes of silence followed by a single woman's voice screaming 'Oh God,' which Art and the guests interpret as either residual or an ongoing soul in anguish.