LETTER #19 

​I used to enjoy watching Paranormal TV shows involving ghost hunting where they captured EVP…Electronic Voice Phenomenon. And since I was interested in a digital voice recorder for other purposes, such as recording music of Youtube, which hopefully might help me with Insomnia, I decided to place an order for one online.

When it arrived in the mail, I tested it immediately to see how it recorded, and my voice came out crystal clear. Content, I let it sit for a few day’s until an episode of Ghost Adventures aired that night. It then left me curious to see if I could pick anything up in my house. I had watched these shows often enough to know that it is best to pick a place like a hallway, and decided to place the voice recorder in my hall, I then shut the door and busied myself in my kitchen. I truly did not expect to get anything, but did it on a lark. To my astonishment I picked up several voices, I was actually shaken when I heard them, but being the curious type, I could not let it go, and decided to investigate further on my own.

The next night I decided to go in my backyard with my voice recorder and see if I might get anything. Living in a peaceful suburban neighborhood, I figured it was the perfect time, since everything was quiet at that time. I asked whose there, and the usual questions we hear on those shows. I even recorded with headphones on, and could have sworn I was hearing deep voices answering me, when I played it back, I heard them once more, and decided to download Audacity to hear them more clearly…Sure enough when I said hello, I head a deep drawn out H..e..l..l..o in return to my own and other voices that were harder to distinguish.

I continued on with my recording and continued picking up voices. And although it frightened me, my curious nature. just couldn’t resist the impulse to keep doing this.

One night while attempting to play back the voices, I thought I heard a voice with my naked ear coming from my AC which was on at the time. I answered, and it answered back. Before I knew it I was being bombarded with voices night and day. They most commonly came from extraneous noises like the hum of an air conditioner, refrigerator, passing car or anything electronic, but I also heard the voices, while running water.

These voices taunted me, and lied to me, and intimidated me. They told me not to trust anybody, and believing them I closed out all my friends, and soon found myself living in a bubble with nothing but the voices.

This continued for months, until one day, I decided I just could not take anymore, and swallowed handful after handful of prescription sleep meds, hoping to finally find peace and quiet. Only the effect wasn’t what I expected, instead my heart was beating at alarmingly rapid rate, and it felt as though my brain also had a heartbeat.

I must have cried out, because before I knew it, the police and paramedic’s arrived and soon ushered me off to the hospital. At first the voices were more intrusive than ever, but I was eventually given anti-psychotic pills, and slowly but surely the voices went away.

After being released, my life slowly returned to normal, and my old friends were back in my life. One thing haunted me though! I still had my old computer at the time, and still could hear the voices, I wondered why, it happened to me in middle age, when I never had a problem with schizophrenia before, which commonly strikes in the 20’s, I also wondered why I managed to record those voices, and why this only happened after doing this?

I decided to go to a website for those who hear voices and share my story, never expecting anyone to relate, until a week or so later someone came to that website to tell me the exact same thing had happened to him after doing EVP, and that he had met others who went through the same thing following EVP on a voice recorder, or after using a spirit box, or even dousing. Attempted spirit communication seemed to be the key, and some of us more sensitive and unlucky individuals seemed to be vulnerable to this.

I later spoke to others he introduced me to, and our stories were so similar it was amazing. My friend continues to find and meet others who have gone through this and I have found a few cases myself. I can only say for those of you interested in this sort of thing, be very careful, for certain sensitive individuals, this can be very dangerous, and lead to an attachment