Scientific evidence of poltergeist knocking?

[stonehart]

From a sound engineers point of view seems very interesting.
I have seen wave forms like this before and yes it is due to the being produced in a room away from where I would be recording so the sound appers to get louder.

http://www.spr.ac.uk/main/news/colvin-acoustic-properties-poltergeist-rapping

 

[Kandinsky]

Interesting article. Are you suggesting that the 'poltergeist' knocks on the tapes are from secondary sources in, say, an adjacent room? If so, they could be coincidental (neighbours for example) or deliberate deception?

The best case I've read that supports some kind of paranormal 'spirit world' is that of a senior Scotland Yard forensics expert. In his autobiography, he related the bizarre tale of a poltergeist and actually fingerprinting its ass! It's believable, not just through his position, but because the story is simply slotted between the major investigations he was part of.

 

[stonehart]

Interesting article. Are you suggesting that the 'poltergeist' knocks on the tapes are from secondary sources in, say, an adjacent room? If so, they could be coincidental (neighbours for example) or deliberate deception?

The best case I've read that supports some kind of paranormal 'spirit world' is that of a senior Scotland Yard forensics expert. In his autobiography, he related the bizarre tale of a poltergeist and actually fingerprinting its ass! It's believable, not just through his position, but because the story is simply slotted between the major investigations he was part of.

Yes this could be a possibility. I have seen sound sources from rooms below where I have been recording show odd wave patterns e.g. The sound source appears so arrive slowly with the attack peak occurring latter than expected in the same way as they are describing in the article. There is an acoustic reason for this and it depends on the medium through which the sound has to travel. Remember that sound is a mechanical wave and is subject to anomalies and changes due to the density of the medium that carries it to the listener/recorder. The net result of this is that low frequency sounds will arrive at the listener with better SPL [sound pressure level] than high frequency sounds through a dense medium such as concrete. One way to get an understanding of this is to go outside on a cool frosty morning and simply listen, what you should notice is the clarity of sounds at extreme distance. Conversely if you go outside on a hot summer morning you will find that clarity at distance is radically reduced. The reason for this is the nature of sound waves; High frequency sounds travel better through cold air as the air molecules are less active [remember that sound is a mechanical wave] but on a hot day the air molecules are more active thus the high frequency sounds do not travel as well and suffer a higher net loss in transmission. Note that I did not say that the low frequency sound increased but only that one part of the sound spectrum was reduced giving the perception of an increase in the low end.

 

[Polterwurst]

Here's a downloadable PDF on Dr Barrie Colvin's poltergeist sounds study mentioned in the opening thread, for anyone who's interested.
http://www.poltergeist.org.uk/storage/pdf-files/Unexplained Rapping Sounds.pdf
Dr Barrie Colvin seems to be a chemist by profession.

On his vimeo page, he says that he's

"a flying, snow-boarding, poltergeist-chasing guy in rural Norfolk, spending time formulating chemicals for all sorts of reasons. The chemical business brings in the cash so that I can fly to poltergeist cases where I can track them down."

Sounds pretty interesting to me, so I'm going to propose him in the guest suggestions.

 

[ALPHA ROMEO UNIFORM]

The article seems quite intresting and going on paranormal /strange awarraness from encounters with so called oddities such as Shadow folks /Ghosts / Cloudy Driffters /UFOs which is a plausible a "electrical /chemical/sounds/pressure/force/weather which might feed off emotional reactions towards all types animals.

 

[Burnt State]

The Philip Experiment

I find that the whole history of mediumship to be mostly suspicious, duplicitous, or, in the case of the Philip Experiment, an unconscious collaboration seems to be at the root of the story. What's interesting about the many collective conjurings of fictitious characters is that it seems to point more directly to the group engineering it all, even if they're not aware if it. I'm not sure how a group inventing a false figure in history contributes to positive evidence for things like paranormal activity, or contacting spirits from beyond. It seems to suggest that these "communications" originate from the group's initial contrivance. If anything it points to human answers and not supernatural ones when it comes to things like table rapping. Here's actual footage from the real participants:

 

[truthseeker]

Here is another pretty compelling documentary. Not sure what to make of it.

 

[Burnt State]

Here's an article from an excellent site that explores a number of features related to consciosness extending past death. The one looks at early scientific investigation into the poltergeist:
Can we explain the Poltergeist? Harry Price

Harry Price:Highly charismatic personality whose energy and enthusiasm for the paranormal made him the first celebrity ghost hunter. A skilled magician and an expert at detecting fraud. Because of his flamboyant manner and continuous self-promotion, Price made a number of enemies within the psychical research field, especially within the Society of Psychical Research. Founder of the National Laboratory of Psychical Research, which later became the University of London Council for Psychical Investigation.

 

[Constance]

This thread seems to have petered out before it go going properly. I suggest we begin again with @stonehart's opening post:

Scientific evidence of poltergeist knocking? | The Paracast Community Forums

 

[stonehart]

This thread seems to have petered out before it go going properly. I suggest we begin again with @stonehart's opening post:

Scientific evidence of poltergeist knocking? | The Paracast Community Forums

Well what I said here still stands:

Yes this could be a possibility. I have seen sound sources from rooms below where I have been recording show odd wave patterns e.g. The sound source appears so arrive slowly with the attack peak occurring latter than expected in the same way as they are describing in the article. There is an acoustic reason for this and it depends on the medium through which the sound has to travel. Remember that sound is a mechanical wave and is subject to anomalies and changes due to the density of the medium that carries it to the listener/recorder. The net result of this is that low frequency sounds will arrive at the listener with better SPL [sound pressure level] than high frequency sounds through a dense medium such as concrete. One way to get an understanding of this is to go outside on a cool frosty morning and simply listen, what you should notice is the clarity of sounds at extreme distance. Conversely if you go outside on a hot summer morning you will find that clarity at distance is radically reduced. The reason for this is the nature of sound waves; High frequency sounds travel better through cold air as the air molecules are less active [remember that sound is a mechanical wave] but on a hot day the air molecules are more active thus the high frequency sounds do not travel as well and suffer a higher net loss in transmission. Note that I did not say that the low frequency sound increased but only that one part of the sound spectrum was reduced giving the perception of an increase in the low end.

Natural explanation for many mysterious sounds and ghostly noise.

An interesting point of reference as far as environment sound conditions is a new venue I have been installing a new PA system in.
After all of the system had been hooked up line checked and ready to go we do what we call "Room Tuning" or simply tuning the PA to the room it is in (think of it like tuning an instrument).
What I noticed was this persistent low drone that would peak at about 60Hz ... No mater how I balanced the PA I could not get rid of it unless I pulled massive amounts of 180Hz out.. This made no sense other than it being the second harmonic of 60hz the PA itself was not producing that much anyway... what was more perplexing is it kept coming and going.. or oscillating.... To cut a long story short what was happening was when the new installed ice machine in the side room (brick and concrete walls) switched on it was creating a low drone that appeared to be coming from the PA and to an extent it indeed was as the 180Hz was exciting this space next to the stage area and creating a low end feed back loop.

So in short sound can do some crazy things in and of itself and no paranormal explanations need be added.

 

[Constance]

So in short sound can do some crazy things in and of itself and no paranormal explanations need be added.

Thanks for all that information. It's good to have someone here who knows how sound works and what affects it. I do wonder, though, if it's not more than a coincidence that the same effect was measured by the SPR researchers in ten different environments. They'll surely continue with this particular testing in future cases, so perhaps there will be additional evidence of an inexplicable difference in these sounds. I think it would be great if you'd email the researchers and let them know about these other influences you've run into that distort sound in peculiar ways.

 

[stonehart]

Thanks for all that information. It's good to have someone here who knows how sound works and what affects it. I do wonder, though, if it's not more than a coincidence that the same effect was measured by the SPR researchers in ten different environments. They'll surely continue with this particular testing in future cases, so perhaps there will be additional evidence of an inexplicable difference in these sounds. I think it would be great if you'd email the researchers and let them know about these other influences you've run into that distort sound in peculiar ways.

To be honest they could ask and Sound Engineer who installs large PA systems as we encounter stuff like I described all the time.

 

[not even wrong]

The Philip Experiment

I find that the whole history of mediumship to be mostly suspicious, duplicitous, or, in the case of the Philip Experiment, an unconscious collaboration seems to be at the root of the story. What's interesting about the many collective conjurings of fictitious characters is that it seems to point more directly to the group engineering it all, even if they're not aware if it. I'm not sure how a group inventing a false figure in history contributes to positive evidence for things like paranormal activity, or contacting spirits from beyond. It seems to suggest that these "communications" originate from the group's initial contrivance. If anything it points to human answers and not supernatural ones when it comes to things like table rapping. Here's actual footage from the real participants:

Thanks for this, I had never heard of the Philip Experiment. I actually just finished reading Keel's Trojan Horse and makes me really wonder if he was on to something regarding this being some type of extra-dimensional being manifesting itself in our reality and messing with us.

 

[Constance]

To be honest they could ask and Sound Engineer who installs large PA systems as we encounter stuff like I described all the time.

I'll withdraw my suggestion that you write to those researchers. 'Twas just a suggestion, and I thought you might want to do that. Besides, it's most likely that the sound engineers working with the SPR are aware of problems generated in engineering large PA systems.

 

[Burnt State]

Thanks for this, I had never heard of the Philip Experiment. I actually just finished reading Keel's Trojan Horse and makes me really wonder if he was on to something regarding this being some type of extra-dimensional being manifesting itself in our reality and messing with us.

Or it could simply be us messing with ourselves? In the Philip Exp. they accused each other a lot, and of course mediumship lends itself to such constructions. What's interesting about Philip, and similar group contacts, is that there is strong evidence that they did exactly what they set out to do - create a being out if nothing, which they did. I think most ouija work, and contacts with the dead, are these conscious and unconscious collaborative events where the participants fill in the content based on a fuzzy outline. This act of "character creation" was repeated many times over by that team and by mist ouija fanatics. I think humans are very good at this sort of thing, as the hunt for mystical entities, or proof of them, is a major addiction - I know. I once surrendered many, countless hours to scanning through old microfiche trying to find proof of my ouija contacts' real life existence and claimed tragedy. All I got from this was a good rapport with the librarian and an unintentional knowledge of the history of my hometown.

Now, many years later, I start to think that psychology perhaps has a much bigger role to play in such paranormal cases than secret, invading entities in disguise. But that's the road I went down. I found many strange anomalies but no real, hardcore proof, just like the Philip deal.

 

[Constance]

You did not find any veridical evidence of the reality of the 'communicator' in your pursuit with a Ouija board. The kids in the Philip Experiment seem to have spooked themselves into producing a phantom of their own imagining. I question the sufficiency of these two cases to support the hypothesis that all psychic manifestations are just us "messing with ourselves." I think you'd at least want to half qualify that hypothesis if you were to spend two or three years reading the SPR and other archives concerning mediumship and other evidentially verdical psychic phenomena.

 

[Constance]

Burnt, I think we're about to begin exploring psychic phenomena in depth in the C&P thread (after a long period of time spent reviewing various philosophy of mind theories and contemplating computational-informational theories of mind in the Substrate Independence thread). So you might find what is to come in the C&P thread to be useful and interesting, beginning perhaps with the extracts from a paper by Kelly and Kelly, authors with others of the c comprehensive study Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century in this post:

Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 2 | Page 87 | The Paracast Community Forums

Note: In addition to the extracts I posted from the Kellys' paper in that C&P thread, I recommend reading the paper as a whole for a sense of the categories of experience that cannot be explained by materialism or self-delusion. Here's the link:

http://www.medicine.virginia.edu/cl.../cspp/dops/Ramachandran EHB article FINAL.pdf

 

[Burnt State]

You did not find any veridical evidence of the reality of the 'communicator' in your pursuit with a Ouija board. The kids in the Philip Experiment seem to have spooked themselves into producing a phantom of their own imagining. I question the sufficiency of these two cases to support the hypothesis that all psychic manifestations are just us "messing with ourselves." I think you'd at least want to half qualify that hypothesis if you were to spend two or three years reading the SPR and other archives concerning mediumship and other evidentially verdical psychic phenomena.

I documented my experiences with the board elsewhere on the forum where i acknowledge that it produced no less than two pieces of knowledge that was beyond the capacity of the users, where I knew for a fact that such information was not known by the people operating the planchette. It could have been communicated psychically by others in the room, though those people were the doubters asking the questions at the time and not on the board.

I would also cite two highly improbable, anomalous events connected directly and indirectly to our own experiments that still blow my mind. There was also one final explosive contact that scared the pants off of everyone and ended our sessions with our contact. In many ways it followed common patterns of ouija board experiments that end in disaster and threat. Are these self-fulfilling prophecies I wondered years after the events?

There were things that happened that I still can not explain though I would cite the majority of what took place to be an unconscious collaboration of the participants, much like the Philip experiment, where not only did our contact take a kind of shape in our minds but she almost appeared to enter into our real world, though I could never find any real evidence of her true existence and concluded that it must have been all in our heads.

I still think that there are things our minds are capable of that we don't fully understand, or that the anomalous byproducts of minds unknowingly working in tandem may produce certain truths, the way a family member may suddenly become attuned to the death of a loved one taking place miles away.

Thanks for the invite to the C&P thread as I need some good, calm, paranormal discussion as opposed to the drama elsewhere. It sounds exciting, though I keep hoping someone will produce an annotated text guide to that thread.