Welcome to the PEEP Podcast. I’m your host Nicolle Morock, and on this episode, we’re doing something a little different. Audience participation is required to really get the most out of this one, and I think you’re going to have fun with it.

Before we get started though, I want to take care of a little “housekeeping.” You might have noticed that this episode published a week early. Normally, I publish biweekly, and episode 16 came out just last week. Well, the reason for that is next week, I’m completely unplugging from the digital world, and it’s a vacation from all things online that’s been planned for months. Rather than wait an extra week to put out the next episode, or schedule this one to post when I won’t be around to answer any questions about it that might arise, I’ve decided to release it a week early. Of course, sticking to my original schedule, the next episode will still be released on June 9^th, so there will still be two “dark” weeks in a row. But given the nature of this one, I think we’ll need that extra week to gather data.

Without further ado, I’ll tell you why I’m so excited about this topic that I decided to publish this one a week early – we are doing science!

Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP) are sounds found on electronic recordings – like voices, for example – that were not heard in real time as the recordings were made. Typically interpreted as the voices of spirits, guides, or other non-physical entities, they are often prized by paranormal investigators.

As of this recording, we don’t actually know how it works, and I’ll be the first to admit that some EVP are pretty weak and may be the result of misinterpreted sounds such as stomach growls, noisy air ducts, or even animals that the investigators just didn’t make note of while recording. That’s why when my team, the National Society of Paranormal Investigation and Research (NSPIR) does an investigation, we have certain rules we follow:

Rule number…

1. No whispering. Whispering can be misconstrued upon playback, especially if you don’t review your audio until days or even weeks later.

2. Announce every sound. Stomach growls? Own it. Creaky floorboard as you shift your weight? Mark it. Homeowner’s dog snoring in the other room? Name it. No matter how embarrassing it might be, announce it. Otherwise, you won’t really know what’s anomalous when you sit down to listen to your audio later.

3. If you find something anomalous during your audio review and send the clip to the rest of the team, do NOT say what you think it is until AFTER everyone has had a chance to listen and form their own opinion. (And this is going to be the most important rule of this episode.)

Here’s why: the minute you tell someone what you think you hear, they are more likely to hear the same thing or something very close to it. You’ve tainted their interpretation. You’re ruining the experience, and in our case, the experiment.

Yes, on this episode, we’re doing our own science plus psi research. It’s an interactive episode that requires your ability – if you choose to participate in the experiment – to fill out a Google form. There’s no email address required. Participation is anonymous, and we are working on a trust system here. I’m trusting you to follow the rules, and I’m also asking you to share this episode and the form link – which is in the show notes – so we can get as many people to participate as possible. The more responses we have, the more data I’ll have to comb through and see if there is a consensus on what is heard on each of the recordings I’m going to play for you.

Here’s how it works, I have seven EVP captures – short recordings – that I will play for you, and without discussing them, you will enter what you think you hear in each one on the form. When you’re done, you can submit the form, and I’ll go through all the form submissions to see if we can come to a consensus on each one. The beauty of doing this via podcast is you can use the rewind button to listen to each one as many times as you need to, but to help you out, I’m going to play each recording three times in a row.

The form will be open for responses as soon as this episode is released, and it will close on Wednesday, June 24^th, 2021. If you happen to be listening to this episode after the form closes, you can still write down what you think you hear and then listen to the follow-up episode to see if your interpretations matched those of others. Hopefully, you’re not future-man or woman, listening to episodes in backwards order because that might spoil the fun for you.

Depending on how many responses we get, the results of this little experiment may be published beyond this podcast, and that’s where the trust really comes in. I’m trusting you to only fill out the form one time, to not discuss your interpretations with anyone until after June 24^th, and to share the episode and form link. I need your help on this to uphold the integrity of the experiment. It’s really important!

The beauty of this is that anyone who has access to a podcast app and the internet can do it. Heck, you can even listen to this episode on my website’s embedded player at peeppodcast.com, so you don’t really need a podcast app. Plus, I want all types of people to participate – believers, skeptics, and somewhere in between.

If you don’t really hear anything or you just can’t make out words, you can answer “unknown” and if you do hear words, put down exactly what you hear – even if it’s a few solid words and then the word “unknown” after them in a case when you just couldn’t make out that last part. It’s all acceptable as long as you’re giving it your honest, best try.

After the response form closes on June 24^th, I’ll go through the responses and aggregate the results. The more data we have, the longer that might take, but I’m okay with that. Bring it on!

Once I’ve done that, I’ll put together a results episode and not only report what I’ve found, but also replay the EVP clips with their backstory and context. For this episode, I’m leaving that part out because again, it could taint your perception. The only clue I’ll give you today is where in each clip, the anomalous sound is.

One last point I need to make about listening to these EVPs: the quality of your speakers, headphones, or ear buds will make a difference. These were captured on a $40 digital voice recorder with just its built-in microphone, so don’t expect studio-quality sound. If you can’t hear them on one set of speakers, you might want to try another. Personally, I can hear them on my desktop computer speakers and my noise-cancelling Sony headphones just fine. But I can’t guarantee your smartphone’s speaker will produce the same sound.

So, are you ready?

Here we go!

For this first clip, I’m asking you to type what you hear after you hear me say “before I joined.”

<Insert clip #1 3x>

For this second clip, you’re going to type what you hear after George says, “that’s interesting.”

Remember, if you don’t hear anything or you can’t make out words, type “unknown.”

<Insert clip #2 3x>

In the third clip, what do you hear after “knock three times”?

<Insert clip #3, 3x>

In the fourth clip, what do you hear after I ask, “why that time”?

<Insert clip #4 3x>

In the fifth clip, what do you hear after “is there someone else in the study who's going to converse with us?"

<Insert clip #5 3x>

In the sixth clip, what do you hear after "EVP session number one"?

<Insert clip #6 3x>

And finally, in the seventh clip, what do you hear after “please come in”?

<Insert clip #7 3x>

At the end of the form, there is an optional question asking if you heard any other EVPs or noises which you believe require further investigation. If you did, please tell me which clip and what you think you heard.

And that’s it! Thank you for participating! Because it’s so important, I’ll say it one more time – please share this experiment, but don’t tell anyone what you think you heard until after June 24^th. And if you have someone who’d like to listen after that date, don’t spoil their fun! Let them be surprised, and then discuss it all you want. I promise, the surprise is half the fun of capturing these EVP to begin with. I mean imagine listening to hours of audio and suddenly hearing something that wasn’t there when you were in the act of recording it. It’s thrilling to say the least.

Thanks, as always for listening and thanks in advance for spreading the word about this episode!