Electronic voice phenomena (EVP) are sections of static on the radio or on electronic recording media that some persons interpret to be the sound of voices. Some attribute these noises to ghosts or spirits,^[1] while others attribute the voice-like aspect of the sounds to auditory pareidolia.^[2] According to parapsychologist Konstantin Raudive, who popularized the idea,^[3] the "voices" are typically brief, usually the length of a word or short phrase.^[4] Later authors have said that they have been heard on diverse media, including radio, television, tape recorders, video recorders, and digital recording devices, and that they sometimes are answers to questions asked during the taping. EVP are considered by paranormal researchers to be a subset of instrumental transcommunication (ITC).

The possibility of spirit communication through electronic recording devices has been reported since at least the 1940s. Originally labeled “Raudive Voices�? after Raudive, they were later renamed “electronic voice phenomena�? a term introduced by the publishing company Colin Smythe Ltd in the early 1970s. The explanation that EVP are produced by spirits of the deceased was first introduced by American photographer Attila Von Szalay, who believed he recorded the voice of a dead loved one in 1956. This lead to further claims made up until the 1970s, notably by psychologists Raymond Bayless and Konstantin Raudive, and film producer Friedrich Jürgenson. In 1980, inventor William O'Neill, backed by industrialist George Meek, built a 'Spiricom' device which was said to facilitate very clear communication with the spirit world through EVP.

In addition to deceased spirits, various paranormal believers have suggested that EVP could be due to psychic echoes from the past, psychokinesis unconsciously produced by living people, and the thoughts of aliens. More prosaic explanations include apophenia (finding of significance or connections between insignificant or unrelated phenomena), pareidolia (interpreting random sounds into voices in their own language which might otherwise sound like random noise to a foreign speaker), artifacts due to low-quality equipment, or simple hoaxes.

Source: Wikipedia