(Original headline: Reaching through to the other side - Yumans say they use EVP to listen to spirits)
Most movies don't cause people to go home, stare into their TV screens, then call Don Swain to exorcise demons living in the Zenith.
That's why Yuma's best-known ghost hunter absolutely hates the new flick "White Noise."
"Right as soon as that movie came out, I had four of those calls," Swain lamented. "Because of 'White Noise' everyone's watching the static on their TVs and seeing demons."
It turns out that Hollywood's latest fear flick tells a gory story about Swain's favorite hobby chatting with dead folks. Actually, to use technical parlance, he records and analyzes electronic voice phenomena, or EVPs. The result may just be a word or a garbled complete sentence, ranging from a simple "hello" to the far more interesting "Leave us alone." But regardless of their complexity, to big-time believers EVPs can only be one thing. They're whispers from the dead.
"I've actually had them come through very clear," Swain said. "I even had two spirits talking to each other at the old Conner House. A female voice said 'Where are you?' and then you hear a male voice say 'I'm here. Speak to me.
But Swain really didn't "hear" a thing. Instead, EVPs are gathered by setting up some form of audio recording equipment in an area preferably one full of spooks then simply asking questions and waiting to hear the answers once the tape is played back. It sounds a bit too simple, but it seems to work.
Expensive equipment isn't necessary, either. Folks get great EVPs using regular hand-held recorders, with a slight preference for digital and for external microphones. The messages can also be played back to reveal the supernatural sounds or special editing equipment can be used to clear up any noise and lower or raise frequency levels. Those sounds, however, are super rarely ever heard by the ear at the moment of being spoken.
In "White Noise" EVPs are found by listening within the white noise on audio tapes or by looking into the white noise on a snowy TV screen.
The EVPs typically feature normal spaces between syllables, which may themselves be delivered at unusual speeds. In fact, there can sometimes be several speeds all within one word.
"I've even had spirits interact with me," Swain said, telling the story about carrying some heavy equipment out of the Hotel Lee. "I got spooked and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. So when I get spooked, I just talk to myself. But when I said 'Well you might as well help me move this' as I was going out the door, I recorded a young girl's voice saying 'Should I move?
Hot spots for EVPs in Yuma seem to be Prison Hill, old town in general and the old cemetery off First Avenue.
The popularity of EVP hunting has really taken off in recent years, but nothing could have rendered a bigger impact on it all than "White Noise." The current leaders of the American Association of EVP still can't believe it.
"On the day of the movie's opening, the association's Web site had 88,000 hits," Tom Butler told More during a recent phone interview. "Universal Pictures wound up having to mirror our site just to keep up."
Tom and his wife, Lisa, are true glitterati in the world of EVP, by the way. They are authors of the popular book "There is No Death and There are No Dead." They've been quests on "The Maury Povich Show" and "Access Hollywood." The Butlers will also star in a special documentary on the "White Noise" DVD.
Like Swain, the Nevada-based couple stresses that "White Noise" is a greatly entertaining movie that manages to sensationalize EVP hunting. But they still have a lot of positive things to say.
"One great thing is that the movie has given us the chance to set the record straight," Lisa said. "Even though it shows EVPs as scary, it's still getting the word to the public about this phenomena."
Plus, lots of people are taking advantage of the association's site and learning from a wealth of resources how to take up EVPing on a serious level.
Overall the association has 400 paid members from coast to coast. But even though tapes are turning everywhere right there, there's still no single answer for exactly how this stuff works anyway. So far it seems that the best theory is that the spirits or sometimes aliens or just folks hanging out in another dimension altogether somehow place their messages onto the tape, rather than actually speaking in any way audible.
The Butlers offered their thoughts, stressing mainly that EVPs are not what most critics say cell phone calls, radio broadcasts and such.
"We're not just picking up some strange signals. We're not getting music and we're not getting disk jockeys," Tom quipped. "We're listening to people say our names or answer questions."
Lisa added: "We haven't figured out how it works, but we feel that's not so important."
For them EVPs go far beyond a spooky game to play. To the Butlers these recordings are a powerful and most meaningful tool.
"Most of the work we do with EVPs is with grieving," Lisa said. "The messages are usually short and something like I'm OK. Personally, we've heard from Tom's mother and father and my grandmother."
Making that kind of connection across the gulf of death gives meaning to the Butler's work.
"This is what we really care about," Lisa said.
And they also care about letting people know that EVP hunting truly isn't a deadly deed. In fact, their only warnings are to folks who use drugs or suffering from a mental illness.
"In the more than 50 years of EVP research around the world there is nothing more than the unusual EVP cussing at you or telling you to get out," Tom said. "They're just people on the other side and sometimes we get into their space and they don't like it."
Lisa agreed, adding: "Listen, I'm much more scared about getting mugged by a human than a dead person."
The thought of a ghost taking form and actually trying something shady is probably the kind of tangible stuff Swain would pray for most nights trudging through the graveyard.
"I just want to know the answers," he said. "Actually I'm a pretty strange ghost hunter because I'm not sure I absolutely believe in ghosts. But I do feel that the messages are coming from somewhere."
In addition to his own hunts, Swain also investigates local hauntings for folks having troubles with strange occurrences in their homes or businesses.
"When you tell people 'I'm a ghost hunter,' there is always a shock factor and that's fun," he said. "But the part that's actually a good feeling is when you have come call and you're able to sit them down, counsel them and help them through it. It feels good to finally be the one to tell them they're really not crazy."
To make sure that there really isn't anything there, Swain records audio using two machines. He has an impressive gadget that measures sudden temperature changes, he takes radio wave readings and he records visuals using both a regular camera and an infrared camera. To find areas of supernatural disturbance where a spirit might be, Swain is led there by his wife, Susie, who is quite an expert with divining rods.
Swain said that "99 percent of the time" he can come up with a disappointingly logical explanation behind most hauntings. But there is still that one percent.
"I've been sitting next to chairs that have moved and I've been slapped when there's nobody there," he said, adding it still takes more than that to completely unnerve him. In fact, he's been chasing spooks since 1983, back when he was with Nebraska Paranormal Investigations.
"It doesn't bother me anymore. But of course I've been ghost hunting longer than most of these young people have."
Swain is right about young people. There are lots of new EVP hunters hatching left and right there days.
Kellie Taylor is one of the them.
Taylor, a Yuman in her early 20s, has been communicating with the great beyond for a couple years now.
"I've always just been interested in spooky things," Taylor said. "I just like the mystery of it. I think I try to take a scientific approach to it, though. Like anything else, matter cannot be destroyed, only changed. So when we die, our energy takes another form."
Taylor's first EVP, curiously enough, is still her favorite and her best recording to date. She was hanging out with a friend who wanted a test in her home. The results led not only to surprise and disbelief, but tears as well. It turned out that the friend's brother and mother both spoke on the tape that night.
"We heard him saying 'I can see you' and he used the name of the person," Taylor said. "Then the mother came through and said 'Head on straight.' When I was reviewing the material with my friend and asked if that meant anything to her, she said that was what her mother had always said to her brother."
To the friend, it was a meaningful moment. To Taylor the successful recording was a ghostly stamp of approval for her new hobby.
"I wouldn't say it was scary. It was just exciting, kind of that 'Eureka! I've found it!' kind of feeling," she said.
Taylor does her recordings in the usual spooky spots around Yuma, but she is also listens around her own home and friends homes, too.
Although she may not call it her best, another recording success just might be most people's favorites. That's the time Taylor managed to record sounds that were clearly from a music box. The song was crisp, clear and she could follow along with the tune although she didn't recognize the song.
Like Swain, Taylor is pretty brave when she's crisscrossing through the tombstones.
"I've heard them say 'Come here' and 'Leave me alone, she said. "I've heard growling, I've heard my name called and they've actually given me directions when I was lost: 'Stay on the left!
Like most of her EVP comrades Taylor hasn't actually seen much of anything out of sorts.
"Just one time I saw this cloud, this misty, floaty form that was low lying to the ground," she said.
Taylor laughed at the thought of EVP hunting being anything close to dangerous. Heck, the only harm that it's seemed to have in her life has come in the form of incredulous ribbing from friends and family.
"My parents think I'm freaking weird and most people like to tease until I show them proof or take them with me," she said. "For me I've just learned that life continues in some form and contact with that side is available to us. That's just exciting to me. It's comforting."
