Great Lakes Paranormal and Research Society

EVP Classes  

There are different classes of EVPs. We have been classifying them according to the following

Class A

• these are EVPs that are obvious.
• easy to tell that there is a voice and the words are understandable.
• may be heard with out cleaning the EVP and with out head phones.  
• includes voices that were heard during the investigation.

Class B

• these are EVPs that are not as obvious as Class A 
• may immediately be  noticed during review, but are difficult to understand (but eventually a phrase is determined).
• may be difficult to understand since they are low volume or they are found over top of people speaking.
• some enhancement of the audio is usually required to determine the content (slow down, speed up, noise reduction).
• need to have headphones to hear.

Class C

• these are EVPs that are difficult to determine.
• may not be noticed during initial review or they may be noticed but difficult to understand.
• audio enhancement is required to determine what, if anything, was said.
• these include ones that may require the audio to be reversed.
• headphones are required to hear them

GLPARS rarely keeps Class C EVPs as evidence unless the modification of them seems to produce and obvious phrase.

Orbs

While many people feel that orbs are an indication of a supernatural presence, GLPARS does not consider orbs as evidence on their own. The problem with orbs is that they may be caused by many different phenomena e.g. insects, dust, moisture, snow, reflections,...  

When orbs are photographically blown up people sometimes see faces or images in them. These images can often times be the result of matrixing, just like seeing the 'man in the moon' on the lunar surface on a clear night.

The presence of an orbs may be related to paranormal activity if one or hopefully more of the following are true

• the orb produce sits own light - not a reflection
• the orb appeared in a location that was indicated as an area of strange phenomena e.g. a person felt a presence and an orb is captured in that location
• the path of the orb is not easily explainable as a flight path of a insect or dust
• the path is not an insect and seems to defy gravity

GLPARS Methods

Paranormal investigations can never truly be scientific - generally it is not able to repeat experiments, the methods change and the hypothesis is not really understood. While this may be true, GLPARS tries to be as scientific as possible. This includes

• Not assuming an event is paranormal. We always try to find a logical/natural explanation for an event/evidence before any thought of paranormal comes into play
• Review the evidence repeatedly. We have investigators review the evidence separately, then together. This allows for independent determination along with consensus.
• Cross reference all evidence. When we find a potential piece of evidence on a device, we check all other devices and any recorded personal experiences for an explanation. e.g. if a strange voice is heard @ 10:25 on recorder #1, all other recorders, videos and any thing else is checked @ 10:25 to see if there is an explanation
• Occam's Razor are words to live by - "simplest explanation or strategy tends to be the best one." If a sound is suspicious but may be a car, then it probably is a car. If we have any doubts about a piece of evidence, we drop it.
• We try to indicate on audio recorders anything that we hear. Sometimes during an investigation we may heard something that is obvious to us but may sound paranormal on a recording. With this in mind, we indicate any strange sounds or even sighs, sneezes, coughs on the audio recorders.