Friend caught ghosts voice in video

OK guys and girls, this is what I've got...
I took the clip "as is" as I got it from Nick, and ran it through some Audio editing/enhancing software. The complete analysis took me about two hours to get what I got here. I'll give the technical data/facts, and you can make from it what you want. I'll then give my personal opinion on the results. As an agreement with Nick I will not give any indication as to what was said in the clip. Anyone who wants to follow the whole conversation will have to talk to Nick about it.

The clip is exactly 1:00 (one minute) long with a size of 481,805 bytes with actual bit depth of 16 bits on both channels (left and right).

The clip contains the voice of a young female, which is the loudest of the voices. Comparing the sounds and listening to the dialogue, she is holding the camera.

There is also a second voice, that of a young man (or boy if you may - Nick indicated that both the persons are 18 years of age.). This voice is much softer, barely audible, and his part of the dialogue is limited to one to three word phrases. Comparing the sounds and listening to the dialogue, he is probably laying on a bed/couch a distance from the camera.

Then there's a third voice. That's the voice Nick posted above. Because the voice is in a whisper I cannot make accurate assumptions as with the other two voices. It does sound like a male person, older than the other two persons in the clip. It's a clear voice, i.e. I would guess anything from 20 to at the most 45 years old. To allow the voice to be audible it had to be in close proximity of the camera, however not as close as the girl, but much closer than the boy. I have listened to the whole clip about a million times (if not more) and was satisfied that the voice speak only once in this clip. There is nothing spooky or "inhuman" about the voice. It says a single phrase "I want to have sex", beginning the phrase quite soft but with greater intensity to the end of the phrase.

I was also satisfied that there were no other voices in the rest of the clip.

I can assure everyone that the phrase is in fact "I want to have sex". If I knew that this was going to be questioned I would have brought the enhanced and filtered clip with me. I asked Nick not to indicate where the voice speaks the phrase, to ensure that I don't expect to hear something at a certain point. I picked up the voice the first time round. No question about the claim that a voice speaks the alleged phrase in the clip.

There is no question that it is in fact 3 different voices.

The following analysis is called a frequency analysis.
It contains a graph of the frequencies at the cursor position or at the centre of a selection. The x-axis (left to right) represents frequency (measured in Hz), while the y-axis (bottom to top) corresponds to the amplitude of the corresponding frequency (measured in dB) on the x-axis.



This first graph shows the frequency analysis of "random" points where the three voices speak in the normal clip.
The green line indicates the "unknown voice".
The red line indicates the girl's voice.
The purple line indicates the boy's voice.
This is how a normal graph of any person's voice will look like, thus there is nothing funny or strange about it. No strange frequencies. The girl's voice does not fall into the average female voice range, but that doesn't mean anything. Something as simple as smoking (being a regular smoker) can change the range or it could just be her regular voice. This does NOT raise any questions or doubt at this point.

This second graph is also a frequency analysis but this time I enhanced the waveform to get samples with the same wave amplitudes. (I.e. to compare the voices if they are played at exactly the same volume.) I also tried to get samples where the sounds (phrases) were more or less the same spoken by each person.




Again:
The green line indicates the "unknown voice".
The red line indicates the girl's voice.
The purple line indicates the boy's voice.
Note that the green line (unknown voice) is a much straighter line than the girl's voice. This is what we would expect from a whispering voice - because it speaks in a monotonous tone, while the girl uses a wide range of tones to voice herself. The boy's voice is also quite monotonous (one-toned) as the graph indicates, and you would also hear this should you listen to the clip.

Again, this doesn't indicate anything strange or out of the ordinary. It does however confirm that we are definitely dealing with 3 different voices here.

If there is still any question about this, below are the Histogram of the 3 voices, clearly showing that it's 3 different voices.

Boy Histogram
Girl Histogram
Unknown Voice Histogram

I also have statistics for all three voices, but it doesn't show anything of interest, thus I will only post it if anyone request it.

Phase Analysis
Now we're getting at the exciting part!!!

Using a Lissajous Plot graph, it lets you easily see any phase differences between the channels of the current waveform. (“Phase” is the amplitude difference between channels.)

- A mono (in phase) waveform will display as a rising diagonal line from left to right.
- An inverse left channel 180-degrees out-of-phase waveform (the right channel is in phase) will display a line descending from left to right.
- A right channel-only waveform will display as a horizontal line.
- A left channel-only waveform will display as a vertical line.
- Most stereo audio is generally fuzzy looking, upward sloping from left to right.
- If audio has very wide stereo separation, the display will be going in almost all directions.

So throughout the clip the phase analysis looks like this: (I enhanced the clip to get bigger wave forms.)



It shows a mono (in phase) waveform as a rising diagonal line from left to right. This is not unexpected because we know that the digital camera records in mono.

BUT take a look at this!!!



This is how the graph looks while the unknown voice speaks! A line that "is generally fuzzy looking, upward sloping from left to right"... This means that the voice is speaking in stereo! Absolutely mind-blowing!
But what does this mean?
We know for a fact that the camera cannot record in stereo, it is absolutely impossible. Thus the voice had to be added somehow afterwards.
If the voice was added on purpose, i.e. if this is a hoax, then it was done exceptionally well. There is no, and I mean not the faintest indication that the waveform was edited. There is a loud "click" that might have indicated that the clip was edited, but this is ruled out by the fact that the click is during the phrase (I want to have sex) is spoken.
I also removed the voices just to hear the background noises (white noises), and although the noise is minutely "softer" during the said phrase than right before or after it, the differences is almost not notable, and still exactly the same as on other parts of the clip.

So, there you have it. Hope it's not an information overload, make of it what you want. I do not claim to be the expert on sound clips, but I have been working with sound for at least 7 years now - more music than "random sound", but still, the same rules apply.

So here's my opinion:
I have no idea how the voice landed on the clip - in stereo. Thoughts that come to mind is "ghost in the machine"...

A question that's bothering me is how your friends picked up on it. Although it's clear enough, you still need a good ear to randomly pick it up, and not just write it off as white noise. Or their sound was just really loud?

From what I've read here, as well as the correspondence I received from Nick, I believe that he is NOT trying to pull one over us. He honestly believes the voice on the clip to be that of a ghost. Whether his friends are playing a joke on him, remains to be debated.
But Nick, looking at what we've got here, I believe you've got yourself some ghost activity. Seeing the video would have made the case water-tight, but the situation behind the clip is extremely complicated, thus we'll leave the actual video footage out of it. But I still believe your story.
This is some of the best and most convincing EVP clips I've heard.
I suggest you start your ghost hunting. Try to get some more EVP clips. Be sure to contact Amuk - the resident ghost-hunter - for help. (I don't know if he's active again, but he'll be able to help you.)

It's just strange that a "ghost" would say what he did. Looking at the circumstances, I'm not surprised, but still.... He's a ghost. Do that have that kind of ...err... emotions? He also doesn't sound hostile, so I don't think you need to be scared of him. Just be careful as the "activity" might elevate into something dangerous. Just remember that nothing can hurt you without your consent.

Sorry, I don't mean to scare you. Just excited about this.

Please keep us updated if you find some more interesting phenomena.

[Edited to correct Links]

[edit on 22-11-2005 by Gemwolf]

Well done Gemwolf. You put a lot of effort into that.
But that's amazing! It gives me the creeps each time I listen to it.

whooo weee!

Thats some crazy stuff there gem! I can 100% say that my friend has NO knowledge to be able to edit in an audio clip so smoothly. The clicks from the audio are the lens cover hitting the camera. That click noise is apparent in nearly every video taken with that camera with the lens cap being held on to the camera by a short string.

He specifically told me that he heard the ghost during playback ON THE CAMERA, meaning that theres possibly ghost activity in the camera? I don't really know. I know today is my last day of classes this week and we'll DEFINITELY be spending sometime in that room of his.

Is it still good to use a compass to "detect" ghosts? I think I read long ago that when the compass flickers, take a picture in the direction of the flickering and you'll see a ghost? Eh maybe not. I'll send over a u2u to the resident ghost hunter.

Lastly, thank you Gem. I really hope we have a good case of EVP here. I will take a look at the video (as hard as it may be) to try to find some visual ghost activity and I'll definitely be reporting findings back to this thread.

Thanks again everyone.

-Nick


Edit- I really don't know how my friends picked up on the audio. I do know the camera has pretty loud play back and they were in a dark/low sound room. The first time I heard it I wasn't playing it too loud and I knew exactly when this "ghost" spoke.

[edit on 22-11-2005 by Nick350]

Considering Gemwolf's analysis, and what he lets understand about the video, i'd like to come up with another hypotesis:

What if the voice we hear isn't from a ghost, but some sort of unintentional medianical manifestation?

Gemwolf, have you tried to enhance the boy's voice, and compare it with the "ghostly" one?

[edit on 22-11-2005 by Sparhawk]

Can someone email the entire unedited clip to me at [email protected] if possible please! Thanks.

Originally posted by Sparhawk
Considering Gemwolf's analysis, and what he lets understand about the video, i'd like to come up with another hypotesis:

What if the voice we hear isn't from a ghost, but some sort of unintentional medianical manifestation?

Gemwolf, have you tried to enhance the boy's voice, and compare it with the "ghostly" one?

[edit on 22-11-2005 by Sparhawk]

I recently saw the video quicky and I can tell you the "ghostly' voice isn't one of my friend. He was no where near close enough to create such a loud "whisper" at the camera. I will be looking at the video again with a closer eye to see if I see any ghostly activity.

Well Nick that depends on what kind of whisper we're talking about.
I'm not talking about a "spoken" whisper, but about a medianical one... what i mean is: he was too far to whisper and be heard, ok. But what if your friend has some medianical capabilities he isn't aware of?

There were two 18 year olds in the room, it was the hormones talking. Trust me.

Love and light,

Wupy

OK whatever you can go ahead and believe what you want...

You want us to believe something without being able to analize it?

Send it to a pro studio and I'll bet you get the same response I gave.

[edit on 22/11/2005 by ANOK]

Where did you get the full clip from? I do not believe Ive posted it.

and secondly, the ghost voice appears around the 29-30 second mark.

Also, to everyone I sent the clip to, I told them to be sensitive to what they posted. I really didn't want the audio (other than the ghost voice) quoted. Id appreciate it if you'd change your post and taking out exact quotes from the audio. Thanks.

I trust Gemwolfs opinion more than yours because he's not playing it off like its a fake. I wouldn't waste my time to entertain myself. I value my integrity and don't plan on mucking it up by posting some BS ghost crap.

Originally posted by Sparhawk
Considering Gemwolf's analysis, and what he lets understand about the video, i'd like to come up with another hypotesis:

What if the voice we hear isn't from a ghost, but some sort of unintentional medianical manifestation?

Gemwolf, have you tried to enhance the boy's voice, and compare it with the "ghostly" one?

I'm not sure I understand the term "medianical manifestation"... (I even googled it, and didn't find any results...) Please explain?

Secondly, I did enhance the boy's voice with the "ghostly" voice. That was what the frequency analysis was all about. Comparing the voices to each other. You'll see that the boy's voice is close to the ghost's voice, but not close enough to be the same voice. Secondly from the sound clip, the boy had to be running back and forth in the room to create the "effect" of the different position of the voices in the room. Thirdly, in my opinion, the "ghost's voice" sounds older than the boy's voice, but because it is a whisper (the "ghost") you can't say for certain and that too is open for debate. But the fact remains that I'm convinced that there is 3 different people speaking in the clip.

@Nick
First I must apologize, as I was the one who shared the clip with ANOK. We are in the same time zone (as far as I can see) thus the two of us can converse easily. Still that is no excuse. The clip is not mine to share, you have ownership of it, and it's yours to share with whom you want. You also asked me to be sensitive about the dialogue in the clip. I did not repeat this to ANOK, when I should have. My sincere apologies! I trusted (and still do) Anok, that's why I shared the clip with him. I would not have done so with anybody.

...
I was too late to read ANOK's reply with his analysis, but from what I gather here ANOK's results were quite different than mine. I would have liked to see his findings.
Nick, you cannot only trust my results. Remember, if you post something like this you'll have to face the skeptics as well as the believers. I did my best to step into this neutral and be convinced by my findings. I was more than ready to cry wolf, if the results showed up anything different. But according to my own results I am "a believer". Nick, the other members have the right to see both sides of the story. If one analysis shows it to be a paranormal phenomenon and the other shows the opposite, then members have the right to read both result sets and make up their own minds. Thus I think ANOK should post his results again (but only sensor out the sensitive parts).

When you do something like I did here (and what ANOK did), you open yourself up for criticism from others. That's just the way it is.
I stand by my findings, as it is based on fact. I ran the clip through proper software, that's the results I got. If someone can point out that I went wrong somewhere, then I will admit that I was wrong. But I have enough experience with sound (music) to be confident about "my work".

Remember that I did not rule out the possibility that the clip (ghost voice) is fake. But as I said in my prior post, I have more than enough reason to believe it is NOT. And I honestly believe Nick is sincere.

And to all members. The content of the clip - although not sexually explicit - makes this a very difficult case. Many people will see that as a warning sign that this is a hoax. As there is more that I can say about the dialogue and how the voice fits in with the scenario, but an agreement with Nick prevents me from doing this, and we all need to respect that. As I said the actual video clip would have changed all of this, and I'm extremely curious to see it, but again we need to respect the privacy of other people's bedrooms. Unlike some ghosts I know.

I'm honored that you see my results as the black and white of the story. Please feel free to send me some more material I can analyze for you.


Note: I will be doing some more testing on the clip, as ANOK asked me to do via U2U. I'll post if I find anything interesting.

Must just be me but from the putfile it sounds like "hmmm build lakes".

Sorry, I just don't hear sex in there anywhere.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not counting out a "ghost" as the source I'm just not hearing "sex" anywhere.

Interesting findings Gem.

What programs did you use to analyze the clip?


[edit on 11/23/05 by redmage]

Does Sparhawk mean that it might be the boy’s subconscious that said "I want to have sex"?
Personally I’m half inclined to think that. But who knows, some people think ghosts can feel whatever you feel just by being near you. If so it would make sense.
And can ghosts influence what you do? Maybe that's another reason why we are naturally scared of them? And maybe that could also be why the ghost said it?

Yes Liberal, more or less it is what i was thinking.

I apologyze for not having explained properly (sorry about that... language barrier ), now i'll try to clarify my hypotesis.

Maybe the boy is a medium (or has the potentials) and he isn't aware of it.
Gemwolf said the ghostly voice and the voice of the boy, even if not the same, are similar, and this could be a hint.

So, if the boy has the potential of being a medium, he may have unwillingly impressed that sentence on the tape.

(Medium in italian means a... sort of psichically gifted person; i think it's the same for english, am i correct?)

[edit on 23-11-2005 by Sparhawk]

[edit on 23-11-2005 by Sparhawk]

Originally posted by Sparhawk

Maybe the boy is a medium (or has the potentials) and he isn't aware of it.
Gemwolf said the ghostly voice and the voice of the boy, even if not the same, are similar, and this could be a hint.

So, if the boy has the potential of being a medium, he may have unwillingly impressed that sentence on the tape.

(Medium in italian means a... sort of psichically gifted person; i think it's the same for english, am i correct?)

I retested the complete clip with some new ideas from ANOK. And this time I went into it aiming to prove that there was tampered with the clip or that there is nothing strange about the voice.

The results were exactly the same. 3 different voices. And the unknown voice showing up as stereo compared to the mono of the rest of the clip on the phase analysis. This bugs me to the extreme, because it is technically impossible if the voice was "physically" speaking during the recording - externally of the camera. I force my thoughts towards inter-dimensional electronic possibilities, but it just remains a feat I cannot explain.

One thing that did come up the second round, was when enough noise reduction is applied and the phrase is run through certain filters, the phrase changes from "I want to have sex" to inaudible... "... legs". But if the clip is played without any changes - but amplified, it is clearly "I want to have sex", so I won't linger to much on this thought.

Sparhawk, you have an interesting theory. (Your definition of a medium is the same as the one I have.)
To test this theory we would have to compare the boy's whisper voice to that of the "unknown voice"... This will be a difficult test, because the "test subject" (boy) would try not to sound like the voice to prove his innocence.
It would be an amazing gift to be able to add audio to any medium (electronic recording device) without actually speaking the words! Would that count as ESP? Nick, maybe your friend should do this experiment as well. See if he can record his thoughts?

Well, I don't know what else can be said about the clip. Maybe some more theories as to how it came to be. Nick, the ball is now in your hands. We would love to see/hear some more media you manage to catch.

Legs, lakes....close

But really, what programs are you using for analysis?

Originally posted by redmage
Legs, lakes....close

But really, what programs are you using for analysis?

Cool Edit Pro 2. And I swear by it. Best thing programmers and sound engineers could come up with...

Gem- don't worry about the clip sharing. Id like to get to the bottom of this just as much as anyone here. As long as he edited the post Im happy.

Everyone else- thanks for your interest and Im telling you again now that Im not trying to pull one over on you. It would be a complete waste of my time.

I will get my friends voice recorded saying all the phrases mentioned in a whisper voice. I'll obviously record them on the same camera and Gem can compare.

Expect some updates soon.

Well, in my opinion most of the ghost phenomena are, in truth, unwilling psichical manifestations; people involved don't even imagine they could have some psichic "power", so they automatically think of ghosts.

And the fact that on a first analysis the boy's voice and the unknown one result similar, could be a first proof.

Nick, it would be great if you could do 2 things: 1- have your friend record his voice. 2- receive from your friend one of his old videos, in which we can clearly hear his voice. This way, Gemwolf has 3 audios to compare: one with the ghost and your friend's whispers, another with your friend saying the phrase (maybe with a little stressed voice as others have already pointed out), and another one with your friend's normal voice (so Gemwolf could also be able to eventually understand which "patter" your friend's voice follows when stressed or in certain circumstances). This, i think, could allow a deeper and more precise analysis

hi this is Brittany(The girls voice in the video)

We did hear the voice in the camera, actually i heard it first, and heard exactly what it said the first time. This is not a hoax and It scares me to even be in his house anymore.

I have seen, and lived with a ghost, a very active one, more of a poltergeist.
I have tried to get this *spirit* to talk again and it hasn't worked so far.

Thanks for the help.