Ghosts in the Machine

I don't know if any of you are aware of it, but I have always been very very interested in the paranormal - ghosts, hauntings, poltregeists, night terrors, out-of-body, etc. Well, I have a new interest to add in there now... have any of you seen the movie "White Noise"? WOW! This is one of those movies where you want to turn on every light in the house afterward. I've never really been scared of typical horror movies, but movies like the "Omen" series, "The Entity", and now "White Noise" give me a serious case of the Heebee Geebees! The willies! The don't-dangle-your-feet-off-the-edge-of-the-bed what-was-that-noise? Kinda' scared. Because they're all based on fact.

White noise if you haven't seen it revolves around a paranormal line of research called EVP (electronic voice phenomenon).

Electronic Voice Phenomena (or EVP), refers to "spirit voices" that are said to manifest themselves on audio recordings.

EVP is a subcategory of Instrumental Transcommunication (or ITC), which includes all electronically recorded phenomena, including telephones, televisions, computers, and specialized audio equipment. It's freaky, and it's been around since the 1920's!

I've been doing a lot of reading on it recently and if any of you are interested I have an hypothesis to put forward on how it might work...

First, I don't know of any visual EVP that has occured via LCD or Gas Plasma televisions. I think Gas Plasma might be possible, but I'm fairly certain almost all broadcast visual events would be on old CRT's. My hypothesis is this is because of two primary objects in the CRT TV's: 1) Capacitors, 2) Phosphorescent Material.

A CRT is basically an electron gun which fires electrons through a magnetic field onto a phosphorescent fabric, which shows the combination of multiple impacts as an image. The gun doesn't aim or move in any way. What it does is vary the strength of the electron being fired so it would be angled differently after passing through the magnetic field.

1. Capacitors and inductors are applied together in tuned circuits to select information in particular frequency bands. For example, radio and television receivers rely on variable capacitors to tune the station frequency. Speakers use passive analog crossovers, and analog equalizers use capacitors to select different audio bands. My

2. Phosphorescent Material. The material on the inside of the TV screen is hit by the electrons and reacts by glowing at that point with a brightness determined by the intensity and charge of the electron. This material is coated with a chemical compound that glows or "phosphors" after stimulation (in this case by the electron gun).

So, my point in mentioning these items is the fairly widespread belief that ghosts are beings in an energy state. I believe they could be able to draw power from the capacitors to amplify their audio signal to us since they are directly related to the frequency attenuation of the audio system, and the phosphorescent material would react as well to their "energy" features as it would to an electron striking it. I could go into much more detail on how I think this works but I think you see the point I'm trying to make.

Additionally, it might be possible for this to work with LCD screens because they are electrolumiescent. Electroluminescence (EL) is an optical phenomenon and electrical phenomenon where a material emits light in response to an electric current passed through it, or to a strong electric field. But I think it less likely because of the strength of the current required, whereas the phosphorescent fabric of the CRT is much more sensitive and requires very little power to generate a "glow" reaction.

Color CRT's use multiple layers of chemically bonded fabrics which each generate a different color (RGB - Red Green Blue). So, the CRT from an old black and white TV is probably the best method for capturing EVP images.

So if in the future they make more movies about it, or write books about it, maybe we'll all hear about the CWilliams Theory of Electroentity Transcommunication or some-such thing. :-)