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The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
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“Is Matthew there?” asked Cheyenne, directing her voice toward the box on the table in hopes that her brother would come through from the other side. “Yes,” the reply came. With the connection “validated,” Cheyenne shakily continued: “Was the suicide a mistake?” The speaker crackled, “My death was a mistake.” With tears cascading down her cheeks, Cheyenne asked to speak with her mother, and when the connection was made she sputtered out, “Do you see my children, your beautiful grandchildren?” Mom replied, “Yes. I see the children.”
Cheyenne’s life-affirming messages were coming out of Thomas Edison’s “Telephone to the Dead”—or at least a facsimile of a rumored machine that the great inventor never built. It was just one of many readings that day (at $90 a pop) conducted by Christopher Moon, senior editor and president of Haunted Times magazine, and part of the spectacle that is Univ-Con, a paranormal conference organized by Ryan Buell, the telegenic host of A&E’s television unreality series Paranormal State. I was invited to provide some scientific sensibility.
I couldn’t hear Cheyenne’s brother, mother or any other incorporeal spirits, until Moon interpreted the random noises emanating from the machine that, he explained to me, was created by a Colorado man named Frank Sumption. “Frank’s Box,” according to its inventor, “consists of a random voltage generator, which is used to tune an AM receiver module rapidly. The audio from the tuner (“raw audio”) is amplified and fed to an echo chamber, where the spirits manipulate it to form their voices.” Apparently doing so is difficult for the spirits, so Moon employs the help of “Tyler,” a spirit “technician,” whom he calls on to corral wayward spirits to within earshot of the receiver. What it sounded like was the rapid twirling of a radio dial so that only noises and word fragments were audible.
“Are the dead in that little box?” I asked Moon. “I don’t know where the dead are. Another dimension probably,” Moon conjectured. “Well, since we know how easy it is for our brains to find meaningful patterns in meaningless noise,” I continued, “how can you tell the difference between a dead person’s real words and the random noises that just sound like words?” Moon agreed, “You have to be very careful. We record the sessions and get consistency in what people hear.” I persisted: “Consistency, as in what, 95 percent, 51 percent?” “A lot,” Moon rejoined. The Q&A ended there, because the next session was about to start, and I didn’t want to miss the lecture on “Quantum Mechanics: Is It Proving the Existence of the Paranormal?” by another paranormal speculator with the uni-name of Konstantinos.
That evening in my keynote address I explained how “priming” the brain to see or hear something increases the likelihood that the percepts will obey the concepts. I played a part of Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven backwards, in which one can hear an occasional “Satan,” and then played it again after priming their brains with the alleged lyrics on the screen. The auditory data jumped off the visual cues (the funniest being “there was a little toolshed where he made us suffer, sad Satan”—see it in my lecture “Skepticism 101” at www.skeptic.com). I also played a number of auditory illusions produced by psychologist Diana Deutsch of the University of California, San Diego (http://deutsch.ucsd.edu/), in which a repetitive tape loop of a two-syllable word educes different words and phrases in different people’s minds.
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14 Comments
Add CommentUh, how do the dead "learn" how to manipulate the audio in the echo changer? In order to phone the dead, one would have to believe that the dead can learn a skill such as this. That goes waaaaaaaay beyond just believing in ghosts. I can't get past that part.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would like to know who arranged the interconnect agreement. "Afterlife Bell" has to do some complicated spiritual switching to make sure the call gets to the right spirit. With de-regulation I should be able to get my own interconnect agreement as well and provide some much needed competition in the marketplace.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe thing is ,you don't need any kind of contraption to hear the dead. You have to have a strong Spirit in your self to believe.ANY THING IS POSSIBLE ! I have first hand knowledge, so i really don't care what SCEPTICS think....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd i don't care if i misspelled any words either !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWow! What a way to get "even" with those who annoy you!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJust slip one of these phones in the casket! Now, even tho' they be in heaven, you can ring the hell out of them!
Juicy -- revenge.
I make those "boxes" that Mr. Moon uses. Personally I don't use it like he does, I like to record "sessions" and listen form tape. I also don't do "readings" for others. When you get voices cussing or calling you by name, you can be fairly certain it's not broadcast fragments from the radio, or mind matirxing. Unfortunate that the scientific minded seek the quick, and accepted explaintion, preferring to give the impresssion that all the is knowable is already known. All it takes is just one voice that can't be explained by ordinary measn to show Mr, Shermer is quite incorrect, but I doubt that any test, or contacts through to box would be acceptable as evidence.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBTW, I don't sell the boxes either. For me it's strickly for my own curiosity. I originally gave Moon boxes becasue of his interest in the paranoarmal, and EVP. Since then there has been other boxes made by "hacking" various radios so the scan. Many get contacts and voices that should not be on a broadcast band. I know--anecdotal evidence at best.
Frank Sumption
I think that it's kinda funny! I remember seeing Jonathan Edwards on TV he claimed to talk to the dead. One woman asked him "if my husband really wanted to communicate from the grave, why does he have to go thru a medium in Long Island"? I believe that if it was possible, the dead person would be the one that made it happen.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOk! Lets say there is no paranormal, no spirit, no soul! We are just a piece of meat , a freak of nature as is it were. So whats the point, in anything? You cant look at art because thats just subjective, emotional non-sense. You cant marvel at shapes in the clouds because thats just your mind playing tricks on you. You cant listen to the sound of running water and hear the voices of ancients speaking, its just a trick of the mind. You can't really fall in love, that's just brain chemicals. You might not be able to even listen to others talk because you can't be sure your meat brain is properly interpeting what the other person is saying.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe skeptic , as theyve come to known and accepted in this society, is someone that seemingly, or gives the impression, they know all the answers, is one sorry person, no hope, no faith, no magic, just a piece of meat! I dont know the source of the ghost voices I listen to, and dedicate so much time to building equipment to hear them, but Ill damned if Ill let some bozo that cant and wont accept any evidence tell me there is nothing there.
As for the above comment, the dead do make the communcations happen, and it's relatively common. There is after death visions, and dreams where the dead communicate, there are numerous cases of "phone calls" from the dead, where the deceased talk to the living in their own voice via telephone, and are recognized by the sound of their voices. There' is also contacts on just about everykind of electronic equipment, "they", the dead, seem most adept at manipulating elctricity and electonics. The trouble is most of the living are to dense to pick up on the communcation attempts, that's why a medium is used. There are in fact university studies that tend show at least some mediums are real. I urge everyone to spend a little time and effort, do some google searches, and not just take the word of the negative "sketics" that accept no evidence. One place to start is worlditc.org Or--do what most do, let someone else do all your thingking, then pat yourself on the back for being so much more intelligent.
It's not my point to try to prove this stuff, I just get toqued when someone claims there's no spirit, no soul, no afterlife--nothing, when contrary to these claims, there is overwhelming evidence gathered all over the world over the past centuries. The "skeptic" would have you believe all previous knowlegde is suspect at best and your own thoughts and experience can not be trusted, and are worthless.
Frank
When dealing with the likes of Chris Moon, you should be skeptical. I have, in fact, built a similar device myself out of a Radio Shack radio. It works well. You can find the instructions at www.ufogeek.com. The boxes work, Mr. Moon does not. I consider him a step above Ms. Cleo, a step below Sylvia Brown.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell, I can understand, but I have been in Moon's presence and I heard what he did at those times. I don't hear it 100%, but I did hear "Edison here", and last time his technician "Tyler" announced himself, so I can't entirely discount what Moon does, or claims to get. I am, BTW, the original maker of the boxes, and the development continues.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFrank
I am with a group that is currently researching different tools that are being used in paranormal research. Our research is to study the devices and how they work to help people that are using them understand the basics of the devices. Unfortunately the "Frank's Box" is something that we do not have access to. We do have other types of device that are similar, however an authentic Frank's Box would be great to use in the study.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'd like to know how a chamber is supposed to make it possible for spirit communication. If I understand correctly that is the reason why we don't hear the dead through the static on the TV . And what is the technician thing all about? Does that mean I am going to have to get another job in the afterlife? I worry about my retirement enough I don't want to think about trying to get hired in the afterlife.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes Frank it is nice to hear you telling the truth about the real use for the box and who created it. Mr Moon has been fabricating his story for far too long. He is a simple con man, no more to it than that. Too ignorant to even consider there may be other causes for people hearing voices from the box.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFrank, Mark Braun here. We were among those at Milwaukee's Brumder Mansion in 2007 and got a great first-hand evening with the box. When one of our fellow guests asked, "Can you see me?" Moon had no problem saying "Yes." for Tyler. The next question was better: "So, what color is my car?" and we didn't get anything except me cracking up.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAmong Moon's events were shooting digital photos of orbs that only show up on the photo. Of course, it's dust.