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The American Association of Electronic Voice Phenomena, or (AA-EVP), is a
501(c)(3) nonprofit organization focused on educating and supporting people interested in electronic voice phenomenon . The AA-EVP has more then 30,000 members in twenty countries. The current directors of the Association are Tom and Lisa Butler.<ref name="aaa-evp-about"/>

History

The AA-EVP was founded in 1982,<ref name="aaa-evp-about"> About the American Association of Electronic Voice Phenomena, AA-EVP Website</ref> although their roots go back to the 1970s, when their president, Sarah Estep, began hearing mysterious voices on her husband's TEAC reel-to-reel recorder. Estep concluded the recordings were made by spirits from the afterlife or alien beings living in a non-corporeal state.<ref name="skepdic1"> EVP Entry, The Skeptic's Dictionary</ref>

The AA-EVP today

The Association distributes a newsletter, and has members in at least 40 U.S. states<ref name="skepdic1"/> and 20 countries.<ref name="aaa-evp-about"/> They also arrange an annual conference, and host advice-driven articles and what they say are EVP examples on their website.<ref name="aaa-evp"> What is the Survival Hypothesis?, AA-EVP Website</ref>

The AA-EVP actively supports the Survival Hypothesis, which postulates that humans exist as both physical and non-physical beings, and that when a human dies they do not cease to exist, but rather revert to being purely non-physical in nature.<ref name="aaa-evp"/> Estep claimed to have recorded over 20,000 ghosts and aliens. She said that some of the recordings yielded coherent and understandable messages, but that others were unintelligible.<ref name="skepdic1"/>

The AA-EVP website contains what they say are EVP samples, as well as photographic and video examples of what appear to be other-worldly beings, which the Association accepts as corroborating evidence of the Survival Hypothesis.<ref name="aaa-evp-examples"> Examples of EVP and ITC, AA-EVP Website</ref>

The organization is often quoted in books regarding the subject of EVP including "Communicating with the Dead"<ref name="CwtD"> </ref> and "Spirit Rescue".<ref name="sr"> </ref>

Criticisms

Due to the association's fundamental belief in both the scientific legitimacy of EVPs and their support of the Survival Hypothesis, they are viewed as inherently biased by some skeptics.<ref name="skepdic1"/>

The AAEVP claims on its website [198] that it believes in the "Survival Hypothesis". This "holds that we are nonphysical entities who are able to exist in the physical aspect of reality because of our physical body, but that when our physical body dies, we as Self, change our point of view to nonphysical reality. In effect, we exist before and after our current lifetime. The working hypothesis supported by AA-EVP is that these messages are, indeed, nonphysical in origin and that the Survival Hypothesis is essentially correct. It is the goal of AA-EVP and its membership to find ways to improve the reception of these messages and to better understand their origin."

James E. Alcock, PhD, in an article for the Skeptical Enquirer [199], wrote that EVP was a product of cross-modulation and apophenia or pareidolia - the human proclivity for sensing patterns in meaningless data e.g. hearing voices in white noise. "Science, with its reliance on data and its insistence on looking for sources of error and for alternative explanations, provides the best method that humans have produced for protecting against error and self-delusion. Electronic Voice Phenomena are the products of hope and expectation; the claims wither away under the light of scientific scrutiny."

References

<references />

External links

AA-EVP Home - The official website