"Why not?"

[Rolfe]

Is there an earlier thread someone could point me to about the incident on BBC radio where the words "why not?" were heard in a ghostly voice that has been represented as paranormal?

This was referred to again the other morning in the Today programme. The "why not" part was first played on its own, and the words were perfectly audible even out of context. The isolated clip wasn't especially scary. However, they then played the whole excerpt, where someone was describing how an investigator was saying there was no point in wiring him up in this location because they simply wouldn't get anything. And in fact they did wire him up but got no signal from the devices at all. At this poing the acoustic changed dramatically and the now-obviously-ghostly voice-over said "why not?"

I just about jumped out of my socks. In spite of having already heard the clip, hearing it in context was undeniably spooky.

My first impression was that it was some sound engineer or somebody playing silly buggers. One assumes that aspect has been investigated though. Clearly there's more to this story than was explained on Today. Does anyone know what the hell I'm talking about?

Rolfe.

[DonOne]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/reports/misc/evp_20050107.shtml[/URL]

found this, if you click on listen, you will be able to hear exactly what happened;)

[Orangutan]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/default.stm#

There's a link to a story with this at the start on the right near the bottom.

Probbably today Only.

There's a sad scottish woman who really believes this stuff.

And a really nice rebuttle by a psycologist.

"Reading meaning into random noise"

Worth listening to.

O.

[Rolfe]

Originally posted by Orangutan
"Reading meaning into random noise" Whatever it was, it wasn't that. As I said, they first played the clip of the "spooky" comment in isolation, without telling us what it was supposed to be saying. The words "why not?" were perfectly plain to me, without prior instruction and without the context.

This was a quite separate thing from the mad Scottish woman who is clearly into aural pareloidia, even if she has to manipulate the clip before even she can claim there's anything there. I agree, the clips they played of her recordings were just random static. "Why not?" was in a different class.

Rolfe.

[JimTheBrit]

Originally posted by Rolfe
Is there an earlier thread someone could point me to about the incident on BBC radio where the words "why not?" were heard in a ghostly voice that has been represented as paranormal?I haven't had chance to listen to the Today report yet, but I'll wager that the EVP mentioned is the one apparently appearing in this Excess Baggage programme (http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/excessbaggage/index_20040228.shtml) from February last year.

Click on the listen link at the top of the page and forward the audio file to 23mins 20secs to hear the EVP.
Now, back up to about 22mins 20secs and play the file again, listening closely. Is there anything curious to be heard between this time and the alleged EVP? I'd like people's feedback on this.

J.

[Rolfe]

Originally posted by JimTheBrit
I haven't had chance to listen to the Today report yet, but I'll wager that the EVP mentioned is the one apparently appearing in this Excess Baggage programme (http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/excessbaggage/index_20040228.shtml) from February last year.

Click on the listen link at the top of the page and forward the audio file to 23mins 20secs to hear the EVP.
Now, back up to about 22mins 20secs and play the file again, listening closely. Is there anything curious to be heard between this time and the alleged EVP? I'd like people's feedback on this.

J. Got it in one, Jim. That's the baby.

The Today item was about the film, and the nutty Scotswoman, and that was all a load of random static and so what. But they also dragged in the Excess Baggage thing as another example, but it was clearly something entirely different. I sometimes listen to Excess Baggage, but I didn't catch that one at the time.

In that case the words were clear, and didn't need explaining. And in context they actually made sense. Obviously, if events of that magnitude happened with any regularity, sceptics would have some explaining to do. But equally obviously, they don't, and to me it sounded like a deliberate spoof, possibly by the sound engineers. After all, Excess Baggage is hardly a paranormal show, and Sandy Toksvig doesn't strike me as one of the ranks of the gullible.

I wondered, since that actually happened so many months ago, was anything said about it at the time? It struck me that it had probably been debunked all around the houses already, and the Today team were just having a bit of fun. So, do we know the real explanation? If it's officially still "possible paranormal", I'd have expected the woos to be parading it as a major piece of evidence, as the words are so clear and so much in context.

I can't get those pesky "Listen Again" files to play right now. Come on, Jim, if you have the explanation, give.

Rolfe.

[Mojo]

I heard this on the "Today" programme this morning and none of it really sounded convincing. In fact, (although I heard a sound on the programme) I didn't realise that the "voice" was supposed to have said "why not" until I saw this thread.

It may be because of my poor language skills, of course.

[The Mighty Thor]

Mr Ghost (simon) with the deep voice had been talking to the sound engineers before. They decided to play a trick, knowing he was going to tell this story.

How live is live in such broadcasts? I felt that there was some editing going on -- the rooks etc.

Could it have been a producer's "prompt" for the presenter to ask this question of Simon-- a prompt we were not supposed to hear? It conveniently is said during a fair pause in the dialogue, and would make a sensible question at that time. And it is strangely positioned in the stereo field. Like others, I don't necessarily think it has to be "why not". Maybe "windup"?:)

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Sounds like "lie dot" to me.

~~ Paul

[Rolfe]

Interesting you say that, because on the Today programme they played the "why not?" clip first, with no explanation or context, and even like that I thought it was "why not?" Out of context it wasn't especially spooky, but in context it was positively scary.

I think it's an obvious spoof, but if it hasn't been definitely explained away I'm surprised the woos aren't wearing it like a trophy badge.

Rolfe.

[Spektator]

I listened to the Scotswoman, Linda Williamson, telling her story. I can only agree with Rocky the Rooster from Chicken Run : "I swear she's not using real words."

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

A more sarcastic thing to say is "I see that you are creating grammatically correct sentences here, but I can derive absolutely no meaning from them at all."

I think Stimpy turned me on to that one.

~~ Paul