Haunted New Jersey Newsletter Vol. 8 Issue 1

Electronic Voice Phenomena enthusiasts eagerly awaiting the release this past January of the movie White Noise are almost unanimous in agreement that the movie fell dramatically short of expectations. Finally, a movie that was going to deal with EVP and make the term as universally accepted as the movie Poltergeist made the phenomena that the movie was named after. After-all, Universal Pictures was doing everything right this time including enlisting the help of those persons in the forefront in the field of EVP.

However, an independent polling of some of the top names in the field of Psychical Research turned up the fact that, until recently, most had not even seen the movie. The reason for this was the negative feedback that spread through the field like wildfire on the release of the movie. This was not a serious interpretation of the electronic voice. In fact, it dealt mostly with a close cousin of EVP, ITC or Instrumental Transcommunication. ITC can be described as any type of communication with the dead where electronic equipment is used but not limited to tape recordings.

The premise of the film is simply that Michael Keaton is being contacted by his recently departed second wife. She is coming back with messages for him, but it doesn't stop there. Others are also trying to contact Keaton. Still living persons coming through displaying their future deaths and begging for assistance. Then, of course, you have the shadow figures. Those dark characters similar to those creatures last seen surrounding the souls of the recently departed evil people in the movie Ghost and hastening them away to a site we are lead to believe is hell or its equivalent.

And this, in a nutshell is the problem. Hollywood couldn't just portray EVP for what it is; an honest communication with the departed. They had to mix the voices with figures on film. They had to portray the phenomena in the most frightening way possible. They even had to put a note up saying 1 out of every 12 EVP messages is a threatening message. A number that most EVPers will tell you is way, way out of line.

Sarah Estep is the Founder and past Director of the American Association for electronic Voice Phenomena. She is probably the greatest living expert in this field today. When asked about her evaluation of the movie, she too was disappointed. Many others in the field used the same description of the film stating simply "It sucked!"

The best part of the DVD is the additional information. In this section, the filmmakers actually attended the 2004 conference of AA-EVP and spoke to some of the members including Directors Tom and Lisa Butler. This is where a truer sense of the phenomena can be achieved. As Tom concedes, even though the movie was weak the bonus material at the end is very much worth the price of the DVD as it contains "...a fair amount of legitimate information about EVP." For Tom, the exposure is well worth any negative press that the movie has garnished. "Lisa and I have been fielding hundreds of emails from people wanting to know what recorder to buy, how to contact their lost loved one, is it safe, what do Christians think about EVP and on and on. The movie did a little damage to EVP, but by giving us, and our counter parts in other countries, the opportunity to speak about EVP, the movie industry has told the world about EVP. We who have been in the field for a time, should be waiting with extreme interest to see what the world does with the information."

So is it fair for Hollywood to exploit psychic phenomena just to fill seats? Look at the movie Poltergeist. If the movie truly portrayed poltergeist activity as it really is, would anyone have gone to see the film? If the only thing portrayed was the movement of chairs around a table, would the movie been as big of a hit as it was spawning a number of sequels? Realistically and emphatically, NO! But start with the premise of a poltergeist situation and then add in a little "Indian burial grounds" and a hideous creature in an upstairs room. A little bit of a television that kidnaps children and a wacky little psychic and voila, we have the ingredients of a major box office smash.

Peter James Haviland is the President of the Texas based Lone Star Spirits Paranormal Investigations. An old friend and co-member of Paranormal Research Organization, Pete is very familiar with EVP. He also knows how Hollywood likes to distort paranormal subjects. "When Hollywood creates movies of a paranormal Genre, it's wonderful to get people re-kindling their interests or seeking other avenues of support to questions being studied, but it did bother me a little that they worked with the Butler's to get an understanding and misrepresented it in the film....There was a lot in it that was just hogwash and unfortunately the general public that 'wants to see it because its got some truth' has been misinformed to a great extent, and damage control is then set in place.....Don't get me wrong, the attention to the study is good in the long run, but is it worth the explanations of the misconceptions because the AAEVP name was tagged to it?"

It should be noted that AAEVP was only contacted AFTER the movie had been shot and as such had no input into the premise of the movie itself. This is certainly unfortunate! So what is the verdict on the movie? I tend to agree with Tom Butler. The movie White Noise as ridiculous as it made EVP appear did have a beneficial side to it. Now let's see where this goes. Let's see who gets on this bandwagon and if EVP research is taken to the next level by those other than the faithful who believe in this phenomena heart and soul.