Awesome or Off-Putting is a weekly delve into cryptozoology, ufology, aliens, medical marvels, scientific wonders, secret societies, government conspiracies, cults, ghosts, EVPs, myths, ancient artifacts, religion, strange facts or just the plain unexplainable.
This week: Ghosts/EVPs
SPIRICOM is a machine that allows two way communication with the dead in instant time. EVPs (Electronic Voice Phenomena) have been around for a while. They're the recorded voices of ghosts that you don't hear when the recording is made, but upon playback they become evident. SPIRICOM (the name is the combination of two words 'spirit' and 'communication') is a giant step forward – if it's real, that is. On the next page we have links to pages showing SPIRICOM in action, when Bill O'Neil has full-on conversations with his long dead friend Dr. George Mueller. In the recordings, Mueller even helps tweak the SPIRICOM system a bit – from beyond the grave.
SPIRICOM is a device that allows real-time communication with the dead. It was developed by George Meek and Bill O'Neil in 1979. O'Neil was a psychic, and used his special abilities to get help from the other side in developing the machine. When the device was completed, the pair used it to communicate with Dr. George J Mueller, a man who'd been dead at least 14 years.
The thought a device allowing such ghostly contact isn't new. Thomas Edison thought he could make one. More recently paranormal investigator Christopher Moon claims to have come into just such a device called 'Frank's Box', which allows the same sort of afterlife-communication.
The SPIRICOM sounds a bit like somebody is talking through a Jew's Harp. The conversations recorded cover all sorts of topics from SPIRICOM improvements to magazine articles that Mueller's ghost read as they lay around the lab. Here's a sample of the conversations held between the ghostly Mueller and Bill O'Neill:
Doc Mueller: I think that the problem is an impedance mismatch in that third transistor.
Bill O'Neil: Third transistor.
Doc Mueller: Yes, the one that follows the input.
Bill O'Neil: I don't understand.
Doc Mueller: The preamp, the preamp.
Bill O'Neil: Oh, the preamp.
Doc Mueller: Yes, I think that, uh, we can correct that by introducing a 150-ohm,100-half-watt resistor in parallel with a .0047 microfarad ceramic capacitor. I think we can overcome that impedance mismatch.
Bill O'Neil: Oh boy, I'll have to get the schematic…."
Here's another sample, it's a bit sillier:
Bill O'Neil: Yeah, I just turned on the tape recorder, Doctor.
Doc Mueller: Very well, William.
Bill O'Neil: (a bit angrily) You said to hurry back, and I did. That has been exactly one week ago.
Doc Mueller: Ho, ho.
Bill O'Neil: Yes, ho ho yourself. Cold weather has left us, temporarily anyway. It's raining. It's nice and warm. Of course you never know what to expect. I am going to try to put in a little garden this year.
Doc Mueller: Oh, wonderful. (pause) Send me a couple of carrots.
Bill O'Neil: What's that again?
Doc Mueller: A couple of carrots.
Bill O'Neil: Oh, carrots!
Doc Mueller: Yes, William, and a nice head of lettuce.
Bill O'Neil: A nice head of lettuce. I am not going to plant acres, Doctor. What's that? I think you were talking at the same time I was.
Doc Mueller: Well, perhaps. I said if somebody had some cabbage, I like fried cabbage. Oh, I love fried cabbage.
Bill O'Neil: Fried cabbage. Well, I like sauerkraut.
Doc Mueller: Well, you know that sauerkraut can do…?
Bill O'Neil: Yes, I do. You know, Doctor, I never thought I'd see the day when I could, uh, talk to someone like you in the way we are doing, and if ten years ago someone had told me this was possible, I would recommend that they be sent to the 'funny farm.'
Doc Mueller: Well, perhaps you are right.
Sounds awesome, right? Want to talk to your long dead grand-pappy? Well not everybody can. According to Meeks:
"[SPIRICOM] requires an operator with a very special type of psychic energy, and even such a person cannot consistently communicate."
Eventually Mueller stopped coming through. Before he left, he told O'Neill and Meeks that he wouldn't be here forever. Within a month he was gone – but others came through – lots of others. If you want to hear multiple ghosts on a soapbox – including William Randolph Hearst, then recording #2 is for you. And the sound of the voices is greatly improved too, the jew's harp/Star Wars-robot sound is gone, replaced by a surprisingly normal sounding human voice. Clearly, SPIRICOM would have it's detractors. It's a bit out there, and if it really worked, why hasn't the technology spread all over the world? We'll let you figure it out. Links to O'Neil's conversations with the dead are below. It starts out slow, with Meeks giving a brief history of EVP. The actual communication starts about half-way through recording #1.
Read More:
Diagram Of The SPIRICOM Device
Sleepy Day says
oh wow! I want to talk to dead people about vegetables too! Where do i sign up?