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What happened to EVP challenge?
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UNITED STATES. Ever since the birth of parapsychology, researchers have been looking for a repeatable demonstration of psychic or paranormal abilities. Some claim to have found it. But sceptics remain unconvinced (otherwise they wouldn’t be sceptics!).
 Magician James Randi (left) – who gets far more publicity for being a sceptic than he ever would as a magician – is so certain that no one has psychic abilities that he has a long-standing offer of US $1 million for the person who can prove him wrong.
Open-minded scientists dismiss his challenge as worthless and supporters of psychic phenomena point out that Randi has failed to accept a similar $1 million challenge to disprove the paranormal.
Earlier this year Lou Gentile (below right), who describes himself as a paranormal investigator and demonologist and also runs a radio talk show on these subjects, indicated that this situation would soon change. He claims to be able to produce voices of an unexplained origin – known as electronic voice phenomenon, or EVP – and he has set out the terms of his acceptance of the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) challenge. They are:
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Lou Gentile can produce voices of an unexplained origin using a Panasonic digital recorder model #RR-DR60, under scientifically controlled conditions.
Lou Gentile will require a minimum of four hours of recording time so that he can assure the best possible results. The conditions of the test must be arranged so that any possible external interference (such as EMF, radio, or television signals) can be eliminated as possible explanations. The only stipulations regarding this are that the surroundings must be free of audible noises and nothing can interfere with the normal operation of the recorder.
The recorder can also be subjected to testing by Panasonic USA or a qualified engineer as long as doing so will not in any way damage the operation of the recorder and Lou Gentile is present for any of these tests.
In addition to this, all parties involved from Lou Gentile’s side will be available for X-Ray or other examination to insure they do not possess any transmitter or other equipment capable of creating a fraudulent result. If an identical recorder can be obtained from Panasonic USA and verified by Lou Gentile, this may be used but failing that, any of Lou’s three personal recorders may be selected by a randomised procedure.
Specifically, Lou Gentile will ask them questions, with a pause between each of one minute to allow for an answer while the recorder is in voice-activation mode, then stop recording to play back the results immediately. Playback may be made with any of the recorder’s modes of operation.
This method will be considered one testing set. There will be a total of 24 testing sets. Every 30 minutes of real-time recording, there will be a 15 minute break for water, bathroom, etc, during which the recorder will remain in the testing area and all parties involved will remain under surveillance and escorted under any conditions.
These questions must be confined to subjects such as: basic addition and subtraction involving whole numbers from one through ten, first names, how many entities like yourself are present, the name of the most predominant entity around at the time, is there anything that you would like to tell us, can you see us, and do you consider yourself human?
Due to the fact that the intelligence of the entities is unknown, these questions cannot include complex scientific or mathematical subjects. Some of these questions will be designed to entice the entities into giving responses. The list of questions will be compiled and agreed upon in advance by both parties. If any anonymous voices are found, they are to be submitted for independent testing chosen by JREF, both to attempt to further clarify what is said and to test the voices against voice prints of all parties involved.
A test will be considered a success if four questions are answered, in the total of 24 sets, that are in an intelligible voice that is speaking English. If at the end of 24 sets either fewer questions have been documented or testing finds them unintelligible, the test will be considered a failure.
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This challenge was lodged on the JREF website on 20 January 2006 and received a response from the challenge facilitator, Kramer, explaining that everyone at the foundation was in overdrive preparing to leave for Las Vegas for the foundation’s TAM4 [the fourth Amazing Meeting]. He added:
“This makes it impossible for me to give your application the attention it deserves until we make our return to Florida on 1 February. At that time, we will review your claim letter and test protocol more thoroughly, and get back to you in a timely fashion.”
Unfortunately, since that time, the website announces, Kramer “is now pursuing other opportunities and is no longer associated with the JREF”. And James Randi recently underwent bypass surgery from which he is making a slow recovery.
Meanwhile, Lou Gentile’s website (www.lougentile.com) publishes a running clock, showing the time in days, hours and minutes since he made his challenge (on 4 September 2006 this is shown as 227 days). This is due, in part, to Randi’s heart surgery and also to an accident which put Gentile out of action for several weeks.
A press release dated 15 April, deals with a claim apparnetly made by the JREF that it was still waiting for Gentile to provide questions that would be answered during the test. Gentile, however, says he has never been asked for them.
Lou Gentile has now recovered enough to resume his radio show, but the website currently makes no reference to the challenge issued to James Randi. And according to a statement dated 10 July on the James Randi Foundation website (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=50828) “Mr Gentile has apparently decided to withdraw from the challenge.”
It’s strange that Lou Gentile does not make any comment about this on his own website, nor explain whether he has actually dropped the challenge or simply postponed it until he has fully recovered from the accident. There has, however, been a suggestion on the Internet that that he plans to be tested first by Prof Gary Schwartz at Arizona University.
We’ll be monitoring this situation and reporting back on www.ParanormalReview.com.
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Posted on Monday, September 04, 2006
Category: Paranormal
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