EVPs
"EVP," as somebody patiently explains on nearly every episode of "Ghost Hunters," stands for "electronic voice phenomenon." (The plural of EVP is EVPs, even though the plural of phenomenon is phenomena.)
The theory goes that EVPs occur when energy is imprinted onto an electronic device -- a video or audio recorder -- and sounds or voices are heard during playback, even though no one present at the time of recording heard anything.
EVPs are creepy as all get-out.
"White Noise," a movie starring Michael Keaton, was predicated on the idea that the dead are trying to communicate with the living through this imprinting. The movie was terrible, although the fake EVPs in the movie were creepy enough -- there's something inherently spooky about voices that aren't there, especially distorted voices with garbled, cryptic messages.
But the ones the TAPS team occasionally finds on "Ghost Hunters" are the best -- the scariest, the goose-bumpiest -- because they're real. At least, they're supposedly real. Which means a few more degrees of bone chill. And bone chill is the reason I watch the show.
These real-life EVPs say all kinds of things. They tell homeowners, "I'm staying here"; they ask questions about the TAPS investigators; they even manifest, sometimes, as music or humming or laughter. The scariest one I remember hearing from TAPS was in the home of a guy named Adam -- he believed it was haunted by his deceased relatives, and the disembodied voice on the recording said, "I miss... ADAM," with a near-demonic growl on the name. Eek!
"Sure," you say. You're a skeptic, and that's fine. But just imagine if you put a tape recorder in your bedroom and hung out, then played back the tape to find a tinny voice saying, "Get out of my house" or "I'm coming for you" or "Don't you ever vacuum in here?" You'd be creeped out too.