1 The Spirit World Is Calling Nighttime radio is the perfect confessional. Every night as the host of Coast to Coast AM, I hear it all: meetings with the dead, out-of-body journeys, encounters with aliens and entities, prophetic dreams, miracles--you name it about the strange, we get it nightly. One of the most popular topics that people cannot seem to hear enough about, or talk enough about, is contact with the dead. Almost everyone has a story about a time when they felt visited or contacted by someone who had passed over. Perhaps the experience was comforting; perhaps it was unsettling. Either way, it was definitely unforgettable, and maybe even life changing. On this night, Rosemary Ellen Guiley has joined me in the studio in Sherman Oaks, California, to talk especially about communication with the dead and take calls on Open Lines. We both know it's going to be an active night. Some nights are just like that--you can feel a charge in the air, like the Coast to Coast audience has linked up in a peculiar, energized group mind. My producer, Tom Danheiser, can feel it, too. Tom screens the calls. Sometimes the phone lines are "hot" before we even start taking the calls. After we talk for a few minutes about Rosemary's latest research in spirit communications, we open the lines. They are already full with people waiting to tell their stories about talking to the dead. "Beth, east of the Rockies," I said to the first caller. "You're on the air." "George?" Beth sounded hesitant. "Go ahead, Beth; you're on the air." "Yes, okay, thank you. I'm so glad you're doing this subject, and I want to tell you and Rosemary what happened to me." There is a brief pause, and we can almost hear Beth taking a big breath to plunge ahead on what must be a difficult topic. Beth continued, "My dad died several years ago in a car accident. It was a big shock to everyone in our family, and"--her voice broke with emotion--"I had a hard time dealing with it." She took a moment to compose herself. "But here's the weird part: about three weeks after he was gone, I think he called me on the phone!" Rosemary nods to me in the studio. We've both heard these types of stories many times. "He called you on the phone?" I said to Beth. "Tell us what happened." "I was at home by myself one day; it was in the afternoon. The phone rang and I thought it sounded strange. I mean, it didn't have its usual ring. It sounded kind of distorted. I thought maybe there was something going wrong with the line. "When I picked up the receiver and said, 'Hello,' I could hear a lot of static. It reminded me of how long-distance calls used to sound, you know, like they were coming from very far away, with lots of interference on the line. "I didn't hear any voices at first, and I said, 'Hello,' two or three times. And then this voice called out, 'Beth ... Beth ... is that you?' And it sounded just like my dad! I'm not making this up! I'd know his voice anywhere!" "What did you say back?" I asked. "I was so shocked I couldn't say anything. He repeated, 'Beth, is that you?' I said, 'Dad! Dad! Is that you ?' I was practically shouting. He just repeated, 'Beth ... Beth ... Beth.' The static sound got worse and his voice got fainter and fainter and then it just stopped. I kept shouting into the phone for him to come back, but there was nothing but static, and then the line just went dead, like someone pulled the cord out of the wall. I hung up the phone and then picked it up again, and the dial tone was normal. I was pretty shook up for the rest of the day. In fact, I still am, if I think about it. I keep telling myself it was a fluke call, a wrong number, and it was a man who just sounded like my dad. But he called me by name. " "Rosemary, what do you make of this?" I said. "Do you think Beth might have really talked to her father--and he was calling from the Other Side?" "It's quite possible," she answered. "There is a phenomenon literally called phone calls from the dead, or Anomalous Telephone Contacts, and it has been documented just about as long as the telephone has been in existence. Under certain circumstances, the dead seem to be able to access our phone technology and make calls to the living. Many of them are just like Beth described--they are full of static, but the voice of the dead person is recognizable, and it may just repeat a name or a phrase or sentence, almost in robot fashion. The calls either terminate abruptly or the voice simply fades away and the call ends. Most phone calls from the dead are very short--less than a minute--although a few longer ones have been documented, and I can think of one from the parapsychology literature that was reported to last about thirty minutes." "Thirty minutes!" I said. "You mean someone could be talking to a dead person for half an hour and not know it?" Rosemary laughed. "Well, in that case, the person had died and the recipient of the call didn't know it. She thought she was talking to someone who was still alive. Later she tried to call the person back, and was informed that the person had died before the call was made." "That's amazing. Do we know how they can do this?" I asked. "Do they just pick up a telephone on the Other Side and punch in our number?" "No one really knows how it happens, or even why it happens," Rosemary said. "If it were easy to do, we would expect to see phone calls from the dead more often. Wishing for one does not seem to make a difference in terms of whether a person gets such a call or not. The barrier between the world of the living and the world of the dead is hard to penetrate. But it can be done, as we have seen throughout history, and the barrier is broken through every day. People have all kinds of experiences communicating with the dead, and increasingly so with technology." "Let's go to first-time caller Wilma." "Oh! I'm actually on the air?" said a startled voice. "We're glad you can join us tonight. What's your question? Have you had a phone call from someone who has died?" "I'm glad you're talking about this, George," said Wilma. "I don't know for certain, but I think my mother called me right after she died." "Tell us what happened." "Well, she had been sick for a long time--she had cancer. She was in the hospital, and we all knew she was going. It was just a matter of time. I never could sleep very well because I was always worried that I would get a call in the middle of the night. That's exactly what happened, but it wasn't the hospital calling. The phone rang a few minutes before three in the morning--I remember because I looked at the clock before I answered it. I said, 'Hello,' and heard this voice on the other end. It sounded like someone was trying to talk but was making only garbled sounds. There was a lot of static. I thought maybe I'd gotten a wrong number, so I hung up. Then a little while later my sister called. She had gotten a call from the hospital--she said Mom was gone. She died at about the same time that I got the call! I always thought that call was some sort of 'wake-up call,' if you know what I mean, to let me know Mom was going. But listening to your topic tonight, I'm wondering if it was Mom herself?" "Rosemary?" "Here again the evidence points to it being possible," she said. "Wilma has plenty of company. We have a long history of documented experiences in which people who are dying or who have just died communicate with the living--sort of a final farewell. Sometimes the living get what we call a 'crisis apparition,' a vision of the dead person. In other cases, it seems that technology is the easiest way to make a connection, and we get a mysterious phone call. We don't know how it happens, or why it only happens in certain cases--but it seems the dead can call us on the phone when the conditions are right." "If I had stayed on the line, would she have been able to talk to me?" Wilma asked. We could hear the distress in her voice that she might have missed an opportunity to talk to her mother one last time. "That was probably the best that could come through," Rosemary said. "These calls don't seem to last very long, a few seconds. It's amazing that they happen at all. If you had stayed on the line, the call probably would have either ended abruptly or just faded away." "I suppose if the dead could call us easily on the phone, we would have more of these calls," I said. "How common is this? Do a lot of people get phone calls from the dead?" "More than most people might think," Rosemary answered. "But how do we really know we are talking to the dead and it's not just our imagination--or some cosmic trickster playing a joke on us?" "We have to rely on the testimony of witnesses," Rosemary said. "The record is very convincing. There is quite a bit of evidence that we have been getting mysterious communications ever since the telephone was invented, and even before that, in Morse code. In the 1960s, two paranormal researchers, D. Scott Rogo and Raymond Bayless, heard about phone calls from the dead and were quite skeptical about them. They investigated, collected dozens of cases--and concluded that these calls are genuine. They published their documentation in Phone Calls from the Dead. " "Does the kind of phone matter?" I asked. "Does it have to be a conventional landline--or can we get phone calls from the dead on our cell phones?" "Cell phones work, too," Rosemary answered. "It seems that both sides of the veil keep up with technology! In 2008 there was an interesting report on the news, about a man who was among those killed in a train accident in California. An autopsy revealed he had died instantly. But for some eleven hours after the crash was reported, several members of his family received more than thirty calls from his cell phone, which of course had caller ID. The calls consisted of static and noises. They thought he was alive and perhaps buried under the wreckage, unable to speak. It's hard to explain away all those calls as fluke random dials of his phone address book. The calls were targeted to members of his family, including his fiancée--not to business contacts." "Rosemary, we've just gotten an e-mail from a listener named Andy, who says that he got a call on his cell phone from a friend of his who was dead. The call came on the anniversary of the friend's death." "Anniversaries of someone's death evoke a lot of emotions," Rosemary observed. "Intense emotions seem to be a major factor in our ability to have contact with the dead. They don't guarantee contact, but they are important in a mix of factors that researchers are trying to understand and document. The evidence for contact is out there." "We have certainly been hearing some interesting stories from our callers tonight," I said. "Let's go to another one. Tim, west of the Rockies. You're on." "Hi, George, hi, Rosemary." Tim sounded enthusiastic. "A couple of things ... One, I want to second what your other callers have said. I have never gotten a phone call from a dead person, but I do believe it can happen. I've done research on it." "Have you had some other kind of contact with the dead, Tim?" I said. "Yes, that's what I wanted to say, too. I started experimenting with Electronic Voice Phenomena and I have gotten lots of messages from the dead." "Electronic Voice Phenomena, let's explain that for those who aren't familiar with it," I said. "Electronic Voice Phenomena. That is where you ask questions with a recorder on and perhaps there are answers on playback. Rosemary?" "That's right, George. You don't actually hear the answers while you are recording, but they are there on playback. Here again, nobody knows exactly how or why it happens, but it has been documented by many researchers for nearly a century now. Anyone can do Electronic Voice Phenomena in any location. Some people record at home and other people record at haunted locations." I went back to our caller: "So tell us about your messages, Tim. What do you get, and who are you talking to?" "First I should tell you that I got interested in Electronic Voice Phenomena after I read about it," Tim said. "It sounded far-fetched to me, so I decided to give it a try, almost to prove to myself that there was nothing to it. I got a recorder out one night at home and asked a few questions, like, 'Is there anyone here who will talk to me,' 'tell me your name,' things like that. When you ask a question, you leave a little space of a few seconds for an answer. I didn't hear a thing with my ears, but when I played it back, after the question 'Is there anyone here who will talk to me?' a male voice said, 'Yes.' It was very clear. I nearly freaked out. I thought, No way! " "Do you know who it was?" I asked. "I'm not sure, but I think it might be my dead grandfather. He didn't give a name the first time, but I tried again the next night, and when I asked for the name of the man who had said, 'Yes,' it came back 'Emerson.' That was my grandfather's last name. He also said, 'Indiana,' and that's where he lived." "Was it his voice?" "He died before I was born, so I don't know." "Have you asked anyone in your family to listen?" "Not yet," Tim admitted. "I'm not sure they would believe it." He paused and then added emphatically, "But I do." "Rosemary, what do you think?" "Sounds like Tim really did get some unexplained answers. Electronic Voice Phenomena are quite common and probably our biggest means of communicating with the dead, especially with technology," she said. "I've gotten lots of Electronic Voice Phenomena I can't explain. Sometimes we never know exactly who is communicating--they don't give a name or other identifying information. Maybe they just want to drop in and let us know that they're around. People who do Electronic Voice Phenomena regularly can build up exchanges with regular communicators. But a lot of messages are one-offs." "You know, Rosemary, we've talked before about dreams of the dead and visits from the dead. That's how you and I met--I found your Encyclopedia of Dreams in a bookstore over ten years ago, when I had my nighttime show in St. Louis. One of the things that intrigued me the most about dreams was, can the dead really come to us while we are dreaming? It seems the dead can also make use of our technology for other kinds of communication, too." "I believe they can and do," Rosemary said. "That's where the big excitement is in research. I've devoted a great deal of time to researching communication with the dead, and I conduct a lot of experiments with a variety of devices. I have had live exchanges that I cannot explain naturally." "This is an area that we are going to have to explore in more depth," I said. "A lot of our callers have reported getting messages from the dead, not just by phone, but on recorders, in photographs and videos, even on their computer screens. Maybe the gates between the worlds are opening up." "I am convinced they are, George. My prediction is that in the future--maybe the very near future--we will have the technology to talk with the dead whenever we or they want. And perhaps even talk to other entities. There is already evidence that we can do both. And we can do it in real-time, live, two-way communication." "You mean talking to the dead or spirits like we are talking here tonight?" I asked. "Absolutely. It can be done. Research has gone on for decades now in real-time Electronic Voice Phenomena, and some of the evidence is staggering. I have several of these communication devices myself. They go by different names, like ghost boxes, Frank's Boxes, MiniBoxes. The more I use them, the more I am convinced we can break through interdimensional barriers." "Where do you get these devices?" "They are made by independent researchers, who usually have backgrounds in electronics, electrical engineering, computers, and science. Some are available commercially. So anyone potentially can get or make one and start experimenting with it." "Let's bring some into the studio," I suggested. "I can do that. And I have some interesting clips to play of communication exchanges I have had that I believe come from another realm." * * * The night went on with many more intriguing calls and personal stories. And that's how this book was born. The two of us had had many conversations on air and off the air about spirit communications, the inevitable development of technology to make real-time spirit communications possible--and the ramifications for all of us in terms of learning the truth about the Other Side, and how it might affect our personal, religious, social, and even political views. There is a lot more at stake in spirit communications than getting a comforting message that a dead loved one is all right. More and more, the dead are speaking out. They want us to listen, and they are finding ways to use our technology to reach us. My and Rosemary's research took us into amazing territory, and in the following pages we share our findings, our thoughts, and our vision with you. * * * It was clear to me that our communications technology has vaulted us into a brave new world of interdimensional contact. People all over the world have been experimenting with Electronic Voice Phenomena for decades. Now these real-time Electronic Voice Phenomena bring a whole new dimension to our search for proof of the afterlife. Actually, real-time Electronic Voice Phenomena have been around for a long time, too, but until a few years ago had not been available to the average person. Did you know that you, or anyone, can make or acquire a device that may open the door to the Other Side? Now here's the big question: if you could open that door, would you? "I would definitely talk with the dead," said a caller named Ben one night on Open Lines. "I'd like to know what they're doing over there." "Do you think they might be sitting down to a cheeseburger like us, or is it all harps and angels?" I commented. "I don't know, but I can think of a few people who might be in for a barbecue instead," Ben said. "You mean they're the ones in for a roasting." "Something like that," Ben said with a laugh. "We won't ask you who those people are. But seriously, Ben, why do you want to talk to someone who is dead? Maybe we should just leave well enough alone once a person has died." "I want to know what the afterlife is like," Ben said. "I want to hear it with my own ears, from someone who is there ." On her next trip to Los Angeles, Rosemary brought several of her "real-time EVP" devices. She had been experimenting with them for several years. I wanted to see for myself if it is indeed possible to talk to the dead "on demand." Even though I was prepared, I was still surprised at what I heard. It's one thing to hear mystery voices on playback on a recorder--it's another to actually hear them real-time, as though a "live" person is talking, and to you . We got together before air time, and Rosemary showed me how the devices work. Each one looked different, as they were all made by hand--but they all did the same thing: rapidly scan the AM radio band. Several were made by a man named Frank Sumption, who lives in Colorado and began making real-time "boxes," as they are called, after he became interested in Electronic Voice Phenomena. Sumption's work caught the attention of the paranormal investigation community. Other individuals built their own boxes, which became known in the paranormal jargon as "Frank's Boxes" and "ghost boxes." Ghost boxes isn't a very good name for them, but it has stuck for lack of a better term. The scan rates of the AM radio bands can be adjusted manually. When the boxes are turned on and scanning, jumbles of words and sounds spilling out of them, it's hard not to feel a rush of excitement at the prospect of tuning in somehow to another world. The feeling must be similar to the excitement felt by the early pioneers of ordinary radio who clustered around their primitive sets trying to catch a live broadcast emanating from some distant place on the planet. Now technology can turn the ordinary citizen into a SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) pioneer of sorts, listening for voices emanating from beyond the planet and beyond life as we know it. It just makes shivers go up and down your spine. Rosemary turned on one of her newer devices, called a "MiniBox," which had become her favorite. It was created by a Texan named Ron Ricketts. It was a small black plastic box with an assortment of lights and knobs. When it was turned on, a cacophony of noise erupted. It was like listening to a global party phone line or a large number of radio stations all playing at once. The MiniBox scanned like a busy bee, lighting on a station for a second or two, then zooming on to the next. We could hear words, notes of music, bursts of static, and so on. "Why do we need all that noise?" I asked. "In order to talk to us, those in another dimension seem to do best when we give them a background of sounds. They're not using the vocal cords of the living. We've asked communicators how they speak, and they say that they manipulate energy on their side and sound on ours. It's a process we do not yet fully understand--but it happens. You could liken it to needing paper or canvas in order to paint a picture." "How do you know when you've gotten an answer?" I said, trying to focus in on the rush of sounds. "Sometimes words do pop out of broadcasts that seem to be answers to questions, and some people feel that they are evidential, based on the odds of timing. But the best are voices that are clearly not part of a radio broadcast--they are talking directly to you, over and above the scan noise. They ride in on a separate signal. It's like being in a crowd, talking against a background of noise. Sometimes the voices are loud and clear, and other times they are faint. Real-time EVP voices are like recorded EVP voices--they have strange cadences, or they sound flat or even robotic. They do not sound like normal voices of the living." Rosemary adjusted the settings on the MiniBox. "I usually start by identifying myself and others present, and asking if there are communicators who wish to speak with us. I ask for their names. I ask if they can tell us our names. I usually hear my name more than once in any given session. Rosemary is not a common name, and the odds of hearing it randomly on the radio, especially in direct response to a question, are very low." She introduced us, stating our names. "Is anyone present who can speak to us through this device?" she asked. "Can you identify yourselves?" All we heard was the smashed-up radio chatter. "Usually it takes a few minutes to warm up," she said. "Sometimes I get something right away, as soon as I turn it on, even before I ask a question." "Would anyone like to talk to me?" I ventured. A few seconds went by, and then a tinny male voice said, "Hel-lo ... George." It sounded like a voice rising up out of the depths and breaking the surface of the background racket. I was electrified. "Who was that?" "I don't know," Rosemary said. "Did you recognize the voice?" I shook my head. "Sometimes they don't give their names. It's often hard to hold a connection for more than a question or two. For one thing, the scan is constantly changing. It's probably because we have very primitive technology for this sort of interdimensional thing." She addressed the MiniBox: "Who is talking to George?" Again a few seconds went by. Then we heard, faintly, "... Ge-orge..." It sounded like a bad cell phone call breaking up. We never did learn who that was, but it seemed that someone "out there," perhaps on the Other Side, had caught our transmission--and answered back. We asked other questions, and Rosemary asked if the communicators could tune in better to our device. A male voice answered, "We are trying." The words were jammed together in an odd cadence. "I think we actually pick up only a portion of what is being transmitted to us," Rosemary said. "And maybe they hear only part of what we are saying." I wanted to do a live demonstration of the boxes on that show that night, but we discovered that the shielding in the broadcast room, which eliminates interference, also prevented the devices from picking up outside radio stations and creating the background scanning noise. Still, we took the devices to the studio to talk about them. Rosemary set them up and we got ready to go on air. After my news announcements, I introduced our first topic of spirit communications. "Imagine being able to pick up a phone, or a device like it, and dial up the Other Side. Answering on the Other Side is someone who is no longer of this world--they're dead. Now, does that sound way far-fetched? Not in the eyes of researchers all over the world who are now pursuing technical links with other realms for real-time two-way communication. Rosemary Ellen Guiley is live in the studio, and has got some of these devices with her." "These boxes are a type of device intended to get real-time, two-way communication with the dead and other beings," Rosemary explained. "They scan the AM radio band and create a noise matrix that, the theory goes, spirits can manipulate to make words, sort of like an audible clay. The scan is rapid, so that you're only getting a word or two or brief sound as each station is passed. Communications that are considered unexplained are phrases or sentences that extend over multiple stations--they in effect ride on top of the scan. This is part of a field of research called 'Instrumental Transcommunications.'" "Is this similar to what Thomas Edison was trying to develop before he died?" I asked. "Word has it that Edison was interested in making a device or telephone for talking to the dead," Rosemary said. "Whether he actually worked on such a device is not known, and the evidence for it is controversial. But he certainly had an interest in it." "Some researchers say they get their advice and instructions for making these devices from the dead themselves. Is that possible?" "It seems to be the case," she replied. "Some inventors of these devices say they communicate with the dead, and others say they are in contact with higher beings called ethereals, who might be likened to angels. These beings provide inspiration and sometimes technical information." "Do they give schematics? How do they communicate?" "In a variety of ways. Sometimes through regular Electronic Voice Phenomena, sometimes through dreams, and sometimes in inspiration--ideas that just fall into people's heads." "Assuming these are sounds from the Other Side, that tells me there is something truly scientific going on," I commented. "It seems normal to think that as we speak here, they also speak over there. These devices have the ability to pick it up, like a dog that hears things we can't." "That's the idea," Rosemary agreed. "Our attempts at spirit communication go back to ancient times. The tools and technology have changed--simple devices that we see as quite primitive today were considered high tech in their times. Now we are experimenting in spirit communications in the age of electronic media. We've improved our equipment and we are able to tune into the subtle vibrations of these realms better." "All right, let's go to our first-time caller line. Hello!" "Hello," a woman's voice said. "... are you talking to me?" "Yes--you sound like an EVP voice yourself," I joked. She laughed. "I just wanted to say, quite a while back a man called in. He had bought an inexpensive radio and he said either at the top or bottom of the dial he picked up his dead mother talking to him." "I remember that call--you've got a great memory. Rosemary? Can we pick up voices of the dead with ordinary radios?" "Yes, people have gotten mysterious voices over all sorts of devices. The ghost boxes are specially designed to improve our chances, especially for communication on demand." "How reliable is it? Can we ask for someone in particular?" "You can, but you never know what you're going to get," she said. "It's also hard to have sustained conversations, because each scan of the radio band is never exactly the same. We have a long way to go before it's like talking on the phone today. But the results show we can do it." The next caller was a man who suggested that a ghost box be taken to the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, reputed to be haunted by the ghost of Marilyn Monroe. Maybe someone could talk to her and find out what really happened to her when she died, he said. "That's an interesting idea," I said. "Maybe we could solve all sorts of mystery deaths and disappearances." "I like to take my devices into haunted locations," Rosemary said. "If we went to the Roosevelt, would we get Marilyn Monroe on the other end? Who knows--but there is always the chance of learning something that could be investigated and verified." "How should these devices be used?" I asked. "Is it a good idea to put these devices into the hands of people who may not know what they're doing?" "There is always a dark shadow side. Anything can be misused. You can't police how it is going to be used and how it might affect someone. But it's good to have as many of these devices as possible; it makes it possible to run experiments, especially if we have devices with standard designs." "Let's go east of the Rockies. Welcome to Coast to Coast, you're on the air. What's your name?" "My name is Jack and I'm calling from Kentucky." "Go ahead, Jack." "I've been in the paranormal for about fifteen years and I've experimented with listening between the lines in AM radio, if you know what I mean, and also Electronic Voice Phenomena. What is the danger in dabbling with the voices of the disembodied and things of that nature? It seems to me that you could possibly let things in that might cause some problems." "Rosemary, how do we know that these disembodied entities who talk to us aren't tricking us into giving them a key to this side?" "It is difficult if not impossible to always prove the identity of communicators," she said. "It is a hazard. But there are hazards to exploring any frontier." "Centuries ago, people were afraid to sail very far into the ocean because they thought it was full of sea monsters--or they were convinced they would fall off the edge of the flat Earth," I said. "And they had to just do it and keep doing it to demonstrate otherwise," Rosemary added. "We do have to use discernment and care in working with spirit communications devices. But the benefits to making a big breakthrough far outweigh the hazards." "I can think of a lot of benefits," I said. "Proving we do survive after death, helping grief, learning new information that would influence science and technology." "There is a big potential payoff, if we can improve our technology and validate our results." Later on, as Rosemary and I got deeper into our research of spirit communications, we found that there are quite a few people who think that talking to the dead is not automatically a great idea. Just about everyone says they would like to know for certain that there is an afterlife--but what if we find out information we would rather not know? Despite these concerns, my and Rosemary's research convinced us that all of us on the planet stand to benefit by having reliable contact with the Other Side, and also potentially with nonhuman entities who live in other realms as well. Does it sound like science fiction? It's already more real than you might imagine. An astounding amount of high-tech research has gone on for more than a century, and there are people all over the planet who take talking to the dead for granted--because they have been doing it for years. "I want to delve into this as deeply as possible," I told Rosemary after the show. "I want to know about the whole history of high-tech spirit communications. But right now, I want to know more about these real-time EVP devices." "The timing couldn't be better," she said with a smile. "I'm about to go to Dallas to meet Ron Ricketts, the inventor of the MiniBox. I'm going to ask him to try to explain the mystery behind them." Copyright (c) 2011 by George Noory and Visionary Living, Inc. Excerpted from Talking to the Dead by George Noory, Rosemary Ellen Guiley All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
