EVP sessions - can we actually trust what we're hearing?

I've been doing EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena) recording for about six months now, and I'm getting increasingly skeptical of my own work. Here's the issue: I go into sessions expecting to hear voices, my brain is actively listening for patterns, and then I find voices. But are they real, or am I experiencing confirmation bias and pareidolia on an industrial scale?

Last month I recorded what I swear was a voice saying 'hello there' during a session at Borley Rectory. Played it back for three mates - one heard 'hello there', one heard 'yellow hair', and one just heard static. How is that useful evidence if we can't even agree on what we're hearing?

I want to keep investigating but I'm worried I'm just chasing ghosts in the noise. Anyone else felt this way? How do you separate genuine EVP from wishful thinking?

Honestly, EVP is where the paranormal investigation field loses credibility with actual scientists. The fundamental problem is that you're asking humans to interpret ambiguous audio - and human brains are absolutely brilliant at finding meaning in noise. It's called pareidolia and it's not optional. It's how our brains work. Three different interpretations of the same recording? That's case closed right there. You can't have evidence that's this subjective.

How do you separate genuine EVP from wishful thinking?

You don't, really. But you can reduce contamination. Use proper audio equipment, record baseline noise without expectations, have blind listeners (people who don't know what you think they should hear) try to identify what's in the recording. If five random people independently hear 'hello there' without being prompted, that's more interesting than if you hear it and others don't. The scientific method requires reproducibility.

Borley Rectory is probably one of the most saturated locations for paranormal investigation in the UK - everyone goes there expecting ghosts, everyone records things and hears what they want to hear. The venue itself contaminates the investigation because of expectation bias. Try doing blind EVP sessions where you record in ordinary locations without telling yourself you're hunting ghosts - just recording baseline ambient sound. See if you still hear voices.

Some of the best EVP work I've seen comes from people who don't expect to find anything. They're doing acoustic monitoring, they stumble across something genuinely strange that they can't explain, they get it professionally analyzed. Compare that to deliberate EVP hunting where you've already decided you're going to find ghosts - that's backwards science.

I'm not saying EVP doesn't exist as a phenomenon - but I am saying if it does exist, it's so subtle and so vulnerable to interpretation bias that we might never document it properly. That's actually the honest answer. Which means either (a) ghosts don't exist, or (b) they're beyond our current ability to measure. Either way, EVP recordings alone aren't convincing evidence.