EVP experiences without a recorder?

Question

I am an acknowledged skeptic; I’m looking for an explanation for this.

I had a clock radio with detachable stereo speakers. One afternoon, as I was walking past my bedroom, I heard, in a normal radio volume, a growling noise coming from one of the speakers.

Thinking I had left the radio on, I went to turn it off, only to find it was already off. The sound was only coming from one speaker. I picked up the speaker and examined it, all the while, this growling is still coming from it. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary.

I unplugged the radio; the growling was unaffected and continued on for several more minutes before stopping, apparently forever. I did not have anyone else in the house to witness it, and did not record it. I also did not unplug the speaker from the radio.

The growling was neither human or animal and was “unenthusiastic”. It definitely wasn’t static – it was as clear as a bell. I never felt threatened.

Any similar experiences and explanations?

Conclusion?

I’m an engineer; I was hoping for a method to duplicate this event – the proof of any good theory is the ability to reproduce the results. I haven’t been able to.

In my investigation, I have found:

I hadn’t heard of EVP until that movie came out. Googling, I found some EVP sites that listed events like this, hence my label. I did find one site that had the exact noise I heard – sadly, no explanation.

Your thoughts on stored electricity in the speakers were good; however, these speakers have no open circuits or capacitors.

This was pre-cell phone days, so the interference was not in that annoying frequency range.

No neighbors with big speakers – excellent thought, though MT!

I’m left with the crystal radio theory, although it would have been comforting to hear Zeppelin, Monster Truck ads, or the local weather report – anything but anonymous animal noises.

The answer is still out there!

Answer 1

Crystal radios pick up AM signals without batteries. I've had speakers pick up FM stations that were nearby even though a radio wasn't attached to them. Considering how many radio and TV waves go spinning past us every second, it's a wonder we aren't picking up a lot more of them.

Answer 2

i doubt that was anything to worry about, since radios can do weird things, (as everyone else says) without any paranormal "help". i had a similar experience where i heard a loud mumbling sound coming from my computer speakers while the computer was turned off. turns out our neighbor had some big 2-way radio that the signals were picked up by any electronic with speakers in the neighborhood. maybe ask your neighbors if theyve heard anything...

Answer 3

That is interesting. I know my AT&T cell phone affects speakers in a similar way. (It's not growling so much as buzzing.) Do you suppose it could be some electronic device the speaker magnets were "receiving"?

P.S. Thank you for presenting your question in an objective and informative (rather than a priori and suggestive) format.

Answer 4

just built up electricity in one of the speaker coils. A speaker can work both in play mode and record mode. So if you get left over residual electricity in a speaker winding, its gonna make some noise. One direction or the other.

Answer 5

First of all, EVP is electronic voice phenomena. Usually a voice recorder is necessary for this. You probably heard residule electricity, or...you have a back up battery in there and didnt realize it.