Weird recording from Radio - E.T's talking? Ghosts??

Last night my best friend was on my local radio station giving a talk about local projects ongoing in our area that he and a few others are currently working on. It was his first ever air-time so he was quite excited and wanted to record the show. Anyway, it turns out that our local station is on FM frequency only so I couldn’t find anywhere online to record the show. I dug out my old cassette/radio player and set it to start recording 10 minutes before he was due on air whilst I set off for work.

Later that night I got home and he wanted to come over to mine to see how it sounded. The whole show (all 73 seconds of it LOL) recorded perfectly fine and once it was over we decided to chill out for a bit and play on my xbox 360 whilst listening to the rest of the tape. As it got to the final minute or so of the tape, it suddenly started re-tuning the station as if someone was actually there changing the station manually. At first I thought it might have been my landlord who came in whilst I was working and changed the station. I was kinda baffled though because I left the volume down so no-one else could hear it when I was at work, so how would he know it was on?

Then something even stranger happened. As it was channel-hopping between stations it fixed itself onto a certain frequency (can’t say which one coz I wasn’t there ) and some strange noises were being played. It almost sounds like some kind of alien talk with some weird atmospheric background sound.

Im not suggesting this is ACTUAL alien talk/audio before anyone slates me for it, it just sounds weird, and....well, alien like

I converted the cassette tape to mp3 and tried reversing the audio, speeding it up, slowing it down etc but I cannot make anything of it.

My friend called the local radio station to ask if there station was on air and functioning properly at 9.15pm (approx time of channel changing) and they said it was fine. When I got home the station was still manually set to our local station and the volume turned down.

I phoned my landlord and he’s actually been away for the weekend in Ireland so it certainly wasn’t him. Nobody else has keys to my place so I haven’t got a clue what’s gone on

The ending of the audio file is exactly how it ends on the cassette tape. About 10/15 seconds into the weird noises, the tape finishes and that’s that
It’s actually freaking me out a bit. The cassette tape was brand new from the wrapper and nobody has been into my flat to mess with the recording

Call it a hoax on my part if you will, but I seriously haven’t got a clue what’s happened here. Anyone got any idea?? I would’ve blamed static and other general interferences if it wasn’t for the channels being manually changed

Here’s the link for the audio (it’s a direct download rapidshare file, so no waiting or premium account required)

rapidshare.com...

Sorry if this is the wrong forum by the way, mods feel free to move it if you wish. I was thinking of putting it in Skunk Works or Paranormal Studies, but i’ll leave that up to you

thats an interesting record there.

I remember when I was young and was recording the radio once
while asleep to hear the rest of a show and it had something similar to it.
I had brought it in to my electronics teacher and he said some how I was
picking up electric waves and ham at the same time.
Could be caused by clouds in the sky bouncing the waves back and such.

Yet mine didn't have the tuning of different stations on it. Nor was it as high of a freq as yours.

My take is don't loose the recording. Maybe play it back when your not there and have your radio recording again at the same time to see if anything
responds.

NOW That is WEIRD!!!

I dont really know what to say, but if it was of intelligent beings talking, it sure sounded like communication though sound dialects, like clicking of the mouth and such. THe background to the situation itself is weird, sounds like you can hear the wind hitting the UFO lol. But it is a familiar sound, like when your in a car, and hear the wind, that sort of sound.

Yes, i agree keep the recording. Maybe some wierd EMF thing went around your town or something. Maybe aliens, yes. Reminded me of the movie Signs because it sounds like them lol.

Great find here! Flagged and starred.

What's with the scream like sound at the end?

Well first off I must commend you for being able to obtain such a clean recording from the FM radio with your 'old tape recorder', It's even devoid of the fuzz and clicking that you get from traditional analog recording. (this recording is in full stereo)

Furthermore there is also data loss when converting from Cassette to MP3, as the mp3 is digital and the cassette is analog, which is not present.

Also, the distortion that you get when the sound is converted isn't there either (everything is off pitch.)

It's very easy to synthesize this kind of noise, and

Can we say Hoax?

[edit on 11-17-2007 by Loki]

...sounds like someone time/pitch-shifted something. Maybe you were on a college radio or pirate radio station broadcast where they were supposed to be off-air. I don't know but it sounds manipulated.

My old tape recorder , records great radio clear as a bell yes a "digital cassette" which all my tapes are " for that high quality sound experience "

I wouldn't say hoax as in a fake recording - it could be recording of the different freq being bounced back or what not.

I would say alien - no
ghost - maybe
tuning knob broken and falling turning down which tunes in a different station - maybe

Sometimes if you turn it to white noise and listen you will hear other stations getting into the freq but it doesn't fully get there.

Which can lead to what I was saying before that I had heard something similar on my recording when I was younger but it was a lower pitch

Regardless, there should be a low hum on the recording, because it's an artifact of recording on tape. I'm also not hearing any data loss from the MP3 conversion, as I stated before.

I knew it wouldn't be long before someone comes in to call hoax immediately. I see you've clearly analyzed the audio and fair play to ya. Deny ignorance, right?

Anyway, Im not too clued up on this whole digital/analogue/stereo talk so i'll keep it simple (for my own sake :lol When I converted the tape, I saved it in WAV format and converted to MP3. Would this not automatically change it to stereo sound because it's not the original file that was converted? Well, it was the original file, but now in different format. Anyone could turn a mono (is that right?) sound into stereo doing this, right?

As for the lack of distortion/clicks/pops etc, why should there be any? From what I understand, radio quality signals are roughly comparable to 128kbps (mp3). If I saved the file as WAV then converted to mp3, it would automatically convert to 256kbps (default settings), even though the extra sound quality is not available. That doesn't exactly account for the lack of, but as you can hear from the audio, it seems the stations are changed quite quickly, scan through some random stations then stops at the exact point where the strange audio starts

For the record, I wouldn't have a clue where to start with synthesizers etc. If I get some time tomorrow (well, later today - its now 6.30am here and I havent slept yet) then i'll upload some more of the radio before the songs starts before the end of the file. It wont prove/disprove anything, but hey, at least you can analyze it some more, right?

hmmm....
from an audio engineers perspective (which i am, at least an aspiring one) the sound is FAR too hi-def for any kind of analog equipment. this recording doesn't sound like it was passed through any kind of tape machine at any pint.
also, the bit rate is incredibly high for a simple mp3, unless you changed the setting on the encoder to make it at least 16-bit 44.1 khZ (CD quality) b/c you can't hear any digital compression usually associated with mp3 files. all of this leads me to conclude that this wax a hoax... but there's no way I can explain channel-changing like that. that would take a seriously talented and dedicated producer to make something sound that realistic.
now, all of that aside, you could have run into a frequency that a radio telescope, even a small one, was using. sometimes, late a night, when I scan the FM dial i'll get channels and sounds of a similra nature from a small radio observatory nearby. it sounds quite like this recording. how your tuner got to this station, i have no idea...
my two pennies worth.

[edit on 17-11-2007 by alexbassguy]

Originally posted by drunknmunky

Anyway, Im not too clued up on this whole digital/analogue/stereo talk so i'll keep it simple (for my own sake :lol

When I converted the tape, I saved it in WAV format and converted to MP3. Would this not automatically change it to stereo sound because it's not the original file that was converted? Well, it was the original file, but now in different format. Anyone could turn a mono (is that right?) sound into stereo doing this, right?

The mp3 is stereo, the channels are separated, which means that your original "recording" was stereo, and that you had a stereo source.

Then... you can definately see a mix of 3 different sources here:

This is a Spectral Pan analysis result.

As you can clearly see:

1st source - probably digital and mastered (no constant pan offset) timecoded from 00:00:00 to ~00:32:00 (32 seconds). That is where the music is playing.

2nd source mixed in - probably from analogue material (a clear pan offset to the right channel, which means that it had not been mastered - probably radio recorded; timecoded from ~00:32:00 to ~00:48:00.

3rd source mixed from some analogue synth, digitized, as there is no offset, just a stereo separation.

What I mean in the image:

I will do some more examining and analysis, to give you some more info.

That this is a Mix of 3 parts from different sources...

Edit to add and clarify:

If this recording was taken from one radio then we'd see the same stereo separation, basically, assuming that the 2nd piece was of a radio - a fat line offset to the +10 (that means 10% right channel)... which is not the case.

My prelimenary verdict: Fabricated... but will have to do some more research... damn I love waveforms and sounds...

P.S. I can bet my right hand that I can fabricate one of these recordings in about 15-20 minutes...

[edit on 17/11/07 by MastaG]

I'm glad that I'm not the only one crying foul on this, I'd like to add just one more tidbit to the discussion, and that is to point out the song "Theme to a Fake Revolution" by Powerman 5000, the song includes an analog radio 'dialing' at the intro to the song, proving that these sort of noises are easily falsified.

Well Done!!!

You have documented this very well. I must commend that by itself.

Secondly the noise is incredibly unique sounding. Unlike interference like trucker radios, walkie talkies, random signals ect. This sounds like more of a communication signal rather than a ET or a ghost talking.

This leaves me wondering whether it was an earthbound frequency or something else entirely.

Very cool indeed.

Flagged

reply to post by Loki


Hang on kids ... Please, let's make sure we're using the proper terminology if examining audio:
"Mastered" is a term applying to an audio track that has been Edited, Equalized and Compressed (usually with expensive analogue equipment) before it is released to radio, TV, Internet and consumer markets.

"Analogue tape recording" is not inherent with "fuzz and clicking". It is still regarded as a superior storage medium for it's clarity, warmth and frequency response. Old tape machines and poor quality tapes can sound worse than others.

Converting an analogue signal to digital does not produce distortion if done properly. Drunknmonkey's recording chain was as follows:
- FM Radio broadcast recorded directly to Cassette (Likely a stereo FM station)
- Cassette (analogue) Conversion to WAV (Analogue to Digital) * There should be no loss of quality to original source if this process was done properly with a decent audio converter.
- WAV file conversion to MP3 * This process has the most potential to degrade the sound quality.
I have heard good sounding MP3's and I have heard really, really bad ones.

The recording in question is definitely stereo throughout each of the three components. Part 2, however, seems to be a mono source coming through both the left and right channels. Part 3 seems to be distinctly, two separate audio events (ie: stereo).

I can't comment on the validity of the claims by Drunknmonkey, however, I hope he can duplicate a similar recording on a separate occasion.



[edit on 17-11-2007 by solo32_98]

[edit on 17-11-2007 by solo32_98]

reply to post by solo32_98


Who are you calling 'kids'? Mastered is the correct term I've used to denote the unmastered state of the RADIO SWITCHING CHANNELS part (Part 2), it has not been mastered...

Can you see that there are 3 different patterns? 3 different sources involved? Do you agree? There is little probability that this thing is real, and I will furthermore contribute to my prooving this "Mix"..

P.S. To the OP drunknmunky

Could you please record one of tonights shows from the same radio on the same type of cassette using your same recorder. Just make sure you tell us the time and frequence of broadcast, so one of the members close to you can verify the broadcast. Just 20 seconds of radio sound would be sufficient.

Thank you in advance.

[edit on 18/11/07 by MastaG]

Back to my "It's a Mix!" theory...

Take a look at the frequency spectrum:

Quite evidently we can see that there are 3 different parts, in different frequency ranges. You can clearly see the 'steps', the mix outs and mix ins.

Let's view them one by one:
Part 1 will be left for the end, as it's the best part...

Part 2:

Frequency range up to 13KHz...

And this is the part where you can see the Part 3, claimed alien messages, which are way above the 13KHz Part 2 range:

Part 3:

With frequencies going up to 16KHz in 1 single click there and stays within the range of 11KHz most of the time... and with a strange 400KHz partial cutoff filter...

Part 1:

Frequency range 16KHz, with some peaks ranging to 17.5KHz. Now this is NOT radio.. FM radio is high-cut at 15.7KHz before broadcasting. It's a standard. This means that frequencies above 15.7KHz are not transmitted. But, we see that part one, claimed to be a radio recording is stable at 16 and up to 17.5KHz... NOT radio.


This is another Spectral Pan analysis:

And a Spectral Phase analysis:

I shall try to switch channels using my digital MP3 player and get to compare them, to even more evidently show that this is not radio....

Added later:

Damn, my mp3 player is not working, and I have no radio.. Can someone post a recording of a radio tuning into a stereo frequency for 10 seconds then go through other channels (switching) like in our examined clip, as I see that the OP has disappeared. Thank you.

P.S. I'm currently working on extracting the noiseprint out of each part, and they are different, in different ranges... Will tell you more ASAP.

[edit on 18/11/07 by MastaG]

reply to post by MastaG


Hey that's neat! Can you tell me what software that was? I use Soundforge to look at signals, but its not a live input program. I'm looking for some software to use with my HAM radio gear that is better than just a plane jane O-scope.

My brother used to pick up taxi drivers talking on thier walkie talkies using his one.

I have been picking up phone conversations on my walkie talkies when I switch through channels ( standart walkies that I bought in Fry's electronics when i was in the US ) . The funny thing is that it has to be cellphones as well its kind of hard to pick up landlines , but the sad thing is they cant hear me when i talk

Just been playing with this audio here. I will leave judgment about authenticity to those with more experience in this than myself, so I just stuck to playing with the strange transmission part at the end. Did a bunch of pitch shifting up and down and noise removal. I've found a pair of tones, just little blips really, which repeat throughout that end section. I'll try to work on it more latter and maybe post a clip if it seems interesting enough. I want to determine the rate at which the tones repeat. Andy