The Sounds You Don't Hear...Until You Do

When I first started seriously documenting my exploration of things Psi the digital voice recorder wasn't even a spec in anyone's imagination.  So I was always hauling a bulky portable cassette tape recorder around with me (not the pocket kind, but something that took up a sizeable portion of a flat surface).

My first positive reward with the tape recorder was in Chestertown Maryland. I had been contacted by a woman (I'll call her Shelly) whose mother had passed away suddenly. Shelly and her mother had enjoyed a close relationship that included Hungarian folklore - so Shelly was no stranger to things that caused her sixth sense to tingle. After her mother's passing, Shelly had a gut feeling that a message was waiting for her.... she just couldn't figure out how to "open" the message.

I met Shelly at her parents' house in Maryland. Her father was away so it was only Shelly and I in the house.  As I got down to work I set the cassette player for record.  At the end of 30 minutes the tape player clicked loudly as recording time ran out.  Very disappointed that nothing had happened during that half hour, I nonetheless rewound the tape and hit play.

And right from the start the hairs on my arms stood up.  Although Shelly and I had sat in complete silence, on the tape was the sound of a vacuum cleaner running. Not just a steady hum but the loud-soft-loud-soft as the vacuum moved to and away from the recorder.

Now I'll be the first to admit the ups and downs of the volume could have been an uneven playback in the tape - in which case the connection to a vacuum cleaner might never have been made and the sound chalked up as white noise.

But then came the sound of dishes rattling in the kitchen sink, the occasional splash of water, more dishes - and then back to the vacuum.  Shelly took it all to mean that her mother was letting us know  she was still watching over her husband and that Shelly shouldn't worry.

The moral of this little snippet... When you're exploring the unknown never assume that your failing to register anything with five senses means there's nothing going on.