Earliest Recorded Voice from 1878 Discovered and Restored

[Amy Jeanne]

http://www.redding.com/news/2012/oct/27/1878-oldest-playable-audio-recording-unveiled/

Older than Frank Lambert's "Talking Clock", apparently.

I don't count the 1859 French "recordings" -- as they were never intended for playback.

 

[LizzieMaine]

"tap tap tap, HEY EDISON, IS THIS THING ON?"

The Schenectady Museum is doing some great work with early recordings. Among their other projects are several spools of film containing recordings of radio programs from 1929 and 1930 made on a device called the "Pallophotophone," an early sound-on-film gadget -- they had to build a reproducer from scratch, and are still working on playing the recordings back without wobble. But there's some interesting stuff there which will hopefully be made available on their website at some future point.

 

[Amy Jeanne]

As much as I love this sort of stuff, it terrifies me at the same time. When I first listened to the Talking Clock I would not leave my husband's side all night and ended up going to bed at 2am with him (which is something I never did!) I have not listened to this recording yet. I'm afraid it will spook me out and I am all alone right now :O

 

[LizzieMaine]

I have a short recording of a shortwave broadcast from Albania in 1938, in a totally incomprehensible language with a lot of X's and K's in it, accompanied by the sort of "exotic" music you expect to hear in an Oriental bazaar scene in a B movie. It's extremely creepy and ominous and disturbing to listen to for reasons I can't begin to explain.

 

[Amy Jeanne]

Old morse codes (?) scare me, too. But things like the Complete Broadcast Day are fine. Probably because it is structured and the recording is clean and there are famous names behind the voices. I still have those 1920s OTR recordings in my iPod and they are fine, too. Even the 50th anniversary of the phonograph one lol But home recordings, signals/morse codes, or experimental stuff that was never really meant to be heard by the masses frighten me!

 

[W4ASZ]

"Your call is important to us. " :eeek:

Can anything really be creepier than that ?

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

This one used to spook me out.

Alessandro Moreschi -- Ave Maria (1904)
Professor Alessandro Moreschi (1858-1922), director of the Vatican's Sistine Chapel Choir was a castrato, a male soprano who had undergone castration in his youth to preserve his voice, a practice which was eventually outlawed. While castrati were a musical tradition that went back centuries -- many such as Farinelli were the superstars of their day -- Moreschi was the only castrato to ever make a recording. When I first heard this recording many years ago it was so eerie that for a long time I just couldn't listen to it alone at night. Though now I can.

[video=youtube;VfxuO2Jvk5s]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfxuO2Jvk5s[/video]

 

[davidraphael]

Old morse codes (?) scare me, too. [...] But home recordings, signals/morse codes, or experimental stuff that was never really meant to be heard by the masses frighten me!

I'm exactly the same. Such recordings are disturbing. I wonder why? "The ear is the organ of fear"

I have a series of recordings from what have become known as 'Numbers Stations.' Listeners all over the world have for decades suddenly come across mysterious, brief short-wave broadcasts of unknown people reading series' of numbers preceded by odd music (sometimes the voices are artificially generated)
As far as we can tell they suddenly started to appear around the late teens, early 1920s. No matter where or when, they all follow the same format

To this day, no one knows what they are or what they mean. No one involved in any of these broadcasts has ever come forward to explain. They're really quite unsettling somehow. The most common explanation is that they are secret government broadcasts to spies in the field. Others believe they are codes used by criminals. One thing is for sure - they were never intended for public ears.

Here are some famous examples (they are commonly identified by the accompanying music played):

"The Swedish Rhapsody" ( I always find this one creepy because it's a child's voice):

[video=youtube;nTz9Obp9ez4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTz9Obp9ez4[/video]

"Cherry Ripe"

[video=youtube;EcJK56Ep5Rw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcJK56Ep5Rw&feature=relmfu[/video]

"Gong Chimes" (the German voice on this one is just plain chilling)

[video=youtube;1RMZnADCaH4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RMZnADCaH4[/video]

I have a short recording of a shortwave broadcast from Albania in 1938, in a totally incomprehensible language with a lot of X's and K's in it, accompanied by the sort of "exotic" music you expect to hear in an Oriental bazaar scene in a B movie. It's extremely creepy and ominous and disturbing to listen to for reasons I can't begin to explain.

I would love a copy of this! This would be the earliest 'number stations' type broadcast I've heard.


More information about this bizarre phenomenon here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_station

And if you're a bit loopy like me you can download "The Conet Project", which has collated 4cds worth of the stuff:
http://www.irdial.com/conet.htm

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Here's a 2005 BBC radio documentary on numbers stations.

[video=youtube;Wvr6o7fBcTY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wvr6o7fBcTY[/video]

 

[davidraphael]

I think that's probably where I heard about numbers stations. Living in Germany I have to download a lot of BBC radio. I need my Radio 4 fixes!

Another radio documentary I heard on Radio 4 was about Electronic Voice Phenomena, ie, ghostly voices and spoken messages that spontaneously appear in the static of radio programmes or other recordings. Allegedly, the the voices sometimes respond directly to questions.
I don't believe in ghosts or anything like that but it still made my hair stand up on end. Really very disquieting.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I would love a copy of this! This would be the earliest 'number stations' type broadcast I've heard.

PM me an email address, and I'll send it along. I don't know if it's any kind of a spy/espionage/numbers thing -- it might be a lecture on crop rotation or something, but if you know anybody who speaks Albanian I'd love to get a translation!

 

[davidraphael]

Thanks a lot - PM sent!

 

[Amy Jeanne]

I refuse to listen to Numbers Stations!! I'll read about them until the cows come home because I think they are fascinating/creepy, but I can't bring myself to listen. I don't know why, but NOT listening to them makes them more "fascinating" and less "creepy." Maybe I'll start off with that documentary. If the signals are in a structured format they might not creep me out so much!!

One of the reasons those "Edison Rey-cords" announcers from the early 1890s do NOT creep me out is because they are on a structured format. But if it's just out there floating around...lol Nope!

 

[davidraphael]

There must be a psychological reason for this queasiness about listening to these kinds of recordings. I wonder what causes it?
I'm genuinely interested in it.
It's such an odd feeling. Not fear as such; it's like the profound uneasiness and dread you have as a child, like fear of the dark or the surreal nature of a nightmare.

When I 1st heard EVPs (see my later posting about the radio documentary) I was alone in the forest in winter and I was struck by genuine panic. And, as I say, I do not even believe in any supernatural forces; it's just the idea of it that sets me off; like there's something deep in the psyche that doesn't care about logic or reason and reacts instinctively to something that feels deeply 'wrong'.

Maybe it's something to do with the discordant nature of it. I used to get the same feeling when I listened to The Beatles' Revolution #9 as a child, especially the bits that are played backwards, and the scratchy distant radio voices.

 

[Amy Jeanne]

I like to know things. I like facts. I think it might be not knowing is what freaks me out in some cases. Not all, though. For example, the Edison recording that this thread is about creeps me out, but I know all the information about it down to the date it was recorded. Same with Frank Lambert's Talking Clock. In these cases it might be the scratchy nature of the recordings with faint, unintelligible voices speaking out to me from over 100 years ago. The 1859 French "recording" made me uneasy when I first heard it, but now it does not bother me so much.

Codes, numbers stations, pirated stuff, home recordings......all so eerie because I don't know what they are or who made them. Even modern day stuff like this can creep me out. Google "The Max Headroom Incident" from 1987. I got chills watching that (warning -- it's a bit bizarre!) To this day, no one knows who pulled that stunt off!!! Not knowing is a huge factor, I think. I also become easily creeped out by missing persons who have never been found.

My dad has a fairground record from 1949 of he and his grandmother talking. I know full well who those people are lol but it still manages to make my hair stand up. This one I have no idea why because it's family and the record is pretty clean.

EVPs don't scare me. I don't think they are real. Also, the human brain tries to make sense of nonsensical noise so "hearing" words and sounds in white static is normal. I think that's the logical explanation behind most EVPs. I don't even bother with EVPs (reading about them or listening).

 

[davidraphael]

Yep, I don't think EVPs are real either and I'm sure that any voices heard in the static are a case of pareidolia. But they still spook me out for some reason.

Generally, then, it seems that familiarity with a recording eventually lessens the effect. Good to know. Always face the fear! I suppose that's also the technique used with phobics.

 

[Amy Jeanne]

I listened to the 1859 recording while at work. That lessened the creepiness, too, I think. Being around other people in a lively environment. But all alone -- eh, NO. Maybe I'll listen to numbers stations at work tomorrow lol

Horror Movies = *yawn*. But don't get me near an unknown 100+ year old weird recording!! lol

 

[davidraphael]

Maybe that's actually a good idea for a movie. "Found footage" horror movies are all the rage at the moment. Perhaps one based around discovered audio tapes would have you running from the theatres?

 

[Amy Jeanne]

HAHAH!! Yes it would!! If it was *real* found recordings. Even done in a non-"horror" documentary style.

The movie Decasia I find creepy. Look it up if you haven't seen it. It's all found, disintegrated film clips from the silent era spliced together against an out-of-tune orchestra (the out-of-tune is intentional.) I watched it alone one night and every little sound afterwards made me jump lol

[video=youtube_share;jeEzb-0vf7A]http://youtu.be/jeEzb-0vf7A[/video]

 

[LizzieMaine]

I've always wanted to show Decasia on the big screen, as a Halloween special, but nobody understands what I'm talking about when I propose it.

Another great Disturbing Recording is from March of 1925, of the first long-distance relay from England to the US. The program, a nightclub dance band and a violin soloist, were relayed by high-power longwave across the ocean, and then picked up here in Maine and relayed by shortwave to New York for rebroadcast over WJZ. The recording was made by putting a microphone in front of a horn speaker, so it's all crude and tinny and full of blasts of static that sound like somebody banging a frying pan -- you can sometimes make out the music, but not very often. But then there's a clunk and you hear a very loud, clear voice say HELLO CARL! I presume this was one of the engineers who made the record, greeting a colleague, but the first time I heard it I was listening thru headphones, and it was very very startling when Carl showed up.