I hear dead people. Seriously, I really do!

November 8, 2024 by  
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Spoiler Alert: If someone came up to those of us who were born between 1960 and 1980 and said, ” I see dead people!”, most would reply with something similar to: “I saw that movie too. It was awesome”. However, if someone came up to us and announced, “I hear dead people almost daily”, we would all think they were either joking or insane. Yet, each one of us can make this declaration with 100% legitimacy.

How? An issue of Scientific American dated November 17, 1877 was the first to announces the development of a process in which voices of the living could be captured and then replayed (and therefore heard), even after the one whose voice was recorded was dead, on a device recently created by the renowned electrician from New Jersey named Thomas Edison. At the time of the article the apparatus was called a “talking telephone”, but the name would eventually be changed to a “phonograph”.

While we cannot prove this with 100% confidence, a PBS special states that this appearance was the first such announcement in a nationally distributed publication. This special can be viewed at: The American Experience: The Phonograph (season 27, episode 3).

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