11 - Using laser interferometry for ITC - by Andrés Ramos

[Andres Ramos]

1. Abstract

My first laser experiment was a failure. But now as I had dived into this area I wasn't willing to give it up too fast. In our group discussions we talked about laser interferometry. This well known technique is based on the overlay of two laser beams coming from the same source and running over different paths by use of a beam splitter. If both beams come together again they are creating an interference pattern. This phenomenon is due to the oscillating nature of light that shows a sinusoidal waveform.

The cool thing about LI is that it is a very susceptible measuring technique for tiny changes in the laser path. The wavelength of a laser is measured in nanometers. These are the thousand-billionth part of a meter. If a change of the path lengths appears in one of the laser beams that comes to fall in this magnitude there will be a tremendous change in the interference pattern. My idea was that maybe spirits could project enough energy on the path to cause such changes.

 

2. Principles of laser interferometry

In the schematic above you can see the classical "Michaelson-Morley" interferometry setup. A laser beam, emitted by a laser diode, is hitting a beam splitter in an angle of 45°. The beam splitter merely is a simple sheet of glass. It lets pass a part of the beam and another part is reflected. The difference between a beam splitter and ordinary window glass is that a bleam splitter is covered with a thin layer of reflecting material so that the original beam is split in two new beams with each 50% intensity. A normal sheet of glass does not provide the 50:50 ratio but later it turned out that this fact was not that important.

Both beams go over separate paths that are having a mirror placed. The mirror throws the beam back to the splitter. There again they become split and one part of each beam now runs through a biconvex lens. The lens is projecting both beams overlayed on a screen.

In the area on the screen where this happens a characteristically interference patterns appears, a structure of bright and dark lines. If you now would place a small photodetector at one of these lines so that it just gets the light from this line you made one of the most susceptible instruments on earth. If anything on the laser paths changes down to a fraction of a nanometer the light of the lines will change. The dark lines will become bright and vice versa. You just need to amplify the signal from the phototransistor a bit and you are done.

A good article covering laser interferometry can be found here.

An introductional video from Varanormal can be seen here: Varanormal video about laser interferometry

 

3. Mechanical setup

While the previous setup was tricky, this one was challenging! As I already said in the previous chapter, the slightest change of the laser paths yields into a strong change of the interference pattern. Thus I had to make everything solidly fixed. Another challenge was the needed accuracy. 

Mechanical setup of laser interferometer

The beam needed to be split. Therefore I obtained some pretty expensive and rare beam splitters, small sheets of glass with a very slight reflection layer on them. Everything, splitters, mirrors, diode and phototransistor should be adjustable but also capable of being fixed. Otherwise the laser beam would be defocused permanently.

Thus I used magnets as mounting bases and angles and screws for the splitters. The phototransistor was placed on a threaded rod where you can adjust its height by using nuts. I placed it accurately so that it was getting light from one interference line, more or less.

 

4. Electronic schematic

As you see the schmatic is simpler compared to my first design. This is because some experience was getting in the considerations. The laser driver is now simpler as I observed I didn't need as much preamplification as I expected before. Also the receiver unit became simpler. The use of a phototransistor facilitated the electronic a lot and since the interference pattern changes dramatically we don't need so much amplification here too. To keep it simple I just used simple transistors.

What I did was to throw in an AC hum filter. Most powers supplies and wall adapters are a mess in respect of audio applications and some capacitors and inductors help a lot to get around this annoying problem.

 

5. Test results

Signal after switching on the laser

The signals the LI produced are not comparable with anything I have investigated before. What I got was a noise, pure and clean sound, like ocean waves on a shore, going up and down in the amplitude very slowly. After switching on the laser they appeared more rapidly but then calmed down more and more. I think there are temperature effects playing a role here. When the laser heats up it affects the length of the laser paths and this signal calms down the more the temperature distribution reaches equilibrium. But this is just a hypothesis. It does not explain the up and down of noise. The signal appeared to me like energy waves.

Energy wave in detail

The spectrum of the signal was a little weird. I was used to the more or less spectral compositions that are declining with 1/f but this spectrum showed more of a bandpass characteristic.

Spectrum of interference signal

The first experiments I did without any laser modulation to make a slow approach at the start. Then I found voices. They were scattered unevenly over the signal. Sometimes they occurred very strong when the energy wave was reaching it's maximum and sometimes they hid as whisperings in the calm areas.

An example of a strong sound (Denoised): "Wir werden noch mehr"

An example of a soft sound(Denoised): "Wo Licht?"

Another example (Slightly denoised): "Der Arme stirbt"

This was impressive by its simplicity: "Hallo?"

Basically I got two types of voices, fast ones and slower ones. The fast ones I needed to slow down with the tempo function in Audacity and they became a more vocoder-like quality.

Another thing I observed was that the most voices appeared shortly after switching on the device. This phenomenon I was already facing with direct microphone voices in an extreme manner. By some miraculous effect it seems that the energy for the voice transmission is stronger after switching on the equipment and decreases by the length of time. The authors Spirik & Loos also reported this phenomenon in their book "Nachrichten aus dem Jenseits"

A gallery of recorded voice samples can be found here.

 

6. Anomalies

It's always weird to talk about anomalies in ITC that is regarded as an anomaly itself but since we experimenters see ITC as a normal part of our life we can talk about anomalies in a sense that we observed something we haven't expected.

I want to put  right here at the beginning that we currently have no explanations for the observed effects. Thus I will only document them here without putting any theories or assumptions so far.

6.1 Bumps

I called them Bumps because they resemble a very deep bumping sound. They normally occur in a pair of two: "Bump"

6.2 Spooky Sound

I had no better designation for this sound because it really sounds a bit spooky, like a soft howling voice: "Spooky Sound"

6.3 Laser shots

Sound pretty much like the laser shootings in StarWars: "Laser Shot"

6.4 Hum bursts

I think these are also voices but they come in like a strange humming wave: "Hum Burts"

6.5 Tones

This is the weirdest thing we observed with the laser interferometer. To be honest we actually don't know if it is really a paranormal phenomenon yet. It is an ongoing research to discover what is behind this and we will post our proceedings in one of the blogs soon. We oberved the "tones" only after a while after we employed the interferometer as an audio stream for long term investigations. The tone is sudden and very strong, having an outstanding low frequency burst with a duration of almost exactly 1s.

Hear: "Tone"

Time domain signal of tone

The tones are following special rules I just want to put here. They were found empirically.

• Width of tone is always around one second with very low deviation
• The distance between two consecutive tone in a group are generally 1.5s, 4s and 9s. There may be some particular distances that deviate from those values
• The dominating frequencies are basically 27 Hz, 70 Hz, 129 Hz, 227 Hz, 327 Hz

Don't ask us anything about the meaning of these tones yet. We have no idea!

 

7. Evaluation

In my eyes the first steps and results in laser interferometry are opening up a complete new field of research. We have only begun to lift the cover a bit. What now is needed is a more stable setup that I already developed and it will be described in a following topic. Then we can do more long term experiments. This is really something I would like to get some volunteers aboard to analyze the huge data we will gather by the time in search for voices and tones. Anyone is welcome to participate!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Arizona EVP]

Nice effort.

I always like the way responses can evolve.

In the example of a strong sound (Denoised): "Wir werden noch mehr"

I hear 2 overlapping voices that seem to say in English:  We're not dead  and  We're not deaf

 

[Andres Ramos]

6 hours ago, Arizona EVP said:

Nice effort.

I always like the way responses can evolve.

In the example of a strong sound (Denoised): "Wir werden noch mehr"

I hear 2 overlapping voices that seem to say in English:  We're not dead  and  We're not deaf

 

Very good Ron! It's not unusual we are interpreting the voices according to our native tongue. I experienced that a lot with streams from Michael Lee, i decoded. Sometimes I am not sure if it's our own interpretation or maybe the content that changes. I experienced dome occurence of voices that i recorded and interpreted and a few days later i revised them and the content was totally different. I know another experimenter in germany who confirmed this phenomenon.

 

[Arizona EVP]

9 hours ago, Andres Ramos said:

Very good Ron! It's not unusual we are interpreting the voices according to our native tongue. I experienced that a lot with streams from Michael Lee, i decoded. Sometimes I am not sure if it's our own interpretation or maybe the content that changes. I experienced dome occurence of voices that i recorded and interpreted and a few days later i revised them and the content was totally different. I know another experimenter in germany who confirmed this phenomenon.

 

Oh I agree about the content seeming to change from one time to another.  Its been this way for as long as I can remember  This change has always made EVP's subjective. 

Aside from pareidolia - apophenia - confabulation or other scenarios,  there could be another reason why the content changes.

I always referred to the condition as the Corti Effect since the Organ of Corti in the inner ear is where the nerve endings are that send signals to the brain.

I feel in certain situations with an experienced listener;   the listener is hearing responses in real time.  This could explain why responses are totally different when reviewed at a later time.

Of course I could be wrong.

Ron

 

[Andres Ramos]

You mean the experience of deciphering  the content starts new with every time we listen to the audio? I am inclined to agree.

[Christine Brooks]

Fascinating stuff!   When listening the "Spooky Sound", The second wave of sound and the fourth wave of sound in the piece made me think of base guitar or Bass strings, that deep vibrato sound.

And then I imagined it might be likened to our vocal chords...the string sounds. ..and it is the breath of spirit blowing over the strings in space creating that sound. 

I so enjoy how those in the forum offer these insights into sound and create the environment for which we the onlookers can peer in and imagine and think. Thank you!

[Andres Ramos]

Yes Chris, that's exactly how it sounds! The analogy with vocal chords is fascinating.  Haven't thought about this but yes, we can assume that what the spirits do is a kind of emulation of the human larynx  and pharynx.

I am glad that these experiments are inspiring you because this is the reason I conducted them.

[Christine Brooks]

And then they can tell us if we were on the right track at all Andres!  The deep tone vibrated it seemed. Perhaps they can manipulate waves of some kind over there to pass through the ether and come through to our plane. It is a reality that they can manipulate material objects, with apports., So we just need to figure out how they are manipulating sound waves, right Keith?   And that is exactly the discovery of what your and others' research and experiments are leading to.    

 

Oh! And failures are only stepping stones building a path to discovery. 

 

[Andres Ramos]

So true! Do you remember the first words in the bible, "In the beginning was the word!". I strongly believe that vibration are creative energy. They put structures into the void

[Michael Lee]

Andres: I've set up a system that makes yours look like a final product .

A few quick notes:

• I think one of the explanations for some of the sounds we're hearing is laser vibrometry. The idea is that the minutest of vibrations, displacements, and temperature changes have large effects on the intensities and interferences that are then audible. Different materials have different reflectances, vibrational modes, and temperature-based motions. Imagine for example shining a laser on a vibrating string.
• I'm able to almost tune in the laser shot sound but have no idea what it actually is coming from.
• From what I've read, the lower the power for a given laser, the higher the ratio of quantum to classical noise.

 

 

 

[Michael Lee]

Two more things Ive observed today. 

The laser shot sound is known as laser doppler. It is a type of interferometry where the beam reflects back on itself, yielding the ridge patterns, that with movement of the reflective material, creates a fast washboard effect. 

It is most easily achieved by shining the laser directly into the phototransistor and lightly wiggling the laser.

The other thing I noticed is that my pen laser has an incoherent corona around the beam, that I can hear by pointing the beam just off center from any direction to the phototransistor. Its a mix of pink and white noise. It may be a good source of spirit voice, but I need to amplify it more, so we'll see.

[Andres Ramos]

Good progress Michael! I can acknowledge your findings. The laser interferometer is extremely susceptible to vibrations. I easily can use it as a microphone. Thats why I mounted the casing on damping elements in my attic where it's quiet.

If I switch on the laser I can hear waves of noise coming in and out starting very quickly, then slowing down by the time and finally becoming constant. Those waves are caused by temperature effects in the used materials for sure. The amazing thing is the noise. Its almost white and clearly an interference product because it vanishes if I cover one of the beams. And there are voices in it. The S/N ratio seems to be a little better compared to other white noise sources.

I also confirm your observation on the incoherent corona of the laser. I exactly observed the same with the laser in a wooden box. I assumed the different interfering reflections were causing this effect. However the results were not that stable as with the Michaelson Morley setup.

Moreover I can confirm interference effects by reflecting the beam back into the laser diode. This is because the laser emitts some parts of the energy backwards since the diode casing is open at it's back. I tried to make a pocket interferometer this way but the results were unstable.

I'm very happy we are getting similar results. That means we're on the right way. Tell me if you put the interference noise into your ML. Likely I will try this tomorrow.

[Andres Ramos]

Maybe it's due to the full moon or to the modulation on the laser that Stream 5 is remarkably clear today. Got some interesting messages.

S5_Österreich böser Mann "Bad man from austria" Maybe the spirits are addressing chancellor Kurz. S5_Österreich böser Mann.mp3

S5_Ordnung führt "Order is leading". S5_Ordnung führt.mp3
 

S5_Omi "GrandmaS5_Omi.mp3

 S5_Never keach. S5_Never Keach.mp3

S5_Merlin. S5_Merlin.mp3

I hear this spirit named Merlin frequently. He seems to belong to my team but I don't know if he was the wizard from Camelot.

S5_faxen. "Faxing". S5_faxen.mp3

This was the 2nd time in three days I got a message about faxing. I think this is a technical hint.

S_64. "Sixty four". S5_64.mp3

Just the number 64.

[Michael Lee]

The corona noise is a decent source for ML input but nothing extraordinary. It could have a quantum component due to reflectance/transmittance of the laser lens, but it could also have a noise component due to the driver, which is commonly considered to be more classical electrical noise (however, that's up for debate!).

I had a delicate setup with two PDs at 90 degree angles of a beam splitter, that also yielded voices in ML.

Maybe we could develop a "pocket" vibrometer for ITC/non-ITC use? It could be a better microphone in terms of sensitivity and locality. I was even imagining using something like guitar strings as vocal cords where the laser could pick the near still vibrations. A parabolic mirror could be used to ensure all the rays return back to the PD.

 

[Andres Ramos]

5 hours ago, Michael Lee said:

The corona noise is a decent source for ML input but nothing extraordinary. It could have a quantum component due to reflectance/transmittance of the laser lens, but it could also have a noise component due to the driver, which is commonly considered to be more classical electrical noise (however, that's up for debate!).

I had a delicate setup with two PDs at 90 degree angles of a beam splitter, that also yielded voices in ML.

Maybe we could develop a "pocket" vibrometer for ITC/non-ITC use? It could be a better microphone in terms of sensitivity and locality. I was even imagining using something like guitar strings as vocal cords where the laser could pick the near still vibrations. A parabolic mirror could be used to ensure all the rays return back to the PD.

 

A nice idea. The strings would work like resonance circuits or bandpass filters.

[Christine Brooks]

When I think of sound vibration traveling long distances I think of the whales...I wonder if the laser could be passed through water while listening for sound, and if water could enhance the signals as a conductor, especially of a higher pitch. I know that electricity and water are not a good mix, lol, but perhaps some magic could be invented for isolating the water and laser without losing the sound. Then again, electricity and water make for astounding lightshows and sound waves in thunderstorms!

[Andres Ramos]

On 1/2/2021 at 7:35 AM, Chris said:

When I think of sound vibration traveling long distances I think of the whales...I wonder if the laser could be passed through water while listening for sound, and if water could enhance the signals as a conductor, especially of a higher pitch. I know that electricity and water are not a good mix, lol, but perhaps some magic could be invented for isolating the water and laser without losing the sound. Then again, electricity and water make for astounding lightshows and sound waves in thunderstorms!

Yes, that is an excellent idea Chris. I know setups with water where a laser beam goes right through. If the beam hits a phototransistor then any hidden modulation in the laser caused by the water can be heared. I have this on my list. However my list seems to run around the equator multiple times already.

[Christine Brooks]

5 hours ago, Andres Ramos said:

Yes, that is an excellent idea Chris. I know setups with water where a laser beam goes right through. If the beam hits a phototransistor then any hidden modulation in the laser caused by the water can be heared. I have this on my list. However my list seems to run around the equator multiple times already.

And you keep everything very well organized Andres. I would have created a never ending maze long ago  .

[CanadaKim]

On 1/3/2021 at 5:46 PM, Chris said:

And you keep everything very well organized Andres. I would have created a never ending maze long ago  .

My first thought about passing a beam thru water is that it will simply scatter the beam in all directions, making the beam useless, but I have no proof of this.

The audio files that Andres is producing are simply amazing.

[Andres Ramos]

On 3/15/2021 at 5:55 PM, CanadaKim said:

My first thought about passing a beam thru water is that it will simply scatter the beam in all directions, making the beam useless, but I have no proof of this.

The audio files that Andres is producing are simply amazing.

I had the first expectations. However after trying it with a laser pointer I could see the beam wasn't scattered and it came out of the water even without being widened.