It was only a matter of time until someone designed a machine specifically to generate EVPs.

From what I can glean from the instruction manual, the Ovilus is a random number generator and EMF detector. It will spout random phonemes and words while indicating the local EMF levels. (No indication of what frequency EMF we're talking about.) It's about the same as picking words out of a hat.

Other modes combine the two functions in other ways, saying "Yes" or "No" based on local EMF levels or showing a random display that you can use as "dowsing rods".

The first page of the manual explains very clearly that this device should be used for entertainment purposes only, and that the odds of getting a contextually-correct word or phrase by chance alone are very high.

In the end, what we've got is something that's flashy, but is essentially based on randomness, and is only useful for entertainment. It's the perfect device for Paranormal State!

Although it's only a matter of time till it shows up on Ghost Hunters. In fact, I'll open the pool: it'll show up first episode next season.

Update: Just watched the clip. There're only 512 words in the Ovilus's internal dictionary, and I'll bet they're all words like "priest" and "demon". The PS folks claim that word selection is based on temperature and EMF readings, but there's no other mode that displays temperature. I'm putting my money on a random number generator in there, perhaps seeded by the EMF readings.

Update #2: Battery life using the internal speaker is only 1-2 hours. When the battery goes low, the unit becomes "noisy" and "erratic". Sounds like the final, dramatic clip that they played.

No GF, that wasn't an Ovilus, that was a K2 meter they used in that particular episode (read the Trivia section).

And they have used that meter again in subsequent investigations, like Fort Delaware and Proprietary House, just to name a couple.

Do a search for K2 meter in the search box at the top.

I found the Ovilus a rather funny device, which spat out words sounding like the evil boss in a vintage arcade game.

The idea that spirits or demons would talk through the device, that idea is laughable at best. How the frigg would they know how to create the right EMF/temperature setting to provide the input for the correct word? And as has been pointed out, what words are chosen to be included? What if the number that was connected to the word "priest" instead was connected to the word "car", the same input would be present but the outcome would be less "evil" to say the least.

Then again, if it was thouroughly tested, used in claimed non-haunted loactions and claimed haunted ones with the same battery of questions and in a EMF-shielded cage and the results published for scrutiny (peer-review). Then, if that was done, and if the device would have had a broader vocabulary (say 5000 words) I would stop laughing.

Of course we can not know that a place is not haunted, just as we can not really know the opposite. Presence of unexplained or even paranormal phenomena does not automatically implies haunting, since haunting itself is a theory where paranormal phenomena is one part. It is an interpretation of a phenomena mostly consisting of social and cultural components (afterlife, the presence of a soul, good-evil, religion and the possibility of supernatural forces).

But if no so-called paranormal phenomena is reported in one location and in abundance in an other location, we should be able to communicate in the haunted location and not communicate in the non-haunted location, according to theory. Silence in the haunted location would be explained by the believers by them not "performing on cue" and communication in the non-haunted by actual presence or vagrant spirits, again according to theory. Skeptics would shake their head. In the end, we would not get anywhere. Mostly because the inherent ambiguity and plasticity of the "theory".

The first step is of course reverse engineering of the Ovilus itself and a thourough look at it's vocabulary. And experiments to try and make it talk when introducing controlled and directed EMFs and temperature changes. If we can make it say demon using three different imputs, it would be hard to argue that is not a game of chance and interpretation, putting it in the realm of social phenomena.

Or in a controlled enviroment where EMFs and temperature are removed or kept stagnant, if that is possible. If it reacts when input is non-flexible that would indicate external input. Or more probable: chance. Again.