Welcome to Unexplained Extra, with me, Richard McLean, Smith.

For the weeks in between episodes, we look at the stories that for one reason or other

didn't make it into the show.

In last week's episode, repeat input until end.

We looked at the bizarre story of how in the autumn of 1984, one British couple apparently

found themselves exchanging letters through their BBC microcomputer with people from the

distant past and future.

This type of apparent communication has been termed instrumental transcommunication, a phrase

first coined by physicist Professor Ernst Sankowski in the 1970s.

ITC, as it is more commonly known, describes the process of supposed communication with

the dead or discounted through electronic devices.

Although it can take the form of images, or indeed textual messages, ITC is most widely

pursued through the process known as electronic voice phenomena.

The apparent capture of the voices of the dead through radio or recording equipment.

Sankowski first heard about the alleged phenomena of ITC.

After stumbling upon the end of a peculiar panel discussion on German TV, involving

parapsychologist Professor Hans Bender and the fascinating artist and singer Friedrich

Jürgensen.

In 1959, Jürgensen, who as a young man, was forced to flee from the Russian Revolution

before eventually settling in Sweden.

He came to have been attempting to record bird song when he inadvertently picked up

the sound of human voices.

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