Marcello Bacci’s first encounter with the paranormal goes back to 1949 when he occasionally participated in mediumistic sittings in London, and his life was indelibly marked by these experiences. His relationship with research into the paranormal, which began at that time, developed in the following years into a deep and abiding interest, and early in the 1970s he became involved with the phenomenon of EVP when he learnt of Friedrich Juergenson’s experiences in Sweden. Bacci was mainly stimulated by the fact that a simple tape recorder, i.e. an electromechanical device, is needed for these experiences rather than a human medium.

Marcello Bacci in his lab

His experiments are carried out in the presence of many people, sometimes as many as 70 at a time, and I met him for the first time in 1974 when I attended some of these experiments. At the time he was using the microphone method, and the paranormal voices he was receiving were of average quality for this method. However, when I visited him again in 1978 to attend another microphone experiment the voices were noticeably improved, and had assumed the basic acoustic characteristics present today in his radio voices. The voices were loud and clear, revealing something like an apparent acoustical vibration that lasted for the whole length of each communication (5 seconds approx.). The singing quality, typical of the speech rhythm present in microphone voices, had practically disappeared, and the voices had assumed an "impulsive" speech articulation as if expressed by means of what might be called "energy packages". The radio voices currently obtained by Bacci show further improvements in sound intensity, in clarity, and in the length of communications. The "impulsive" character in the word utterances has become more evident as a consequence of a continuous change of phonemes and in the speed of utterances, as if the communicating personalities are continually trying to adapt their extra-temporal conditions to our time flow.

Let me now proceed to describe how a Bacci’s experiments are carried out. Normally he tunes his radio to the short wave band, at a frequency ranging between seven and nine Mhz, in a zone of the waveband free from normal radio transmissions. After a wait of 10÷20 minutes the background radio static noise changes. The loud static disappears and a typical acoustic signal, like an approaching wind vortex, comes from the loudspeaker, repeated three or four times at short intervals. Silence then follows, at the end of which an entity starts to speak by establishing with Bacci, and/or with the people attending the experiment, an effective dialogue. The paranormal vocal utterances are not continuous but interspersed with pauses. They last for varying lengths of time, from a minimum of 10 seconds to a maximum of three to four minutes. Sometimes the contact ends with the singing of a very evocative and solemn choir. Once the contact is concluded, the normal background static of the radio returns. The whole experiment lasts on each occasion for about 40 minutes.

Two examples of communications on this theme (translated from the original Italian, as are all the communications quoted in this paper) are as follows:

Sometimes, in a critical and ironic mood, the entities exhort listeners to overcome the human incapacity to project ourselves onto a higher plane. For example:

Since the beginning of his mediumship Bacci has always rejected going into the trance state because this would make him a passive instrument. Such a condition is absolutely incompatible with his practical turn of mind, a turn of mind that is directed towards the complete control of the phenomena occurring during the experiments. His research has always been dedicated to finding tangible and unequivocal proof of the reality of the phenomena - oral communications from the entities alone have never completely satisfied him. For this reason his initiative and determination have spurred him on to invent new experiments in order to obtain tangible proofs, although these attempts have often resulted in the disapproval of his invisible partners. However, his continuing wish to demand more and more evidence has generally been met by the entities with patience and understanding, since they recognise they are unable to interfere with his original and unusual approach. In a contact dating back to the early 1990s his behavior toward himself and the phenomenon were criticized in the following terms by the communicators:

The invisible communicators have always indicated they like the contacts with humans, and it is not out of the question that they themselves may obtain some benefits from them. This is clearly stated in a communication by the entity known as ‘Gregorio’ (Gregory), a Christian monk who lived in the 6th Century, who In the same communication also kindly invited Bacci to have a positive attitude towards the contacts.

Hundreds of communications have now been received that allow those present to recognise the identity of the communicators. I would like particularly to mention the case of Sergio Giomi, a close friend and collaborator of Marcello Bacci, who worked with him for over 20 years. Sergio Giomi died in January 1992, and on the 2^nd of February of the same year he manifested himself, with his own voice, through the radio. By doing so he fulfilled a post-mortem pact established with Bacci. The pact stipulated that the first of them who passed over would make himself known through the radio, thus providing proof of his own survival. Sergio Giomi’s voice was preceded by the voice of another of the spirit entities who said: ‘Here Sergio introduces his own voice and returns; now Sergio speaks’. This was followed by the music of a beautiful choir, at the end of which Sergio spoke in his own voice, recognized with great emotion by all the friends participating in the experiment.

About one third of all the contacts are devoted to family-related messages that provide parents with direct evidence of the continuity of life after death. In these personal contacts children who have passed on to the other dimension are mainly involved, and their communications are an attempt to reassure their parents of their new existential state. These contacts, besides producing an immediate emotional impact that is profoundly moving for the recipients, represent the most convincing evidence of the authenticity of the phenomena. Usually another voice precedes that of the child and informs the parents of the presence of the deceased loved one, but at other times the child directly manifests and repeatedly pronouces his/her own name and expresses, even if only in a few words, his/her own emotionally charged message. Amazingly, the children’s voices are sometimes modulated with a tone, lilt and inflexion recognized by parents. In addition, the children’s voices are very different from each other: They can be male or female, childish, juvenile or adult as the case may be. Sometimes the sentences are pronounced slowly, as if the speaker has met some difficulty in finding words, while at other times they are fast and expressed without hesitation.

Thanks to the great number of cases now recorded we can legitimately believe that beyond bodily death, the survivor (‘quid’) maintains the ability to express with effectiveness and intensity memories and feelings of affection. As previously stated, the invisible communicators always provide personal messages; and often encourage attendance at the sessions by many people so that they can relieve suffering. In a communication the entity known as "il Saggio" (the Wise One) affirms this as follows:

"Lecture presented at the First International Conference on Survival/ITC, organized by ITC Journal, held in Vigo (Spain) on 24th April 2004".

Jan 2005