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Bizarre Voice In Mississippi

henry

henry

still speeding
Joined
Oct 23, 2005
Messages
3,794
this happened a couple of weeks ago, on afternoon of sunday 12th march in fact ... and not far from the locus of the bizarre night in mississippi

i have been gradually exploring backroads of the mississippi delta by car over the last period, stopping and checking out historic blues places and also aesthetic and or roadside/decrepit/spooky places

i was driving in vicinity of the towns of lexington/ebenezer/benton, not especially heading anywhere other than loosely to jackson, southwest on highway 432 which runs between benton and pickens (other thread)

i passed a cool abandoned building set back from the road that seemed possibly former defence/military but with no fencing or signs around it, spun around further on and pulled into the entrance driveway and parked

building set back and clear to the road with just grass in front, tall trees behind and other side of the road (south) also lined with tall trees

i spent 20 minutes wandering around, taking photos, looking in open vents where panels had been kicked away etc, was very atmospheric, the whole time i didnt see another vehicle or person ... at some point i noted the sound of what i believed were crows, sound had started low and grown in volume gradually ... i felt the sound was coming from the line of trees on south side of highway 432

during my explorations the crow sounds got louder and although i couldnt see any birds, sound did seem to emanate from roadside trees ... i then started to think i heard human voices in amongst the crow calls, i initially put this down to birds using similar patterns and sounds, however i started to feel like 30 minutes was plenty of time spent, so i walked out to the road to get a last wide shot of the entire building in its surroundings, which i did from the centre of the road as there were no vehicles and only the noise of the birds, which hadnt got much louder despite me walking almost to the treeline

for final final shot i walked forward about 20 feet maybe onto the grassed area directly in front of the building, at this moment i started to hear what i definitely felt was the sound of boisterous humans within the sound of the crows, sounded like a party of twenty-somethings larking around and calling out to each other, i looked around and there was nothing, no people, no birds even

i took the photo, turned towards my truck and as i turned my body from behind me a very clear and loud voice said YALL COME BACK NOW ... i turned my head but kept heading to my vehicle, nothing was there, no person no bird (i actually thought i would see a bird standing on the ground beside where i had stood, that had somehow managed to mimic this saying)

well i was in my truck pretty quick and out of there
 
later that evening, circa 10pm, i was back in that area, in the town of lexington with a waitress friend of mine, we had gotten something at sonic in lexington and were driving around in my truck in the dark kind of recreationally ... i related the story of the building from earlier that day and as i was getting to the part where the disembodied voice kicked in we were at that precise moment driving down an extremely dark and quiet track with trees on both sides, when the sound of crows grew up around the vehicle ! we were both freaked out by that

i felt it was then time to drop my friend at her car and head home on the brightly lit interstate rather than the backroads and dirt tracks of the delta
 
couple of things occurred to us as i was telling her the story as we drove around ... the voice felt like a recording, it was so clear and bright and perfectly delivered, but i cant see how it couldve been anywhere near me ... i did have two phones with me, and i took photos with them, but i cant relate the audio to anything to do with them although i have learned from other incidents that an acoustic effect very probably has an acoustic source, and all phones are by their nature acoustic devices

waitress pointed out that closing theme to the beverly hillbillies ends with this phrase ... we youtubed it and it does indeed end with YALL COME BACK NOW YA HEAR but this was not the recording i heard and is in fact rather subdued compared to the delivery at the building
 
molestage.jpg
 
It might look abandoned, but that door lock and the push plate might suggest otherwise.
Making a mental leap, I'm guessing that is a survivalist's lair.
The voice may have come from a hidden loudspeaker. Maybe you triggered an alarm and they just decided to communicate as you were leaving.
 
Mythopoeika said:
It might look abandoned, but that door lock and the push plate might suggest otherwise.
Making a mental leap, I'm guessing that is a survivalist's lair.
The voice may have come from a hidden loudspeaker. Maybe you triggered an alarm and they just decided to communicate as you were leaving.
Click to expand...
The light above the door looks brand new, too.

Might be something drug related, such as growing cannabis...?

But that doesn't take away from the voices etc., a great post...!
 
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if you zoom on the last photo i took, of the building square on from the grassed area, to the left of the beautifully rusted out door you can see half a low vented panel, which i referred to as having been kicked in, i did stick my head in but was just a dark dirty floor and standing water in there ... i imagine there was an attempt to secure the building at some point in the recent past but someone clearly found an easier way in ... its so remote and theres so much abandoned real estate in mississippi i cant imagine anyone being interested in squatting there ... i guess it could once have housed telecomms or similar but nothing going on there now
 
American crows seem to have a broader vocal range than their cousins in the UK. There's the sort of 'caw' sound most are familiar with, but then there's a vocabulary of squeaks and whistles (which sound to my UK based ear like a beefed up starling). I wonder if the presence of the latter when mixed within the much broader base of the former, might confuse the human ear with a sort of aural pareidolia.

There's a known effect which causes some people to hear non-existent sounds – like, for instance, human voices talking or chanting - when using those white/brown noise machines. And Musical Ear Syndrome, which is often - but not necessarily - associated with hearing loss, creates similar auditory hallucinations. I’m pretty sure I suffer from something like this – I can always hear stuff that shouldn’t be there in the sound of rushing water. And I once slept - or didn't much actually - close to a Manx Shearwater breeding colony in the Hebrides; the effect of the sheer volume and incessant nature of the sound was almost hallucinatory at times.

There are some examples of the range of sounds American crows make here - from around the 03:00 mark:

 
henry said:
couple of things occurred to us as i was telling her the story as we drove around ... the voice felt like a recording, it was so clear and bright and perfectly delivered, but i cant see how it couldve been anywhere near me ... i did have two phones with me, and i took photos with them, but i cant relate the audio to anything to do with them although i have learned from other incidents that an acoustic effect very probably has an acoustic source, and all phones are by their nature acoustic devices

waitress pointed out that closing theme to the beverly hillbillies ends with this phrase ... we youtubed it and it does indeed end with YALL COME BACK NOW YA HEAR but this was not the recording i heard and is in fact rather subdued compared to the delivery at the building
Click to expand...
The satellite image shows what appear to be dwellings nearby- could the noise not have come from there?
 
Mythopoeika said:
It might look abandoned, but that door lock and the push plate might suggest otherwise.
Making a mental leap, I'm guessing that is a survivalist's lair.
The voice may have come from a hidden loudspeaker. Maybe you triggered an alarm and they just decided to communicate as you were leaving.
Click to expand...
Which possibly suggests there is something to protect. If it had been in the UK I would have suggested a cannabis farm which seem to pop up in all sorts of weird places here, often cleverly disguised.
 
a little real estate research shows current details as a mr JF of athens TN, who appears to have passed away nearly 20 years ago following a cellphone tower fall, seems he was an amateur radio enthusiast with FCC call sign, who (in TN) provided building space and transmitter equipment to amateur groups and churches, thats if im reading it right
 
It looks like a prefab telephone exchange to me.

Manx shearwaters? Theres a story of a guy who left a remote croft; said it was haunted.

Turned out the birds had dug borrows under the house and were up to their nocturnal chatter.
 
It looks like the kind of place that someone is trying to keep secure whilst others are determined to vandalise. I wonder if this is linked to the mysterious voice - if I wanted to stop vandals, then having a system that played a recorded voice to make them think they were under observation, would be a great way.
 
henry said:
its so remote and theres so much abandoned real estate in mississippi i cant imagine anyone being interested in squatting there ... i guess it could once have housed telecomms or similar but nothing going on there now
Click to expand...
From various stories & first hand accounts I hear online, my sense is the last voice you heard was a squatter. Tragically, so many people have lost their housing in the last 10-20 years, and so many people who have been incarcerated are not given opportunities to re-start their lives with legal employment and a home, there are all sorts of people trying to survive out in the open wherever they can. There are also people who have decided that the Apocalypse is upon us and unavoidable, so they've have sought refuge in whatever abandoned, hard to reach areas they can. Just because someone has been abandoned by society or has rejected society, doesn't mean they're lost their sense of humor.
Or it could have been a bored teenager messing with you. At 15 my friends and I would have played a prank like that!
 
eburacum said:
A security cam with a voice option would be sufficient to explain this voice. But I couldn't see any suitable cams in the photos.
Click to expand...
Maybe because visible cams would be open to vandalisation?
 
im wondering if this guy was the type to rig up some crazy homemade security system complete with zany recordings to scare off casual intruders ... from an online tribute to the last listed owner :

"JF went home to be with his Lord, Jesus Christ, on Thursday, Feb. 9, 2006 ... he graduated form the Tennessee Institute of Electronics and was past president and life member of the McMinn County Amateur Radio Club. His FCC call sign was KG4FZR, owned and operated Business Cell Systems and AAA Tower in Athens, TN ... was an ARRL Technical Specialist, a SERA Assistant Coordinator, owned 2- 2 meter repeaters, and maintained equipment and provided tower space for several other repeaters in McMinn and Monroe Counties. His dedications to both the McMinn County and Monroe County Amateur Radio groups saved them many dollars in maintenance, installation, and rental costs ... McMinn County Amateur Radio Club, Inc proudly uses the callsign KG4FZR in memoriam"
 
henry said:
im wondering if this guy was the type to rig up some crazy homemade security system complete with zany recordings to scare off casual intruders ... from an online tribute to the last listed owner :

"JF went home to be with his Lord, Jesus Christ, on Thursday, Feb. 9, 2006 ... he graduated form the Tennessee Institute of Electronics and was past president and life member of the McMinn County Amateur Radio Club. His FCC call sign was KG4FZR, owned and operated Business Cell Systems and AAA Tower in Athens, TN ... was an ARRL Technical Specialist, a SERA Assistant Coordinator, owned 2- 2 meter repeaters, and maintained equipment and provided tower space for several other repeaters in McMinn and Monroe Counties. His dedications to both the McMinn County and Monroe County Amateur Radio groups saved them many dollars in maintenance, installation, and rental costs ... McMinn County Amateur Radio Club, Inc proudly uses the callsign KG4FZR in memoriam"
Click to expand...
What an impressive obituary for JF!
 
I'm going with some type of security system someone didn't want you rooting around it seems
 
seemed a lot longer at the time, but timestamp on first photo was 16.19 last photo was 16.25
 
i was able to go back to the location april 19th, taking same waitress from the evening of the last time

i retraced my steps and took audio recordings

everything re the building was broadly as the first time, vent at front still kicked in, and i immediately started to hear the sound of the crows while i was stood by the vent, the sound was clearly coming from inside the building this time

on walking to the far side from my truck there was now a huge open section leading inside the building which, while i am sure wasnt there before, ie it was just a wall, i also have no photo from that side, the east side of the building, which is odd

the building had hundreds of birds flying around inside and making an atmospheric metallic bird sound, due to the acoustics, this was the sound i heard the first time, but felt was coming from the other direction

i videoed inside the ground floor, didnt go upstairs, which is where i guess most of the birds were nesting, leave that for next time

didnt look like a door had been opened (it wasnt a door anyway) or a wall section removed in last month

i continued to retrace my steps, no bizarre voice was heard, and it took 28 minutes rather than 6 this time !
 
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