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Dial a Number And Hear A Woman Scream?

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Anonymous

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Can anyone remember when you were kids, that if you went into the old public phone boxes (the ones you had to push your 2p pieces into) and phoned a number (can't remember this number) you could hear a woman screaming and crying at the other end. you couldn't talk to them but only hear. was it a bt test phone or something? very weird though. all the kids in our school used to phone it, scared witless some of them.
 
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no, seriously - it was really freaky, it sounded as though she was dying. its one of those things you can't forget!
 
I never did this myself, but most places I have lived had such a number - it must be some side effect of the way telephone exchanges are arranged.

In San Antonio, the sounds are supposed to be the Donkey Lady, a lover's lane monster loosely connected to La Llorona - she lost her husband and children in a fire (usually, a deliberately set one) and was herself horribly mutilated and went mad. Because of the mutilations, she cannot speak, but only makes "donkey noises." How exactly she's supposed to have access to a phone I don't know, but since she seems to inhabit every square inch of Bexar County (with a slightly different version for every Lover's Lane) she may as well inhabit the phone lines too.
 
"How were they weird?"
"They thought that the matrix was full of hoodoos an' shit.
And you know what? They're right."

Heck, after reading "The Mothman Prophecies", I'd be willing to consider the possibility that the venerable Bell system had agglomerated to the point where it was complex enough to support some weird electrical lifeforms. Anyone got any references on the complexity of the phone system circa 1963? How's it compare to the complexity of say, a mouse brain?

Or it could just be a "garden variety" EVP. :D (Talk about damning with faint praise...)

Hey, you don't think Fort really believed in Monstronsor, do you? It's a brain exercise.
 
it could have just been a poor old lady that was driven to dispair by people phoneing her all the time and not saying anything, probably thinking she was being called by a sex feind all the time rather than a bunch of kids :p
 
Don't know if I said before, but we called 9999 back in 1992 for a 'laugh' and got some old woman shouting at us.
 
Before the days of 1471 (for people outside the UK, thats the number that lets you find out who the last caller was) I had a rather disturbing call made to me. the phone rang, I said "hello" and after a few seconds a voice said "I'm pregnant, I'm going to kill myself" and the line went dead.

It wasn't anyone I knew (at that time I didn't know anyone that well!), I hope it was a prank and not a wrong number.:(

I wonder about the number dialed in the phone box - could it have some how been connected with the tape of the Moors murderers? Some sort of weird pre-internet way of sharing dodgy material?
 
Peni said:
she may as well inhabit the phone lines too.
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Folklorist/fantasy writer Charles DeLint has mentioned an acquantaince of his who theorizes that detonating nuclear weapons has altered the universe to the point that spirits no longer inhabits trees and fields, etc, but now live in the wires of the power grid and the phone system and the INternet.
 
Austen said:
Before the days of 1471 (for people outside the UK, thats the number that lets you find out who the last caller was) I had a rather disturbing call made to me. the phone rang, I said "hello" and after a few seconds a voice said "I'm pregnant, I'm going to kill myself" and the line went dead.

It wasn't anyone I knew (at that time I didn't know anyone that well!), I hope it was a prank and not a wrong number.:(
Click to expand...

When I worked in customer service for an insurers, we used to get lots of calls like this. Generally it tends to be kids in their early/mid teens trying to shock, so we came up with an unofficial script of rubbish to deal with it -
' Your number has been traced and passed on to police and social services.
Thanks for calling!'
Repeat offenders were rare!

:devil:
 
I remember a couple years ago, my little brother passed me a number and said to call it.

It was for an insurance agency and their voicemail actually had a duck on it...you just pressed six and you heard a duck and its flopping around in a pond. Then the system would hang up on you.

Figured it must have netted them at least a few new customers.:p
 
Philo T said:
"How were they weird?"
"They thought that the matrix was full of hoodoos an' shit.
And you know what? They're right."

Heck, after reading "The Mothman Prophecies", I'd be willing to consider the possibility that the venerable Bell system had agglomerated to the point where it was complex enough to support some weird electrical lifeforms. Anyone got any references on the complexity of the phone system circa 1963? How's it compare to the complexity of say, a mouse brain?

Or it could just be a "garden variety" EVP. :D (Talk about damning with faint praise...)

Hey, you don't think Fort really believed in Monstronsor, do you? It's a brain exercise.
Click to expand...

I was talking to my mom about the whole "phone weirdness" phenomenon - and was telling her about the Mothman Prophecies because she hasn't read the whole book. She pointed out that back in the 1960s "Ma Bell" was the ULTIMATE symbol of corporate power over individual lives and that people she knew were full of conspiracy theories about it (as well as anger at it.) The closest contemporary equivalent she could come up was Micro$oft.
 
StellaBoulton said:
When I worked in customer service for an insurers, we used to get lots of calls like this. Generally it tends to be kids in their early/mid teens trying to shock, so we came up with an unofficial script of rubbish to deal with it -
' Your number has been traced and passed on to police and social services.
Thanks for calling!'
Repeat offenders were rare!

:devil:
Click to expand...

I received a strange prank call last summer. The voice on the other end was definitely a teenage male. Without introducing himself, he asked me how many children I had and I can't remember exactly what else - but they were very personal questions. So it was sort of like a phone survey, but not really - maybe a really bad imitation. (I did cut it short, btw.) I can imagine kids coming up with this kind of prank call, sure.... I just found it a little disturbing.
 
Eri said:
back in the 1960s "Ma Bell" was the ULTIMATE symbol of corporate power over individual lives and that people she knew were full of conspiracy theories about it (as well as anger at it.) The closest contemporary equivalent she could come up was Micro$oft.
Click to expand...

I'm old enogh to remember the tail end of that era. I already noted that "The Mothman Prophecies" indirectly reflect that. Another fine example is the movie "They Might be Giants" where the "Sherlock Holmes ?" character goes straight to the phone company when seeking out the center of dark power in the world. Like Dr. Johnny Fever being persued by the "phone cops" on "WKRP in Cincinnati". Nobody would understand that kind of thinking these days.

Is that purely an American phenomena, or did other countries have that paranoia of the phone company too?
 
Phone Weirdness

Well, I tried to find the article in Snopes that I was looking for, but had no luck... not sure if they moved it or something.

Nevertheless, a while ago they had an article with the same guidelines. However, instead of screams at the other end of the line, it had a man saying "Help me, Suzie's dying!"

Anyone else know of that one, or is my mind just playing tricks on me again?
 
Blatidae:
I'm pretty sure the "Help me, Susie's dying!" (sp) phone message has been discussed somewhere on the FTMB. Damned if I can dig it out of the search engine, though.
 
Philo T said:
Blatidae:
I'm pretty sure the "Help me, Susie's dying!" (sp) phone message has been discussed somewhere on the FTMB. Damned if I can dig it out of the search engine, though.
Click to expand...

There was a lot in the FT letters pages a few months ago. One theory was it was the message "Hold please, user dialing" on a very poor recording.
 
About 15 years ago, I was still living with my parents.
On night, in the early hours (4 am or thereabouts), I heard the phone ring, and answered it. It was my sister - she was practically hysterical. Apparently, somebody who spoke like me had phoned her a minute before, screaming that he was in Hell. She said she could also hear my father in the background, also screaming.
I reassured her that we'd all been asleep, and that somebody was playing a trick on her - or that she'd been having a nightmare.
She didn't believe me, she was so sure it was me on the phone earlier, phoning from Hell. My father had also woken up, so he spoke to her.
After a long while, she calmed down. My sister is very religious, and believes in all that Hell and damnation rubbish, so it must have rubbed a raw spot in her psyche.
If it was a prank, it might have been somebody who knew her (and me). It shook me up, too.
 
Austen said:
Before the days of 1471 (for people outside the UK, thats the number that lets you find out who the last caller was)
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I :blush: to admit it, but here in the US of sexfiends, the caller ID feature is *69.

What creative genius thought that one up?
 
In case anyone's not read it, definitely check out Martin Cannon's 'The Numbers Game' (available as a PDF download as part of Anomalist No. 1) for more Mothman-style phone weirdness. A great read.
 
In school we used to busy our selves phoning the operator, asking for certain things, namely sexual favours and the like and being caught (doing it from a school phone and all)

That was in wee John Bunyan, a big while ago.

There was a 666 number to call, and all you would here is a looped devil laugh, lol
 
Philo T said:
the movie "They Might be Giants" where the "Sherlock Holmes ?" character goes straight to the phone company when seeking out the center of dark power in the world.
Click to expand...
I saw a late-night movie last year from the 60s where all the world's evil was traced back to the phone company, I think it was called The President's Psychiatrist or something.

edit: http://imdb.com/title/tt0062153/
 
That' s "The President's Analyst" as mentioned by tuckeg above.

Everyone hates their phone company. The Bedouins hate their phone company.

Which I think John Keel used as a chapter epigram in one of his books.
 
Yep, Ch 17 of Visitors From Space.
 
*69

Fallen Angel said:
I :blush: to admit it, but here in the US of sexfiends, the caller ID feature is *69.

What creative genius thought that one up?
Click to expand...

I actually work for the company who holds the patent on *69. Knowing the guy in charge, I can assure you he knew EXACTLY what he was doing when he named it that.

I had a horrible experience as a very young child of answering a ringing phone and hearing a horribly garbled, slowed down recording (at least I hope that's what it was!) on the other end. To this day I have no idea why that happend (this was the 70s, before automated sales calls) and I am a little skittish about answering the phone.
 
Not fortean but mildly amusing
When I lived in the "so called" Midwest I used to get regular odd calls. Around 6pm mid week if it was raining I would get a couple of calls when a male would demand "that Beirut? " when I would politly say "No, this is Dayton" they would hang up. Sometimes they would hang up before speaking which I put down to my British accent and not sounding a bit arab like.
Finnaly an american pal put me straight - The local baseball park was Babe Ruth, some pillock with a hick accent had got the wrong number on his speeddial and was checking the games were on when it rained, the mystery to me had to be why he didn't change it after the first few attempts :blush:
 
I remember a good few years ago one of my friends phoning me up quite late saying she had recieved a series of strange messages on her answerphone (which she was convinced sounded exactly like her dead aunt) and asked me to come over as she was in the house on her own. I agreed as she sounded distressed (unusual for her) and to be honest I was curious to hear what all the fuss was about! :p

It was basically some old lady who had left about 5 or so messages, the first along the lines of "I tried to call you but you were out", the next sounding slightly anxious, then getting angrier and by the last it sounded like a demon screaming down the phone!! :eek!!!!:

Think her mum finally took the tape down the police station...never did find out what happened :rolleyes:
 
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