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General Call For Telephone Strangeness Stories

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Anonymous

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OK, I'm not sure whether this should go in Culture, Urban Legends or Parapsychology, so I'm postin' it here. Feel free to move it where you wish, o masters of the site.

Does anyone have any stories, personal experiences, FOAF tales or whatever regarding telephones?

For example, the FT letters page featured an ongoing thread about a mysterious 'ghost phone number' in the 1970s that would replay a weird message for no obvious reason. Elsewhere on this site are stories about people dialling 666 and getting strange responses (policemen on their heads, that kind of thing. Ha, bloody ha).

I'm also thinking about some of the stuff that John Keel talked about in The Mothman Prophecies; those voices breaking in on conversations and shouting 'Wake up down there!'.

So, any takers? Any explanations? Any spooky stuff? I'm waiting...
 
Not sure if this is what you're looking for, but I had a strange phone call that I found quite scary at the time.

It was probably 1 am and the phone rang. Thinking some disaster had occured for the phone to ring so late I rushed to answer it. The voice at the other end sounded like a robotic Anne Robinson and said simply : "Goodbye". Sounds like nothing, was probably a crank call, but the voice was right weird. You had to hear it really......
 
Strewth! I've had that one as well! Except, I dialled a wrong number and got exactly what you describe. Probably part of some messaging service.

Any more?
 
I am one of the people who has dialled 666 from a phone (although I only tried it today). It beeped (a totally normal beep noise for a phone) then the call ended. This was using my orange 3210e mobile (just so you know).

lucydru
 
i actually had something happen just tonight. First I phoned my friends land-line with my mobile... but got no ring tone, so eventually hung up. Apparently for hi it rang but wouldn't "pick up", just kept ringing. So then I phoned his mobile and we had a conversation. After dinner I found I had a voicemail message, so listened to it... and found that it was my friend's voice having his part of the earlier conversation. What we think happaned is that his land-phone dialled through to my mobile, but because I was talking to him it left me a message - just of the sounds of his room ie him. But it freaked e out none the less.
 
Phone Fandango

Yeah, I had something odd happen with a phone once (and no, I didn't get it stuck up my butt). It happened about 10 years ago and although it wasn't supernatural, it did give me a very strange feeling.

What had happened was the night before I'd been out on the beer with a good mate. As usual we'd had too much to drink and the latter part of the evening had been a blur. We lost each other at about 1am i na nightclub and soon after I went home. The next morning I rang my mate up to see if he was feeling as ill as me.

I started out by saying, 'Alright, how are you feeling?' to which he replied he was feeling really bad (he sounded it, too). I then asked where he got to last night. He said he'd gone round the side of the club to throw up, then gone home. I said, 'as usual', and he replied something along the lines of 'yeah, I've got to stop drinking so much.' We talked about a couple of other things but then, when I mentioned something about seeing his brother out that night he said I must be mistaken, because his brother had stayed in. I said he must have forgotten but he was adamant - and it was then I got a very strange feeling -

'That is John I'm talking to, isn't it?' I asked.

'Course it is,' he replied.

'John Howarth?'

There was a long pause, then the voice said, 'No, John Barnes.'

Which was when I realised I hadn't been talking to my mate at all. I'd rung the wrong number and talked for at least 3 minutes with somebody I'd never met before but who was called the same as my mate and spent the night before doing almost exactly the same things.

And if you think I made it up or copied it from some urban myth then you're wrong - this actually did happen.

PS - Names have been changed to protect the innocent.
 
Daily Express 21st Aug Letters Page:
Apparently a woman kept getting calls which resulted in the caller hanging up when she answered. When she complained to good old BT she was told that it was probably some kind of telesales computer which was programmed to hang up when it heard a human voice......why's that then?
 
There was a passtime popular with crackers ( in the computing community crackers are people who break into other people's computer systems and networks, hackers are people who like to tamper with their own system in depth - the media image of a hacker breaking into other people's systems is mistaken ) called "war-dialling", which involved dialing huge ranges of numbers from a modem in the hope that you would get a computer pick-up, meaning you had dialled into a corporate network of some kind. Although it has largely fallen into disuse- it is far easier to do everything over the internet now- it can be easier to get into more protected areas of a company network if you can dial in directly.

It sounds like her number was listed somewhere as a valid dial-in and people were trying to call it.
 
Long after I posted this thread, I suddenly recall one of my *own*, which is probably defeating the object somewhat.

Basically, I answered the phone one night. No voice. "Hello? Hello? Is anyone there?" say I. No answer, so I put the phone down again.

Lo, it rings once more. I answer.

Me: "Hello"
Voice:"Hello? Hello?"
Me: "Hello?"
Voice: "Hello? Hello? Is anyone there?"

Call cuts off.
Hmm, thinks Dan. That voice was familiar.
It was me. Somehow the BT callminder service had rung me, recorded me speaking and called me back. I checked the messages and there I was.

It's not an experience I'd care to repeat, talking to yourself on the phone...
 
DanJW said:
i actually had something happen just tonight. First I phoned my friends land-line with my mobile... but got no ring tone, so eventually hung up. Apparently for hi it rang but wouldn't "pick up", just kept ringing. So then I phoned his mobile and we had a conversation. After dinner I found I had a voicemail message, so listened to it... and found that it was my friend's voice having his part of the earlier conversation. What we think happaned is that his land-phone dialled through to my mobile, but because I was talking to him it left me a message - just of the sounds of his room ie him. But it freaked e out none the less.
Click to expand...

:eek!!!!: That's amazing - the same thing happened to me about a year ago. Nothing Fortean about it, but strangely disturbing.

I once answered my phone at work and the 'person' on the other end was my bosses answerphone asking me to leave a message. How and why it managed to dial out like that I have no idea. Technology eh?
 
Just goes to show AI is here already.

But about the title, they say idle hands is the Devil's playground. So maybe handfrees was invented by satanists in an attempt to give Satan more power :D
 
I used to have a dodgy telephone extension, most amusing because if you lifted the handset, tapped the 'cradle' 2-3 times and listened, you could hear people talking in a phone box! Of course it depended on whether anyone was on that phone at the time, and often I'd only hear one side of the convo, but it was highly interesting. I assumed it was the box round the corner but never found out. (This was about 15 years ago when mobiles were unheard of.) I did try butting in but they couldn't hear me. What a laugh that would have been!
 
the reason bt's automated dialing cut's you off is that when the dialers (large computers in the call centre that acctually call you) phone out and there is either no answer or there is a beep when the phone is answered like some mobiles do and some answer phones do then the dialer thinks its an answerphone and hangs up as it un compliant (all to do with bt's licence) on bt's half to leave you a message if they are calling from the sales dept but not if they are calling from other campaigns other than sales

hope this helps
cas
 
DanHigginbottom said:
Long after I posted this thread, I suddenly recall one of my *own*, which is probably defeating the object somewhat.

Basically, I answered the phone one night. No voice. "Hello? Hello? Is anyone there?" say I. No answer, so I put the phone down again.

Lo, it rings once more. I answer.

Me: "Hello"
Voice:"Hello? Hello?"
Me: "Hello?"
Voice: "Hello? Hello? Is anyone there?"

Call cuts off.
Hmm, thinks Dan. That voice was familiar.
It was me. Somehow the BT callminder service had rung me, recorded me speaking and called me back. I checked the messages and there I was.

It's not an experience I'd care to repeat, talking to yourself on the phone...
Click to expand...

Maybe your second call WAS the first call . . . like "Dick Laurent is dead" in David Lynch's 'Lost Highway' . . .

-Fitz
 
I got a text from my eldest son giving me grief for phoning him at 04.16 this morning.
IMG_1517.jpeg

I gave him shit back as I was late getting up and didn’t rise until 04.45. I checked my phone and, lo and behold, it did ring him as claimed.
The kids know about the weirdness I grew up with that was always put down to Willy the ghost by my dad. So I blamed him. Maybe he followed me from the house when we left in 1979 and has just stuck his head above the parapet?
 
We have at least one long thread on telephone weirdness. :)
 
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