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Is This The Men In Black's Number?

Back in my bolder college days, I phoned the operator to ask about certain numbers that would pick up automatically and generate a really damn creepy siren sound. The operator gave me the expected run-around about how my call probably just got lost in the switching somewhere. When I told her that it didn't just happen once or twice, but every time I call these numbers, she didn't really have anything to say about that. End of conversation.

So the point is, if the number is important in any way, then they've already got their bases covered with a story. The thing that suprises me is that this number is posted up on the web, so they must be getting a decent number of unexpected calls. It would be interesting to know if the line is busy from just a single caller, or if it switches you over and keeps the line open for another caller.

I live in PA, so if no one lives closer we'll come up with a plausible story for me and I'll use it on an operator in an attempt to get more information.
 
Mike - Can't think of a suitable cover for you, but I dare you to call yourself Indrid Cold.
 
Evilsprout said:
Mike - Can't think of a suitable cover for you, but I dare you to call yourself Indrid Cold.
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I like it.
 
Most excellent detective work, Evilsprout! You are the man.
 
Icke = Indrid?

Eek, R E P T O I D ? That's got my head shaking.

Yes, Mothman Prophecies is a creepy book that can give one wonderful nightmares. You're a connoisseur, as I am, right?

I'm thinking a mere inquiry wouldn't focus them on any of us any more than contributing to THIS forum would, by the way. Mustn't let our paranoia run rampant.

Then again, better to err on the side of too much when it comes to paranoia, lest they GETCHA.
 
Frater... don't know if the MIBs will be after us, but the West Virginian water agency may wonder what all the interest in their rivers are all of a sudden!
 
A Dunk in Gunk

You've evidently not seen their rivers lately. LOL

Other than setting fire to them, there isn't much anyone could do to damage their rivers.
 
Re: Icke = Indrid?

FraterLibre said:
Then again, better to err on the side of too much when it comes to paranoia, lest they GETCHA.
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Exactly! 'sprout has found their cover story -

now we want THE TRUTH!
 
Revelation...

Evilsprout said:
Frater... don't know if the MIBs will be after us, but the West Virginian water agency may wonder what all the interest in their rivers are all of a sudden!
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How did you discover it was a water station check?
 
Elementary, my dear Dr Wu.

Google search for +"enter command" +time +level +"West Virginia".
 
Escapism's Failures

Sometimes the simple methods are best, eh? Way to go, Evilsprout.

Sure sucks having a MIB mystery solved in so mundane a fasion, though, doesn't it?

Ah, well. Chalk up another victory for reality over imagination.
 
Oddity = Insanity?

So how come so many wild stories circulated about what was, after all, an almost boringly inane telephone number? How come puzzling robot-voiced numbers caused so many to jump to wild conclusions?

Are we that paranoid and freaked out only nano-micrometers behind our masks of complacency and ennui?
 
Good question, Fraterlibre. I think it comes from a desire for things to be out of the ordinary, to make them beyond the mundanity of reality.

I suspect most of the speculation was tongue in cheek, but it even had me half wondering at one point, because it's such a tempting story. But it all makes such normal, boring sense when you know what it really is.

Reminds me of the intro to the Mothman Prophecies, when John Keel's trip around West Virginia after his car broke down turned into local folklore of a visit from the devil, just cos he was a bit strange, well-dressed and had a beard. (A tale in itself which tells us not to trust everything written in the rest of the book).
 
Evilsprout said:
Good question, Fraterlibre. I think it comes from a desire for things to be out of the ordinary, to make them beyond the mundanity of reality.

I suspect most of the speculation was tongue in cheek, but it even had me half wondering at one point, because it's such a tempting story. But it all makes such normal, boring sense when you know what it really is.

Reminds me of the intro to the Mothman Prophecies, when John Keel's trip around West Virginia after his car broke down turned into local folklore of a visit from the devil, just cos he was a bit strange, well-dressed and had a beard. (A tale in itself which tells us not to trust everything written in the rest of the book).
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Indeed, I read an article not too long ago by a fellow who knew Barker and Keel in the old days around the time of Mothman and he said that much of what they said about the Point Pleasant events was greatly embellished. He was a young seeker who Keel took under his wing and eventually he came to see that Keel was a' trickster ' and not to be trusted as to the accuracy of sightings and visits of the paranormal. I can't remember his name or where I read that but it was interesting. It does make one wonder how 'real' the evnts in Mothman were.
 
Was It This One?

I suspect the article was a debunking by Jerome Clark that appeared in the Special Mothman Edition, April 2002, of FORTEAN TIMES. (FT 156, pp 39 - 42).

Put it down to rival theories and having an unfair last word on Clark's part, I'd say.

Keel employed metaphor and other novelistic techniques in an attempt to capture the atmosphere there at the time. He's a frustrated novelist, remember, and so his approach is largely subjective, emotional, and complex, rather than the simplistic literalism of Clark and his ilk, who worry more about hardware and conspiracies of silence.

Yes, literalists would call this exaggeration, but it's actually clarifying for those of us looking past the silhouette.

That's how I read this, anyhow.
 
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