Saturday, October 26, 2024

THE PHONE PHANTOMS

 

    

Some years ago, I wrote a blog post about a phone call my mother received back in the mid 90’s, in which she clearly heard her mother repeatedly saying hello. This would not be all that unusual except her mother had died in 1981.  

Fast forward a bunch of years and I am now living at the homestead where eerie things still occur, of course. To make up for the poor quality cell service in my area, I still have a good old-fashioned land line. There’s probably only 20 people left in Nova Scotia with a land line  and I am well aware of the fact that Eastlink is ripping me off every month when the bill arrives but hey—I need it and will keep it until I can talk on my cell without having to go outside and stand under a certain maple tree facing east in order to carry on a conversation that doesn’t cut in and out or drop altogether. 

But I digress. 

I was thinking recently that the summer months and early fall had been pretty quiet, paranormally, as not a whole lot had been going in the house. This is totally typical of my ghosts; they might make their presence known 3 days in a row, then not make a peep for 2 months. 

But then I remembered the phone calls. 

The first mysterious phone call incident happened about a month ago. I had been talking to my son, Scott--he on his cell phone, me on my (expensive) land line. We were just having a normal conversation about something when suddenly a man’s voice interjected into the conversation to say, “Well now I have to re-think my whole plan.” 

 The words were slow, like someone speaking at half the speed they normally would. I knew immediately it was not Scott. It was not his voice. It was much deeper, like an older male. Scott doesn’t speak extraordinarily slow, either. And the sentence made zero sense in relation to whatever we had been talking about. 

At that moment I knew three things:  

  1. 1. That sentence was not spoken by my son.  

  1. 2. Someone (or some ‘thing’) else had joined our conversation.  

  1. 3. I had no idea what plan they were referring to or what this meant. 


I asked, “What? Re-think what plan?”  

Scott said, “What? What are you talking about?”  I told him the strange sentence I just heard clear as a bell. He stated he never said anything of the kind. To make it even stranger, he did not hear the man speaking. Only I heard it. And it was definitely on the phone, not a tv or radio or anything else in the background. It was right in my ear, coming from the phone receiver.  

We discussed what had happened. Did phone lines get crossed? Is that even still a thing these days? A quick internet search tells me it is unlikely between a cell phone and a land line, although possible between two cell phones if voice data signals should get re-routed during a glitch, which rarely happens. 

Spirits communicating through various electrical devices have been widely reported and exhaustively investigated in paranormal circles. This includes phones as a method of communication and has happened to many people. Electrical energy makes it easier for a spirit to interact somehow. 

Given that this is not the first time a spirit has made contact around here using the phone, I am leaning towards “ghost” on this one, although I cannot tell you who the ghost was or what his plan is that he has to re-think. Not sure I want to know that one. 



I sort of forgot about the telephone ghost and a week or so went by. One evening I was once again talking to Scott—same deal: he on his cell and me on my landline. 

In the middle of our conversation, I heard a female voice shriek one loud word. It was not a voice I recognized. I have no idea what the word was she was abruptly yelling but it was loud and urgent. I asked Scott if he just heard that, to which he replied, “Heard what?” I described what just happened. He hadn’t heard a thing. 

It’s hard to entertain the thought that phone lines were crossed once again between a cell and a land line, as unlikely as that is to even happen once. And most people don’t yelp wildly when they are talking on the phone. 

So once again, I am left with questions: Who? Why? What did it say?? Why can’t Scott hear it when it’s interjecting in our conversation? 

I know one thing: when my phone rings and the caller ID says “unknown caller”, I pause for a moment before answering because you just never know who (or what) is on the other end of that call. Do I want to answer it? 

Would you want to? 






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