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Spooky Telephone Activity

 
 
Sebastian
14:50 / 24.06.02
This weekend I was reading an article from Fortean Times ("Return to Point Pleasant") and was impressed by a passage where the author recounts the spooky phone activity that went on at his home after he went investigating the MIB, UFO and mothmen sighted back in the 60s in West Virginia.

I have had some of these things with phones at home, and out of home also. The most startling one was years ago when I picked up a phone call at my grandmother's home. It was noon time, just before lunch, and I heard a male voice through a lot of noise in the line that was asking "Hello?" in clear English language. As I was in Argentina, where we speak Spanish, I assumed it was a long distance call for my grandmother from relatives in Europe, and clarifying who I was, I informed that my grandmother was right in the kitchen where she could pick up the call. Still through the noise in the phone line, the voice laughed with much amuse and asked, as if it were the most obvious thing, "And who wants to talk to her?" leaving myself completely mute and stiff, with the phone reciever pressed on my left ear. Then very clearly, and with a voice tone of the adult-who-knows-more-about-life, said back my name, and told me to "be a good boy". Then it hung up.

For the pragmatic 18 year old chap I was, well, I didn't pay my attention to it -just told grandma that it was a wrong number call-, and that was it. I do not remember how many people I told about it, and then this article reminded me.

Other instance of spooky phone activity was directly related to sorcery practices. It involved sort of a "demonstration" of power, that at 3 AM made the phone rang at home in synchronicity with myself meeting the "demonstrating" sorceress during an intense lucid dream, right when she mesmerizingly fixed her gaze on me. My poor father picked up the call -literally falling of the bed-, and I sprang up in perfect state of lucidness. It was a woman that introduced herself as Mrs. Whomever and was asking for who knows who. Regrettably, my father hung back after politely informing that it was a wrong number, right before I had a chance to cry that it was for me without appearing deranged. He was surprised to see me entering his room in the darkness asking who was. We went back to bed, and then my father's beeper sounded announcing an incoming message. Irritated, he turned his light on, and I walked back to his room. He read in his poor drowsy state that it was a message from the same Mrs. Whomever asking the same who knows who to call him back. And, big shit, he erased it with disgust in the split of a second. Other sorcerers involved, later that day confirmed these were "her" doings, but that they were quite meaningless tricks.

And there were other ocasions. Has anyone experienced seemingly magickal occurencess with phones, spooky calls, or anyhting?
 
 
Wyrd
15:06 / 24.06.02
It's funny you should mention this, I just read The Mothman Prophecies recently and found it a bizarre read. Yet it's very interesting, and I liked John Keel's attitude towards the research ("Belief is the enemy"), but frankly it was very strange stuff. That's saying a lot coming from me...

Anyone else read the book, or encounter the fabled Mothman or MIBs?

Go on, you know you want to admit to it!
 
 
Wyrd
15:07 / 24.06.02
Grant, I'm expecting some contribution from you on this subject...
 
 
Sebastian
16:02 / 24.06.02
I am pretty lazy myself these days to go and read an entire book like The Mothman Prophecies (do we have a pamphlet version of it?). Actually I have too many other things to read, although since you mention Kell's attitude of "belief is the enemy" it definitely teases me for the better... cripes, I just do not want to add another to the list. Do we have on this Mothman book enough material for another topic to elaborate and discuss? Now I am curious. I demand you deliver a report of the book to the Other Members of The Honorable Board of Magi under the threat of receiving my own spooky phone calls from The Unknownable Beyonds of my own mind.
 
 
grant
20:44 / 24.06.02
Weird, this is the third time Mothman has come up today. Must be significant.

I've never had any personal experience with strange phone phenomena, but there's a whole field of study devoted to this sort of thing, called EVP or Electronic Voice Phenomena. Hearing voices on answering machines, that sort of thing. There's the bit in The Sixth Sense, where Bruce Willis keeps turning up the volume on this blank bit of tape, when he was recording the little boy alone in a room... and he finally hears the whispering voice the boy is talking to. That's pretty much what EVP is like.

I really need to read some Keel. There are plenty of secondary sources around and I've read excerpts, but it's high time I got the actual Mothman book and dug into it.
 
 
grant
20:47 / 24.06.02
Oh, and I should add I've heard an MIB tale firsthand. I'm pretty sure I don't buy it - it was part of Skunk Ape story spun by Dave Shealy. A friend was doing an article on him.

Put "skunk ape" and "shealy" in any search engine, and you should find some fun stuff. He's the owner of a roadside stand in the middle of the Everglades, who seems involved in every sighting of Florida's Bigfoot in his area.
 
 
Boy in a Suitcase
05:26 / 25.06.02
Fuck. this is the third time Mothman has come up for me today, also!
 
 
Wyrd
09:49 / 25.06.02
Sebastian, I'll do my best to give a rough précis of the book. Though, that link "Return to Point Pleasant" gives you a good overview of the events going on in Point Pleasant - and points out that John Keel's research could not be overturned by the second investigation into what happened. I don't have the book handy actually as I've loaned it to my mother, so I'm operating off recent memory.

The book details John Keel's investigation into numerous and widespread reports of UFOs (usually glowing coloured lights) and sightings of a "Mothman" - a 9-10 foot tall person with wings and glowing red eyes. From reading the many, many sightings of this "creature" in the book it does seem like it's really a mechanical device, though obviously not using technology that we know about publicly. Once people in Point Pleasant begin to see the creature they start getting visits from MiBs. These Men in Black are always inappropriately-dressed, as if they are out of synch with our time. Either old-fashioned clothing, or strangely modern attire. They talk in an odd and halting fashion, have strange body language and long tapering fingers. They often turn up at the witnesses' homes and suggest that people don't talk about their experiences. After Keel came on the scene they would often warn people against talking to him in particular. What's seriously spooky in the story is that people were often warned not to talk to him before he arrived - and sometimes before he had decided to visit them. So the MiBs in this book are not described as being part of some Government Agency, far from it…

Keel went through a series of progressively more surreal experiences in which he had information coming to him from a variety of sources, who were "contactees" with some of these figures. Keel calls them "Ultra-terrestrials", because he doesn't think that they come from outer space. Keel postulates that theses entities co-exist with us on this planet, and always have, but are out of synch with our time and space. He also thinks that they are more like a plague on mankind and enjoy messing with our heads. He's seriously critical of the current UFO community, which he thinks is too credulous, and he thinks that the X-Files has done more damage than good. This can be summed up by comparing the motto "I want to believe" versus Keel's adage, "Belief is the enemy". Keel thinks that all the hype going on about alien encounters and abductions just gives these Ultra-Terrestrials widespread license to continue to fuck with our heads.

To be fair to Keel he does point out that you can quickly lose your perspective when getting involved in this work. Keel had many contactees telling him about future events, and they were all accurate - yet, sometimes they got the time wrong by a couple of years. His phone line was constantly playing up, and he had all kinds of weird shit happen to him. In fact if you read the Fortean Times article you'll see that they began to experience similar weirdness when they investigated the piece.

I must say as I read the book I could constantly hear myself think "you've got to be kidding me!", and some of the events are so odd as to beggar belief. I think this is why so many people dismiss the area because it appears just so fantastical. I would have to experience some of this myself in order to "believe" Keel, but he certainly writes a good book.

The book is well worth reading and you can make up your own minds. It's quite cheap, as it's out in paperback with the release of the movie (which I haven't seen but I believe is not really like the book). I read it in one sitting (couldn't put the damn thing down I will admit).

Oh, and Grant and Boy in a Suitcase - odd synchronicities seem to abound when Mothman gets involved.
 
 
grant
17:54 / 25.06.02
I think there’s a lab thread or a movie thread on Mothman….
It was nomadic. Lemme see….
Here it is.
Includes a little on the Cornwall Owlman, a similar bogie sighted gliding around a church steeple in southern England.
 
 
Wyrd
18:07 / 25.06.02
That link is not working Grant...
 
 
Stone Mirror
19:20 / 25.06.02
Try this one...
 
 
Sebastian
13:31 / 27.06.02
Wyrd dearest,

Thanks a BUNCH for your summary. I made a web search but did not find anything approaching Keel's saneful approach to the UFO matter and credulity, which I think is the best attitude to be prepared to go through or come after such experiences. For the neighboring thread of UFOs and Sigils this is a fine injection of the best antibodies in the market. Now I am deadly interested in getting the book.

Back to the topic -as Mothman appears to be flying towards other places by now-, I initially opened the thread cause I wanted to know about others in the board who have had something with spooky telephone activity. Ever received phone calls from the Other Side? Strangely synchronistic phone messages from who-knows-is-calling? Lets hear you chaps about them, unbury your memories of the freakish coincidences through telephones, you'll find them somewhere.
 
 
Bear
13:40 / 27.06.02
This isn't magic related but does anyone remember (in the UK) dialling 666 and getting a recorded message claiming to be Satan? Tell me I didn't dream that, can anyone confirm?
 
 
Laughing
01:25 / 28.06.02
Six months ago I received a spooky phone call that still has me rattled. I was home alone. It was 11 PM or so and I was watching Clockwork Orange. The phone rang, and since people don't call me that late unless it's an emergency I was a little nervous when I answered it. I said "Hello?" and no one responded. I said hello twice more and still nothing. I was about to hang up when I heard an unfamiliar man's voice, very quietly, say, "You can't see the air, but you know it's there." There was a cough, and the same voice said, "Good night, sir." Then the other party hung up. The caller ID said the number was out of area, so I *69'd it to get the number but the recording said that the number wasn't available.

I hung up the phone, locked all the doors and windows, and turned on all the lights. I'm not ashamed to say I was scared shitless. It was probably the creepiest thing that's ever happened to me. I still flash on that call whenevr I answer the phone late at night.

The few people I've told said it was probably a prank call of some kind. I've half-convinced myself that it was, just for my own peace of mind.
 
 
The Natural Way
10:27 / 28.06.02
Well, I know, go mad, go all the way....and totally convince yrself. You'll feel better....unless you really enjoy the whole Lynchian drama of the thing. Takes all sorts I suppose.

Now, there's clearly nothing supernatural about the next weird tale, children (unless, of course, you take into account the strangeness of this thread emerging a couple of days after the event), but it did do my head in:

Last Friday my Grandfather received an odd phonecall. And it upset him a lot. The phone rang, he hobbled over to answer it and was confronted by a loud, angry voice, railing at him in a thick Indian accent. The angry voice explained that it was very angry because my brother had assaulted its dog. Which, I should clarify right now, is a load of crap. The 'mate wouldn't touch a dog with a bargepole let alone kick it repeatedly in the head the way the angry voice had said he did. Now...apart from the rather sick lie....here's the really fucked up stuff: The voice called my brother by NAME and knew he lived in Brighton.....the voice also knew my Grandfather's number. The question is, if we work from the assumption that the voice was lying, HOW THE FUCK?!? For starters my brother, being a cock, has only recently got hold of Grandad's number...and, secondly, the only place he has it is in his head. So the perpetrator can't be anyone he hangs out with (not that any of our friends would do anything as cruel and pointless as ringing up an old man and frightening the life out of him). Grandad's number is stored in my head, also.....so it can't be anyone I hang out with.

Time to pick through the clues:

Clue 1 - It's a fucking phonecall so it's probably not going to go any further: a sick prank. The only time anyone really needs to worry about phoncalls is when they receive loads of anonymous ones. They could be checking your house.....

Clue 2 - The voice had an Indian accent. Please. Indian, my arse. The first and easiest accent to put on. My grandad'd be fooled by the shittest Indian accent, anyway.

Clue 3 - Who perpetrates cunty phonecalls? Teenagers and blokes in their early twenties.

Clue 4 - Who'd know Grandad's number, my bro's name and where he lives? Relatives....or someone who knows a relative well.

I'm beginning to think it might be my shit-head little cousin.

But I'll never know and that really fuck's me off, because my Grandad hobbled away from that phone feeling very scared and alone. He's ill and he hasn't been eating well and if anyone in the magic wants to drum up a finding spell so that my fist can acquire the arsehole that did this, well....great.
 
 
Shortfatdyke
13:53 / 05.08.02
runce - my sympathies. malicious calls are just cruel. hope that's the end of it.

my sister took a call this morning from an old woman, asking for one of the workmen. sis couldn't find him (he was out on a delivery) and the woman told her to tell him his mother had called. the man got back a while later and sis gave him the message - which confused the man, as his mother has been dead for several years.

yeah, this could've been a prank. but my sis swears it was an old woman's voice. and why would anyone do this as a joke? it's wierd.

i did try to make a spooky call when i was a child - i rang a number at random and said to the man who picked up, "you will die at midnight". "pardon?" he replied. i repeated it, feeling more stupid by the second. "oh" he said, quite matter of factly. i never did it again.
 
 
Cat Chant
15:15 / 05.08.02
Just been reading Avital Ronell's The Telephone Book which has some really interesting stuff on the development of telephone tech by Bell & Watson - including the information that Watson was quite an accomplished medium (and consulted other spiritualists when the practical work of developing phone hardware wasn't going well), and used parts of human eardrums in early prototypes of phones, etc... the technology is right from the very start haunted by unscientific and/or 'magickal' practices.
 
 
Sebastian
17:18 / 05.08.02
Alien technology.

I found a rather banal thing about Freaky Phone Calls weeks back when this thread was started, maybe someone finds it interesting.
 
  
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