What sounds like a perfect story for a John Carpenter horror flick is actually a common paranormal phenomenon, one often compared to the Electronic Voice Phenomenon. Paranormal researchers are well aware that ghosts possess powers to manipulate electronic devices, the same principle being applied to flashlight sessions and EVPs. So, if ghosts can glow or flicker light bulbs to communicate with you during a session, why can't they adapt a telephone receiver to converse with a dear one in the living world?
In 1979, Prentice-Hall published Phone Calls From The Dead, a book authored by parapsychologists Scott Rogo and Raymond Bayless. In it may be found the following extract, where the authors describe the various types of 'phantom phone calls they have encountered throughout their career:
Thus, we find that there are three types of phantom phone calls, the first being most common. Now let us take a look at the most famous cases of phantom phone calls.1. Apparent phone calls from the dead: . . .the witness receives a call - usually brief - from a person who has just recently died or who has been dead for some time. Occasionally the person receiving the call does not know at that time that the caller is dead and believes he/she is talking to a living person.
2. Intention cases: The witness usually receives an urgent message by phone from a friend or relative, or even from an unknown individual who explains that he is placing the call for the former. Later, the witness learns that the friend never made the call, although he or she thought intently about doing so. The phone voice will often mimic that of a living person perfectly. However, a few witnesses have described these voices as "mechanical" or "drunk sounding", although this was rare.
3. Answer cases: Rarely, the witness himself places the call and carries out a conversation with a person whom he later discovers either (a) was dead at the time the call was placed or (b) could not possibly have been home to receive it. . . . By far, the vast majority of the cases we have collected fall into the first category.
In 1969 surfaced the first documented case of a phone call from the dead, when New Jersey rock musician Karl Uproff was called by his grandmother. The phone call was apparently normal, leave out the fact that his grandmother had passed away two days earlier! Karl was eighteen at the time, and was naturally freaked out.
In Wilmslow, Cheshire in 1977, Mary Meredith was in her house when she received a phone call from her cousin Shirley from Manchester, she was taken aback to hear her voice, for an hour ago her cousin had died in a car crash, and Mary was informed minutes before by her aunt's phone call of the same.
In 2003, an Englishman named Frank Jones stated that his wife Sadie, who had died of a heart attack at the age of 69 and son Steven who succumbed from a brain tumor at 32 years, were visiting him in his house. He even claimed that Sadie sent him text messages on his cell phone after her death. He believed that the content of those texts contained secrets which only her wife was aware of, eliminating the question of fraud.
The most recent case of all, in the year 2013, talk show host Katie Couric, whose husband had died of colon cancer in 1998, said that a land line registered to her husband dialed 911 every Tuesday at 2 a.m. NYPD chief Ray Kelly was called in to investigate, who deemed bad wiring as the cause.
So, what do you say? Have you ever received a phone call from the dead? Know of someone who has? Then submit your story to AAO by using this form. Let e know your thoughts in the comments section.
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