Sunday, August 19, 2012

Phantom Phone


Life sometimes produces more questions than answers.


Our phone rang close to midnight, startling me even more when I recognized the number belonged to the hospital where I work. I answered and heard nothing but a crackling rhythm on the line. The calls to our home continued in the evenings two or three times a week and then at 3 AM on Sunday morning a week ago.

I contacted the administrator to ask what could be done to stop the calls. I suspected a fax machine was dialing, but the phone in our treatment room was identified by the communications department as the source of the calls. This room is locked when I go home and no one should enter the area until we return the next day. 

The lady in the communications office suggested that if I call home from the phone during the day, someone could push the redial button and call our number again. I do phone home sometimes, but who would push the redial button in the middle of the night, and why? My manager suggested changing the door lock and staff who work nights became the first suspects.


The next day I was in the room charting at a computer table away from the phone. I heard a dial tone and listened to the speaker as the phone called the last outgoing number by itself. I heard the familiar crackling rhythm and realized that no person was responsible for the mystery calls. I contacted the lady who had been investigating to report what had happened. 

“Impossible!” she said. “There has to be a physical force to activate the redial button.” 

There was no visible physical force and a co-worker confirmed that the phone dialed on its own. That afternoon I called my work voicemail number before leaving and sure enough there was a mysterious message awaiting the next morning. Personally, I was relieved that the calls to our home were not from someone trying to harass us.

The night nurses on the floor say a call bell goes off in an empty room from time to time. They are sure our resident ghost Francine, a nurse who died at the hospital when it was a TB Sanatorium, is active on our unit. 

I believe there is an electronic malfunction in the telephone and a new phone has been ordered. 

But if the calls continue on another phone... 

October 1, 2012- Update

The phone was not replaced but the calls stopped as suddenly as they started a few days after I wrote this post. Very strange indeed!
  

10 comments:

  1. Anonymous5:41 pm GMT-4

    Very interesting story. A little scary. Sometimes things just un-explained, even when there must be a logical explanation.

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  2. Oh my... sounds like you all need to call the Ghost Adventures crew. Spooky.

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  3. these things are annoying, and a little creepy, but I like the idea that a ghost is using modern equipment to try to reach out!

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  4. If those calls continue, you'll know Francine is active in the afterlife!
    Seriously, we had a series of robocalls from a hospital network. We'd been put in the system to get some pathology results, and apparently the phone got stuck on our number...

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  5. It must be a relief to get that sorted.

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  6. Wow, that gives me goosebumps!

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  7. That's just downright creepy.

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  8. Huh--could be crossed wires. Or loose wires.
    Actually, I was thinking MOUSE until you get the explanation of how it appears to happen.
    Do give us an update, if there is one.

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  9. Interesting-I know that most things have a logical explanation but I still like to consider the possibility of the supernatural as long as we stick to the fax.

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