Ringing Phone

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Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1998 12:58:11 -0800 (PST)
To: guestbook@ghosts.org
address anonymous

I was visiting my aunt and uncle in a small town in central Florida. They had recently purchased an old house, with an interesting former resident. The neighbors told of a wealthy man who had moved down from New Jersey. He had a nurse with him, who ran his errands while he remained inside the house. He was not an invalid, simply a recluse. The neighbors recall seeing the man while he was moving in, and never seeing him again until he was wheeled out of the house, dead on a stretcher. He remained in isolation for approximately fifteen years.

Perhaps this guy had nothing to do with what happened to me, but I feel that I have to relate that data. I was lying asleep in the living room, and I awoke around 03:00 because the room had gotten really cold. As soon as I began stirring, trying to find a blanket or something, the phone (an older phone with a hammer and bell which caused the ringing, as opposed to a digital chirping circuit) began to ring. I think it rang 2-3 times. Since it wasn't my house, I didn't pick up the phone, although I did find it odd that someone was calling so late. I was awakened around 08:00 by the phones ringing again, although this time it was just my cousin, calling to wish a happy thanksgiving. The weird thing is the following: When the phone rang at 08:00, I could hear at least 3 other phones from my position on the living room couch. The other ones were digital, and they absolutely did not ring with the one in the living room at 03:00.

If the phone had rang once in my room, I might be able to attribute that to a smaller ringing voltage threshold in the older phone. Perhaps someone could have called, let it ring once, and hung up. But two or three times, no way. If you are in any way familiar with the way that phones work, I submit that you would find it odd seeing one phone in a parallel circuit ringing two or three times on its' own, and a few hours later, with no modification to the circuit, all phones ringing in unison. Perhaps it could be explained by telephone linemen conducting repairs at 3AM, and accidentally introducing a slightly lower voltage than a normal ring, that somehow the older phone picked up. Beats me how or why that could have possibly happened though.

When I told my aunt about it the next day, she said that odd things had been happening around the house, including cakes falling from the kitchen counter when no one was in the kitchen, missing items etc.