I am a believer of phone calls from the dead. my experience with this was shocking and confusing, i had never heard of this happening before. i was glad to find your site so as to give some kind of support to my experience. my mother passed away in february of 05 , my brother was supposed to be at her house that morning but was running late. at approx. 12 noon he received a phone call from our mother, she said hello , he said hello what are you doing? just watching television, she said. he told her okay i’ll see you in a minute i’m on my way now. she said to him, okay honey ill see you soon, i love you, goodbye. my brother noted that she seemed to be in a really good mood and sounded very healthy and clear. 

The reason that this stood out in his mind is because she was just released from the hospital the night before with pneumonia and was feeling really bad, sounded terrible, with an awful cough, and pretty groggy due to the medicine and being sick. He said how happy he felt when he got off the phone with her,  20 minutes after 12 he arrived at her house to find her deceased in her living room. Paramedics came and said that she had been dead for at least 2 hours. I argued with them that wasnt possible because my brother had talked to her on the phone only 20 minutes prior, they said no he must be confused about time because that is impossible, she at least had passed around 10 am. and possibly earlier. i knew then that mom called my brother from the other side to tell him goodbye and that she loved him. and maybe even to let him know that she was better now. it would make sense that she would call him and not any of the other siblings considering that he is the youngest at 18 yrs old and still lived at home with her. the rest of us are much older on our own with our own families.

My Dad died 14 years ago, after a long battle with cancer. One morning, exactly one week after he had died, my telephone rang; thinking that it was probably a relative or friend, I picked the receiver up and said « hello », as I would usually. However, at first, there seemed to be no one at the other end; just some extremely bad static. I was just about to put the phone down when I heard a voice say « Hello darling, it’s Daddy; I love you. I’m alright ». Then the line faded out and went dead. It had been my Dad’s voice on the other end of the phone. I couldn’t mistake it. As you can imagine, I was completely dumbstruck. I was crying and laughing at the same time. My Mum was present in the room when I took the call, so I know that I didn’t imagine it.

The wonderful thing is that a few years before he became ill, my Mum, Dad and I made a pact with each. It was that, if there was a life after death, whichever one of the three of us died first; they would try to come back and let the other two know that death wasn’t the end and that there is something on the other side. There were other signs from him also; but that’s another story.

I received a strange call after my grandfather died.  It was on the answering machine when I  came home, the caller ID showed from the same hospital he was staying at too. All it said was hello and then there was a strange fast forward sound right after hello then that was it.  My wife listened to it too and it was quite strange I must tell you.  Since then I have moved and don’t have that phone number anymore, but seeing this site brought back memories of that strange call  I received. I wish now I had that recorded or something, I guess its one of those things that just happen.  Maybe one day he will find my new number and call again, but I doubt it.

Early Saturday morning, my wife received a phone call from her sister on the other side of the country. She told my wife that their father had passed away this morning after several weeks of being very sick and delusional. My wife booked a flight for the evening on that same day. Shortly after, she and I went out buying things for her trip. When we came back, I saw that the message indicator on our phone was blinking. I checked out the message. Nothing was said for the first few seconds. Then a male voice close to the phone started singing, « Break On Through To The Other Side. » If it would not have been such a strange timing, I would have thought it’s just a telemarketer waiting for someone to pick up, and just singing a song he heard on the radio this morning. However considering the time and event, I am not so sure. Anyway, we thought it was nice of my father in law to let us know that he had arrived on the other side.

A little back story.  A friend of ours lived with his parents in an apartment downstairs.  He eventually moved upstairs with my sister.  Every morning at about 5:40 am he would go downstairs and eat breakfast in his parent’s apartment before going off to work. 

This would go on for several years until his unexpected death.  Soon afterwards we received the calls.  They went on for about three days.  Each call was at 5:40 am.  The calls consisted of static and faint breathing.  After a few seconds the party on the other end would terminate the call. 

This was of course, after the advent of call return, so we hit *69 to trace the call.  The phone number of the call was immediately familiar to us.  This was the number of his parents downstairs. 

Could this have been a prank?  This was right after the funeral, so I seriously doubt his parents would do such a thing.  We did tell them about the incident and they swore they were both asleep.

We purchased our home in 1991 from two boys and a girl who had inherited the house from their mother.  The father had died years before.  The parents of these children, the previous owners, lived in the house for forty odd years.  They purchased it a year after it was built, from the original owner.

(There are a number of these homes around the capital beltway — built after WWII for civilian workers in the Pentagon.)

Both of these owners died in the house of natural causes.  The mother continued to inhabit the home after her death for approximately ten years.  Since the subject is telephone calls from the dead, I will stick to that part of the story, although the haunting of our house was quite extensive.

Shortly after we moved into the home the phone would ring nightly between 10:30 and about 11:30 each weekday evening.  If you didn’t answer the phone, it would not stop.  If you picked up the phone and hung up without saying anything it would start ringing again.  Since I was the only one awake in the late evenings and subsequently answered the phone, I quickly learned to simply say « hello » and hang up.  I also learned not to try going to sleep before the nightly phone call.

Sometimes there was a lot of what I now know is white noise on the line — a high pitched whining. 

Eighteen months after we purchased the home we had a Christmas tree fire.  Since there were three other fires in the area that day we were a total loss.  We found a rental home nearby to occupy so we could begin the process of rebuilding the house.  A week and a half after the house burned I was reading in bed (I will never forget what I was reading, it was The Bridges of Madison County) when the phone rang.  I quickly glanced at the clock; it was just before 10:30.  At the rental house the calls were sporadic, only occurring a couple of times a week.

Fast forward to about six months after the house had been rebuilt, and I am speaking with a member of the church we had recently joined.  She had the same last name of the previous owners of our house.  It turned out she was the sister-in-law of the male owner of our home.  We were talking about the house and the rebuilding.  I told her I had heard the daughter was devastated about the house burning.  She stated that the daughter still didn’t understand why her mother didn’t tell her she wasn’t feeling well the night she died (of a heart attack).  It turns out the daughter was a nurse and she called every evening after her shift ended and she arrived at home — about 10:30 pm!

You are welcome to use this story.  It is only a small part of a tremendous amount of activity that we experienced in this house.

It’s been a couple years ago now, but my wife’s grandfather was quite ill and living with his daughter (my wife’s aunt) for some time.  He passed away peacefully in his sleep one morning. When she discovered him, after making the obvious first calls for a doctor/coroner etc, she called her sister (my wife’s mother) to give her the sad, but not unexpected, news.  The name that appeared on my mother-in-law’s « caller id » was that of my wife’s grandfather! He was never ever registered on that line or anything, he had just moved in there a few years earlier after he could no longer take care of himself, but the phone company should not have had his name at all.  We tried to replicate the condition, calling from my « Aunt-in-law »‘s house to my mother-in-law and others, but the caller id would show the aunt’s name -never again did any show the grandfather’s name. Very strange.

In 1994, a week after my grandmother’s funeral, the telephone rang one morning and awoke my mother.  She said she heard static at first, and then her mother’s voice state her name.  My mother was so astonished and she asked my grandmother « what are you doing?  How are you calling me?”  My grandmother replied in a very gay voice « It’s my day to ring the bells!”  That was the end of the phone call.  My mother is still astonished to this day and says her voice was just as clear as day.

As a baby, my parents tell me I used to speak to walls and doorknobs and car doors. When I was old enough to really speak, they would ask me who I was talking to… most often it was someone I called « Lady ». To this day, we don’t know who Lady is was, my parents didn’t think enough of it to question me further (for a description) and I don’t remember enough about it at this point. Such experiences, didn’t stop once I was out of diapers though. When I was 8 years old, my Grandmother had passed away after a long battle with breast cancer that had moved into her lungs. I had refused to believe she was dying, determined that at 8 years old I could come up with a cure for cancer -or that God would perform a miracle and she’d be healthy and live for many more years. She died January 8th at 6:06pm… 6 minutes after I decided to leave the hospital with my cousin for the night. I knew the moment she died, because I felt her spirit in the car with me for a moment. The months afterwards were very difficult. I accepted the fact she had died, or rather, I thought I had. Both my Grandpa and I would tell each other about how we’ve been seeing her, or feeling her presence. Sept. 25th that year, was my Grandpa’s 65th birthday… and my parents told me to call him, since for a change he wasn’t at our house (he spent from Thursday afternoon until Tuesday morning most weeks at our place after my Grandma died)…and he was probably lonely. I picked up the phone and it rang twice. 

My Grandmother answered the phone. We spoke for about 30 minutes. I don’t remember the specifics of the conversation… there was a bit of « Wow, Grandma… it’s been a long time since I’ve seen you! » and « I know sweetie”. However the majority of the phone call was about my Grandpa. She told me that he was really having a tough time, and that since she couldn’t help him out of it… that she wanted me to be there for him. She had me promise that I would be his best friend now that she couldn’t be there. I agreed and we started speaking about school.

At that point my parents told me to speak to my Grandpa, they thought I was speaking to my Uncle… so I told my Grandma « Mom says I need to speak to Grandpa now… I love you » and my Grandma said she loved me and that she’d put Grandpa on. At that point I heard the phone ring another two times… and then my Grandpa picked up the phone. Things went about circle at the end of August of this year when my Grandfather passed away from kidney cancer that moved everywhere else. He died in the same room my Grandmother passed away in almost 13 years earlier. At the funeral I told my Grandmother it’s her turn to take care of him again, since I no longer can. I miss them both very much, but I will always treasure that phone call. Even though I still have issues dealing with death because I forgot she had died after speaking to her on the phone

My son died Feb. 9th 2002, and soon after he died, I started receiving calls. No one would be on the other line, just static. Last Easter, I was at my sister’s all day and got home around 9 pm. I usually check the voice mail, but I was tired and getting ready for bed. As I’m brushing my teeth, my daughter came into the room and said « mom, come here quick and listen to this ». She had checked the messages while I was getting ready for bed. I hit the button to hear the messages and the phone said « you have 5 messages ». I listened to them and at the end the voice message said « That is the end of your messages ». I started to hang up, wondering why Caroline insisted I listen to these messages, when suddenly the phone became very staticky and suddenly I heard a faint voice in the background saying « They’re not at home,  » and out of the blue was my son’s voice saying plain as day « HEY’, just like he always did while he was alive. This message did not show up on caller I.D., nor was it traceable. It showed I had 5 messages, yet my son’s was the sixth message.  

Another time I received a call and it was very muffled, almost through a tunnel. A few nights later my 5 year old had a dream where my Michael came to her and asked her where the tape recorder with his message was. Hannah pointed to the tape recorder and Michael said « that was me saying Hey, but the other voice was grandpa trying to get through to tell you he loves you and to take care of grandma. » He told her that he was a little better at using the electronic stuff to get messages through than grandpa was and that’s why his message was clearer. Not only this, but I have a photo album FULL of photos taken after Michael died, with orbs, ecto, one even has his face in the background of a group of his friends. Thank you for allowing me to share my story. I for one know that they can communicate with us.

I’m very interested is phone calls from the dead.  I have to be careful to whom I mention this because most people would think I’m crazy.  The reason I became interested in this is something that happened  in 1969.  My husband’s cousin, Eddie, was in Viet Nam and was killed when the helicopter he was co-piloting went down in the China Sea.  A few  years later, a member of my husband’s family told a strange story.  Eddie’s mother, Hazel,  was awakened one morning at about 4 a.m.  When she answered the phone there was a lot of static, as if someway were calling from a long way off.  The static cleared long enough for a voice to say, « Mom? »  She responded to him but he didn’t seem to hear.  He said « Mom? » two or three times, then his voice faded away.  Everyone laughed about it when my mother-in-law said, « Hazel swears up and down that it was Eddie. »  I was the only person who didn’t laugh, because I was thinking why not?  Why couldn’t someone who has died communicate through the energy of the phone lines?

I didn’t think much more about it until about 1988, when I saw a book at our local library, « Phone Calls From The Dead. » It was written by two men; one was Rollo May, the other name I don’t remember.  I read the book and became even more intrigued with their documentation of case after case of people receiving phone calls from the dead. Since then I have talked to a lady in Houston, TX who actually « talked » to her girlfriend after she had died (at that time she didn’t know her girlfriend was dead). At the time of their phone conversation, she said her girlfriend sounded just as she always did, and only later did she find out that she had died several hours before.

A month later that same message came into my mail box. It was Memorial Day, I had just been to his grave. None of Lance’s messages from his phone ever came into my mailbox. At the time of his death the family all knew it was full, only he had the pass code, it died with him. Through the year the phone company informed me the messages would eventually delete out, but could not go to another mailbox, not even on a share plan. We had two separate numbers and phones. This all has me baffled, and in someway comforted I feel in someway deep in my heart he heard me.

When my fiancé was in high school, one of his childhood friends (his best friend) committed suicide.  My fiancé was devastated by his death and had difficultly coping, but came to accept it after time.  He graduated from high school, and from there began commuting to a local university for college courses.  During this time, he received an odd phone call late at night (He says it was around 1 o’clock in the morning).  My future father-in-law answered the phone, and upon hearing that it was for my fiancé, handed him the receiver.  My fiancé claims that it was his deceased best friend calling, and talking to him as if nothing had happened.  He greeted my fiancé by saying, « How are you doing, man? We haven’t talked for a few years.  What’s been going on?”  The conversation took place as a normal conversation between friends would, and they both said their good-byes.  Afterwards, he was frightened and has not mentioned it to anyone except myself since.  He insists that he heard his deceased friend’s voice distinctly over the phone, and has not gotten any more calls such as this.  As far as I know, he did not inquire about his friend’s location or why he had called.  Nevertheless, he was disturbed by the call and swears that he telling the truth.  I am inclined to believe him, as he is not one to weave false tales or trivial ghost stories

My mom just got a very interesting call from her father yesterday at 7:18 pm. It was a message on her voice mail at work from her deceased father. The message said, « Hi Diane it’s your father, I love you call this number 756-2508” then he kind of left a kiss. When she called this number it was a message on a Nextel phone with a message from a man named James. James is her father’s name.  My father left a message for James to call and we did not get a call back. I called the number again this morning and it was an ATT disconnected phone number. Other things that were odd were this voice sounded like my mom’s father, but only to her.  To me my sister and my husband, it sounded like some kid disguising his voice. When my sister, husband and I listened to the message, we heard a different

I am glad to find that there is some good information on the web pertaining to this subject.  When I was a baby my mother received one of these phone calls from her mother.  Preceding the phone call her oven timer kept going off by itself just as she was drifting to sleep.  This happened three times and then as she was drifting off again there went the phone.  My mother told me that her mom called her by the nickname no one else knew and her voice sounded very far away and weak.  My mother hung up the phone and called my father at work.  He was military police at the time and didn’t want to come home, but mom was so hysterical he left work.  The interesting thing about this is that it happened years after her mom died.  My grandmother died when my mother was 9.  My mom wanted to discuss this incident this weekend on the phone so I have printed off some of your info to read to her.  Yes, this phenomenon is unexplainable, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.  It would be ignorant not to believe something just because you can’t explain it yet. I believe years and years from now scientists will discover that this is very real and it will be common knowledge.  Not something everyone tries to explain away when you know darn well it happened!

Mine is a long and complex story, and I hesitate even to begin unless I am sure that it is something that might interest you. I read your site and I realized immediately that my story is quite unlike most of the others you list. My experience was not an ‘event’, but a major part of my early life. Moreover, even now I simply do not know the truth or reality of the events, which I accepted without question at the time (I was about 10 or 11 when it started).  There are many strange and difficult components of this story, but if I will focus just on the elements relevant to your site. When I was young I witnessed my Mother receiving virtually daily phone calls from a male friend (would-be lover might be more accurate) … both before and AFTER he died. As far as I was told this person was ill in hospital (which is why I never met him), and he would ring my mother daily (always around the same time). 

Again, as I understand it, he  was professing his love for her during these calls, and they were making plans for their future, when he came out of hospital (my parents were splitting up at the time).  I remember being woken from my sleep one night (about the age of 10) by my mother sobbing. I went out and peeked around the corner, and she was wailing ‘He’s dead! He’s dead! I know it! » As far as I could see there seemed to be no reason for her to believe this, but she forced my Father to ring the hospital, and sure enough this person had indeed died. For the next few months my mother was devastated and heartbroken, and she was kept sedated by her doctor. Anyway, to cut a very long story short, one night about three months later (it was a Sunday evening, and I remember that I was watching ‘Maverick’ on the telly), the phone rang and my mother disappeared for about half and hour. When she came back I asked who it was … and she said that it was ‘him’ (her lover). 

I won’t go into details of what he said, but he phoned again and again, until the pattern of these phone calls slipped back into a mirror image of the calls she was receiving before he had died. Not every day … but most weekdays. This went on for some four to five years, and my mother kept a ‘five year diary’ of her conversations, which I still have in my possession.  It is curious, but at such a young age one comes to accept such things as completely ‘normal’ after a while.  I never really knew if the person on the phone was who she said it was, but I know for sure that she believed she was in contact with her dead lover. I heard the phone ring … and at the time I believed totally (once I even answered the phone when she was out … and heard only a sound like the rushing wind on the line. She had told me that ‘he comes on the wind’, so I hung up quickly … suddenly scared). Now, much older, I am not so sure. As I said, these events must be set within the framework of a complex ‘real-life’ situation. I was told many things which I now doubt are true, but I was never able to find out the truth.

In 1994 I was prostrate on the bed upstairs in the condo that I lived in. My fiancé, a commercial diver, had been killed unexpectedly in a diving accident a few weeks before and I was devastated. It was the middle of the day and all I could do was lay on the bed and cry. The telephone rang. I picked it up and was stunned to hear my grandmother’s voice. She said « Valerie? » 

 I replied « Mony? » I was stunned. 

She said, « You get up out of that bed right now, do you understand me?” 

I said « Yes, Mony, » and then nothing. It was a very static-y call and there was no dial tone. She was just gone. Her voice sounded like it was very far away. She had died about 8 months before.  I will never forget that as long as I live. If it was a hoax, how did the caller know that I was upstairs in my bed (I was home alone) and upset? I was standing there with the phone in my hand, amazed.  That WAS my grandmother who called, in a time of great emotional distress. It was one of the defining moments of my life.

I am blown away.  I, and my family, have been tormented by something that happened after my mother’s death, and it happened to me.  I never looked into it further, because I probably didn’t want to know.  But it has stayed with me and I can’t get it out of my mind. In July of 1997 my mother died.  She had been ill for a while and was frequently irritable and angry.  She particularly didn’t like answering phone devices, nor did she like to leave messages.  My mom used to say, whether you answered the phone or not, « It’s me! » At the time, and after her death, I did not have the usual answering machine.  Rather, I received my messages through U.S. West Telemessaging, where you pick up the receiver and you hear a pulsing sound telling you that you have a message.  You then call a service and retrieve your calls, whereupon you get a recording that tells you the date and time the call was « received. »  After my mother’s death, I had a surgery (one she probably wouldn’t have approved of).  Anyway, when I was in the hospital, I received a call–and when I got home, the telemessaging recording told me the call took place (don’t have date in front of me at present), which was over a month after her death.  The message was simply, in an irritated voice, « IT’S ME! » 

I was so shocked, I dropped the phone.  Still not well from the surgery, I immediately called my sister, brother and father.  My brother signed up for the same service, so that I could « transfer » the message directly into his message bank for his calls.  I did so.  My brother lives in another city from me.  My brother was very close to my mother and was living with her and my dad prior to her death.  My brother, my sister and my father, all said there was absolutely no question that this was Mom’s voice.  

While I am neither a believer nor a nonbeliever of such things, the rest of my family would be far closer to nonbelievers.  We were, to say the least, dumbfounded. It didn’t make sense to me that she would leave such a message—it didn’t say anything, and yet, it clearly said it was « her » because only she would have left such a message.  Take that together with the fact that her voice is unmistakable, it is really shocking. Both my brother and I used a phone recording device and tape recorded this message onto a microcassette for prosperity.  

Looking back on it now though, I wish I would have delved into the matter right at that time, because it would have been simple to prove that this message did come in AFTER HER death, and maybe even a voice match could have been done (if there is such a thing).   By the way, I don’t know if I told you this or not, but when this phone message came through, I was in the hospital having a surgical procedure I am quite sure my Mother would disapprove of.  My brother doesn’t know about this…but my sister does.  So the impression both of us got was it was her saying « IT’S ME! »  Kind of like, don’t for one minute think I don’t know what you are up to!

Le 41/12/2019 je fini le travail et décide d’aller mettre des fleurs sur la tombe des parents avec mon fils (maman décédée le 24/0/2019), le recueillement au cimetière comme d’habitude difficile et je lui parle et je lui demande des signe puis on prends la voiture et on rentre sur le chemin mon portable sonne et sur l‘écran de la voiture stupéfaction à ne pas y croire, mon fils qui cale et qui me dit maman je ne peux l’expliquer (le téléphone de maman qui m’appelle et qui raccroche aussitôt) bien-sur j’essaie de rappeler mais rien sachant que le téléphone est coupé depuis 8 mois … Que dois comprendre ????? Cependant j étais bien et contente.

This happened to my older brother, Matt, about a year ago, just a few weeks after my eldest brother Jeremy’s best friend, Joe, died of heart trouble. Matt received a telephone call from a person that sounded exactly like Joe. He said something like, « Matt, it’s Joe. Is Jeremy home? Something really strange is going on. » Matt freaked out and could hardly answer, « No, he’s not. Sorry. » Then the phone hung up and Matt looked at the caller I.D.; it read, « Out of area. » So Matt tried *69, but they were unable to trace the call. We never got another telephone call from Joe. It still scares Matt to think of it. — Janaye S.

My husband lost his grandfather a long time ago. But just recently he has been experiencing something really weird. He has seen his grandfather’s name on our caller ID. So we thought someone was calling from his grandfather’s house. That was the first time, and no one was even home. Just today, for the second time, he was at work and clearly, along with co-workers, heard the phone ring. He answered it on the first ring, but only heard a dial tone. When he looked at the phone’s directory, which has no caller ID, but lists who he has called, he saw the grandfather’s name again. What could this mean? How could it be happening? — Leroy L.

One of my clients related this story to me a few years ago. At the time she worked for the Department of Social Services and one of the services she offered was checked for emergency expenses. She had issued a check for $100 to one of her clients for utilities and was about to close the file when her phone rang. On the line was the woman to whom the check was issued. The woman sounded vague and distracted, but clearly said, « I won’t be needing that $100 after all. » My client made a note of it and went on with her other work. That evening at home she was reading the newspaper when she saw the obituary of the woman she had talked with on the phone. She had died the previous day! – Mary B.

Three years ago, my mother passed away. We were very close and I miss her daily. Last Christmas evening, I went to bed and woke up to the phone ringing. I answered it and a voice that was very familiar to me said, « Hello there. » It was my mother’s voice. The line had a static noise and the sound cut in and out. I said, « This can’t be you, mom. You’re dead. » She said, « Oh, come on now. » She sounded a bit agitated, and then we were cut off. My 16-year-old daughter was sleeping in the next room and also heard the phone ring that night. I know it was my mother’s voice; she has a Norwegian accent. It was her. — Bonnie O.

About three nights ago, my husband got a phone call at 1:57 a.m. I remember it was a very stormy night. He answered and the phone was giving him little bleeps, but nobody would say anything. Then the phone went dead. I was asleep by the phone, but I never heard it ring, and I always hear the phone ring. Only he heard it. He called the number back on the caller ID, and it said, « This number is not in service. » The number is still on our caller ID.

The same night, at 4:00 a.m., his mother, who lives about an hour away, also got a phone call. Her son, who was asleep in the house, also never heard the phone ring. She heard the same bleeps and it was the same caller ID. She called it back and it was also a not-in-service number. About 5:00 a.m., his mother was lying in her bed and she saw a man standing at the foot of her bed looking at her. She said he was tall and thin, had dark eyes and dark clothes. He stared at her for a minute and then darted across the room and disappeared.

We are very freaked out about this and cannot figure out why this happened all on the same night, and nothing like this has happened before. Why did I not hear the phone ring and my husband did the phone is right in our bed? My husband lost his brother about six months ago — a tragic death. — Vicki H.

I just found out that one of my phones calls the other day was a dead lady.I was at my mom’s house and I was calling a friend who lived nearby. She was at her cousin’s house. So I looked up the number in the phone book. It was the only « Owens » in the phone book, so I knew it was my friend’s cousin’s number. I called and it didn’t even ring, but an old lady answered. She said, « Hello. » I asked, « Is Amelia there? » (Amelia is my friend Jessica’s cousin.) The old lady said, « No, dear. Amelia isn’t here, sweetie. I should be expecting her any minute now. » So I thought nothing of it and hung up. I thought they left for a bit. I knew Amelia lived with her mom at her grandparents’ house. What I didn’t know is what I found out when I talked to Jessica. I told Jessica about it and she said, « Amelia’s grandma is dead. And we were there all day long. We were sitting right by the phone. It never rang all day. »  — Crystal S.

I was staying at a cottage in North Wales (UK) in 1997. The cottage was owned by my best friend’s grandfather and was in a fairly isolated location, but still on tracks which lead to the main road. It was very basic, but it had electricity and a boiler for hot water, although no central heating. It was a three double bedroom property with no outhouses. There were six of us staying in this cottage one Easter weekend and we spent much of our time lazing around and visiting local sites of interest.

We decided one Saturday morning to go out to the local market, calling off for a pub lunch on the way back. While sitting at the pub eating our meal, other friends of ours, who were staying in a nearby town, entered the pub and sat at our table saying they were glad that we were still here and they hadn’t missed us. When asked how on earth they knew where we were, they said they had phoned the cottage where we were staying and the lady who answered the phone told them.

There was no one else staying at the cottage. There was no cleaner or any other person tied to the cottage. I spent the remainder of our time there sleeping with the hall lights on and have never returned. — Clare E.

I have never been a believer in ghosts, but after what happened to me, I can’t help but reconsider my position on this. I am a telephone sales representative and at the time of this occurrence, I was marketing a phone service. Here is what happened to me at work.

On Thursday, April 26 I made a sales call to Pennsylvania. It started just like any other call. « Yes, I need to speak to Mr. or Mrs. B_____. » The woman identified herself as Mrs. B_____ and I continued on with the normal sales call. She seemed very interested and asked a lot of questions, but when I came to the decision making a part, she quickly stopped me, insisting that I had to talk to her husband. Her objections were the same every time I attempted to close. She explained that she had tried to get him to change phone carriers before, but in her words, « he was married to AT&T and refused to make any changes. »

She also quickly pointed out that since his retirement he spent a great deal of time fishing and was not easy to get in touch with, and it would be best to try early in the morning before he left for his favorite hobby. She also indicated that their long distance bills were getting out of hand because he made lengthy calls to North Carolina and felt that the plan would be beneficial to them. On that note, I decided that perhaps this was worth a callback and told her that I would call her husband the next day.

The next day I made a call that I will probably never forget! On the callback, the husband did answer the phone. I introduced myself in the normal fashion and explained that I had been talking to his wife the previous day and she had suggested that I speak to him. You can imagine the shock and horror, when he distraughtly stated to me, « Lady, I don’t know who you were talking to, but my wife died and I am not in any mood to speak to anyone! » With that, he quickly hung up the phone. — Mary B.

The familiar telephone seems the least likely thing you’d associate with the supernatural, but over the years, there have been literally hundreds of reports of ghosts ringing up people, and that is the subject of this collection of Strange But True tales: phone calls from the dead…

In 1969, a New Jersey rock musician named Karl Uphoff received a phone call from his grandmother; nothing unusual about that you might think, but Karl’s Gran had passed away two days earlier. Karl was eighteen at the time of the phantom call, and there had always been a special bond between him and his Gran, who was deaf. She used to phone up Karl’s friends and ask: ‘Is Karl There?’ but because she knew she wouldn’t be able to hear the reply, Karl’s Gran would then say, ‘Tell him to come home at once.’ Karl’s friends were always irritated by the deaf old woman’s constant calling, and used to tell Karl he shouldn’t have given his Gran their phone numbers.

One day Karl’s Gran passed away and the teenager was naturally upset, but he had no leanings towards spiritualism, and obviously never expected to hear from his Gran ever again. But Karl was wrong. One evening in 1969, Karl was with his friends in the basement of an apartment in Montclair, New Jersey, when the mother of his friend came down and said that Karl was wanted on the phone. When Karl went upstairs he talked to the old woman and realised he was talking to his Gran, who had recently died. Before he could ask her how she could talk to him when she was dead, the woman hung up. Many more calls followed, but on each occasion, when Karl’s Gran was asked how she was still able to communicate, or what the ‘other side’ was like, the old woman would hang up. In the end, the calls stopped, but Karl felt that his Gran was still watching over him.

Another chilling phone call from beyond the grave allegedly occurred in Wilmslow, Cheshire in 1977, when a young woman named Mary Meredith received a call at her home from her cousin Shirley in Manchester. Mary shuddered when she heard Shirley’s voice on what sounded like a bad line, because only minutes before, Mary had received a telephone call from her aunt telling her of Shirley’s tragic death in a car crash just an hour ago. Again, before the phantom caller could be questioned, she hung up.

In 1995, a radio station in Liverpool, England featured a medium named James Byrne who came on a phone-in show each week. Mr Byrne was a psychic who claimed he could convey messages from the next world, and was a very popular guest. In fact he was so popular, callers would jam the switchboard at the station whenever he was on air. One woman named Mrs Wilson of Ellesmere Port rang the radio station, desperate to get in touch with James Byrne because her grandfather had died a year ago and she wanted to know if he had any messages for her. Unfortunately, Mrs Wilson couldn’t get through to the medium because the lines were jammed solid, and so she just sat back and listened to Mr Byrne on the radio show. Around 10 o’clock that night, just as the News At Ten news programme was starting, Mrs Wilson’s phone rang. The woman answered the call, and a familiar, but distant-sounding voice said, ‘Look love, I’m all right. It’s great over here; I’m with your Grandmother and all the other nice people who have passed on.’

Mrs Wilson was naturally astounded, for she recognised that the caller was her late grandfather. ‘Granddad – is that you?’ she muttered. Her legs felt weak.

‘Yeah love. Now listen: stop living in the past and reminiscing. Go forward. I’m still around looking over you. I’ve got to go now love. Give my love to the kids. Bye.’ said the old man’s voice and it faded away until Mrs Wilson could just hear the purring tone.

Mrs Wilson wondered if someone was perpetrating a sick joke, so she dialled 1471 on the phone in order to get the caller’s number. But the automated voice on the line quoted Mrs Wilson’s own number. In other words, the call had originated from her own telephone. Mrs Wilson had no extension, and was therefore convinced that her grandfather had somehow called her from beyond the grave to let her know he was okay.

In the late 1980s, a Manchester woman in England named Sadie lost her husband in tragic circumstances. Her husband left her a considerable amount of money in his will, and Sadie and her 7-year-old daughter Abigail subsequently moved to a graceful old cottage just outside Sandbach. The landlord asked for a modest sum as a deposit on the cottage, and Sadie wondered why the rent was so low on such a desirable rustic residence. She and Abigail gave the dusty cob-webbed place a good spring-cleaning, and later had it decorated. Sadie fell in love with the peaceful rear garden, which had a sad-looking weeping willow in the middle of its neglected lawn. Three months after moving into the Cheshire country house, Abigail excitedly told her mother one December evening that she had just seen ‘a kind old woman’ in a long black dress standing beneath the willow tree, smiling at her. Abigail said the woman waved once and faded away.

Abigail was a quiet, honest child who was not in the habit of imagining things and embroidering fanciful stories, so Sadie was a little unnerved by her daughter’s tale of the ghostly woman. However, there were no further sightings of the phantom, although many strange things did occur at the cottage not long afterwards.

One night, Abigail said she felt dizzy. Sadie put her daughter to bed earlier than normal and surmised that the girl was just over-tired, as she had risen earlier than normal that day and had helped out in the garden, digging the weeds. Sadie decided she would have an early night herself, and retired to her bedroom with a book. An hour had passed when there was a knock at the door of the cottage. Sadie was naturally alarmed and wondered who could be calling at 11 pm. She went downstairs to the hall in her slippers and night-gown and nervously asked who was there.

A well-spoken man replied that he was a doctor and that he had been called out to examine a girl named Abigail.

Sadie unbolted the door and opened it. A tall grey-haired man stood on the doorstep carrying a briefcase. He looked at a card in his hand and said, ‘You are Sadie?’ and he apparently knew Sadie’s surname.

Sadie explained that she had not called him out, but invited the physician indoors anyway. She took him up to Abigail’s bedroom and the doctor gave the child a quick examination. He pointed out the rash on Abigail’s arms and after shining his penlight torch in her eyes, he told Sadie it looked as if Abigail had the symptoms of meningitis. The doctor drove the girl and her shocked mother to hospital where Abigail was positively diagnosed as suffering from the potentially fatal condition. Because the brain disease was caught in its early stages, the antibiotics and other medicines luckily overcame the life-threatening condition.

But who had contacted the doctor to call him out to Abigail? Sadie was really puzzled by that mystery. She didn’t have an idea at the time, but something later happened which gave her a good idea who the eerie helper was.

In 1989, a handsome middle-aged man called at Sadie’s cottage. He said his car had ran out of petrol and he asked the widow if she could possibly lend him a few pounds so he could go and fill his can at the filling station down the road. The man offered to leave an expensive-looking watch as a security and promised he’d return later to repay Sadie. Sadie kindly gave the sincere-looking man a five-pound note and he seemed very grateful. He walked off to the filling station with his can and loaded it with petrol, then returned to his Ford Fiesta, which was parked up at a lane near to Sadie’s cottage. When the man had emptied the can of petrol into the Fiesta’s fuel tank, he went over to the cottage and gave the widow the change from the five-pound note she had lent him. The man said he would set off right away to get the money he owed her, and although Sadie told him that wouldn’t be necessary, the man left. He returned about six that evening with a bunch of carnations and the money he owed Sadie. The cottager was flattered, and when she accepted the roses, the man kissed her hand then turned, ready to walk away. Sadie suddenly said to him: ‘Wait; you forgot your wristwatch.’

The man said ‘Oh yes,’ and walked back up the path to her.

Sadie said to the man, ‘Come in and have a cup of tea.’

It had been quite some time since Sadie had had some male company, and she did find the man attractive. Over a cup of tea he told her that he was from Middlewich and that his name was Tim. In the course of the long conversation that stretched until 9 pm, Tim said that the girl he had gone steady with for four years had recently left him for someone else, and that he was now wary of getting involved with the opposite sex again. Sadie advised him not to become a recluse because of his experiences with one girl, and hinted that she was still looking for someone too. Sadie was almost forty but looked about thirty-five. Tim said he was twenty-six. Sadie thought the age gap between them wasn’t too big, and she and Tim ended their chat that evening by swapping telephone numbers.

Two days afterwards, Sadie telephoned Tim but got a steady disconnected tone. She wondered if the young man had only given her a ‘dead’ number just to appease her. She didn’t know what to think, but she hoped she would see or hear from Tim again. A few days later, the phone in Sadie’s cottage started to ring. Abigail picked it up as Sadie was racing towards it. The girl said, ‘It’s for you Mum.’

Sadie grabbed the receiver and said :’ Hello?’

Tim didn’t reply. It was the voice of an old woman, and she said some horrible things about Tim from Middlewich. She said he was a bigamist and a confidence trickster who knew about the large amount of money that had been left to Sadie by her late husband.

Sadie was stunned by the claims and a little heartbroken. She asked the caller to identify herself, and the old woman told Sadie that her landlord would provide her with that answer. Tim paid another visit to Sadie one Sunday evening in the following week. This time he brought more flowers and a bottle of wine to the cottage. Sadie asked Tim about the strange telephone call she had received and what the anonymous old woman had said. When Tim heard about the caller’s allegations about him being a bigamist and a conman, the young man suddenly got up, put on his coat, and left the cottage without saying a word. Sadie never set eyes upon Tim again, and several months later she learned from a neighbour that Tim was regarded as a rather shady character who had spent six months in prison for fraud. He was also rumoured to have two wives; one in Crewe and another in Chester. He was also currently living with a mistress in Middlewich.

When Sadie’s landlord visited her one day, she told him about the mysterious old woman who had telephoned with her strange tip-offs. The landlord seemed very nervous all of a sudden. Sadie told him that the uncanny caller had said that the landlord knew her identity.

In the end, the landlord said that previous occupants in the Sandbach cottage had reported seeing the ghost of an old woman. The former tenants had also told him of creepy late-night nuisance calls from an old woman who gave advice and warnings. The landlord said he initially thought the stories were just exaggerations and excuses to leave without paying the rent. Sadie promised her landlord she would not move out because she regarded the ghost as helpful and harmless. The landlord then told Sadie that an old spinster named Enid had died at the cottage five years back. She had lived in the cottage for some twenty years, and was something of a recluse. There were rumours that she had been jilted in her youth and had never bothered with men again. The only thing she lived for was the back garden. One afternoon she was found dead beneath the willow tree in the garden she had so lovingly tended. The coroner ruled that Enid had died from a massive stroke, but within months, the new tenants at the cottage reported seeing the spectre of an elderly woman crossing the lawn in the back garden one moonlit night. The landlord confessed that he also glimpsed Enid’s shade one wintry evening. He saw her glide across the snow-covered lawn, but when he went to investigate, there were no footprints in the virgin snow.

The ghost hasn’t phoned for a while, but whenever the phone rings, Sadie often wonders if its Enid calling. Sadie still hasn’t found Mr Right and although Abigail is now married, her mother doesn’t feel lonely, because she knows Enid is always around somewhere.

Mom died in 2013. Today, 10/14/19, would have been her 76th birthday. At 7:06pmPST tonight, my landline cordless phone rang. I answered, said hello and heard both static and wind sounds.Then I heard my mom’s voice say my name, only once, then a dial tone. Caller ID showed (000)000-0000, call lasted for 2 minutes. Also, on 4/16/15, my daughters birthday, I received a similar call from my dead mother, but that call came through on an old flip cell phone that had NO SERVICE, and the battery was at ZERO%! SOMEHOW, that call got recorded on the inoperable phone. I charged it up, and took it to two of my sisters and played the message. They both cried IMMEDIATELY upon hearing it. EVERYONE knows the sound of their own mother’s voice, right? I haven’t told our Dad about this. I’m not scared, just upset. I don’t understand how, or why this is happening, but it’s TRUE, it’s NOT a scam, or a joke! I’m 59, from California, don’t drink, or use drugs, and am 100% sane. Probably no one will even read this, but I wrote all this down in my Bible, and here on this website. I miss you Mom, Happy Birthday, and we love you!!

Another example comes from the famous author Dean Koontz.  On 20 September 1988, he received a strange phone call from a female voice which simply said: “Please, be careful!” The voice sounded very distant and she repeated the warning three times, sounding more distant with each warning. Koontz stated that although he didn’t know who it was, the person on the phone sounded very much like that of his mother. However, his mother died almost 20 years ago.

Two days later Dean Koontz went to visit his father, Ray,  who resided in a facility. Ray had some behavioral issues and recently assaulted another resident. When Dean met his father, Ray grabbed a knife from the drawer.  As Dean wrestled the knife away from his father, the police were called. The police arrived just as Dean was walking back into the hall with a knife in his hand. To the police, he looked like the perpetrator. He was repeatedly told to drop the knife, but Dean froze in fear. But he quickly realized that if he did not drop the knife the police would likely shoot him. Dean dropped the knife and the situation became resolved.

Dean looks back at the phone call from two days prior and recalls how it had made him more vigilant. It possibly saved his life. Was it his deceased mother trying to help him?

Sometimes like in the case of Peck, the family receives a phone call from the phone of the deceased. It could come from a cell or a landline in the deceased’s uninhabited home. Other times just before the terminally ill patient dies they receive a phone call from a long departed loved one. In many instances the numbers had even been disconnected. But they still appeared on caller id. Every time the living picks up the phone all they hear on the other end is static. There have been instances of those who receive the calls recording them only to find voices in the recording that were not perceptible to the human ear at the time.

Here are two of the tales Mark Prebost had lived a good long life and had outlives most of his family and friends. Tragically he had outlived many of his children as well in reaching the ripe old age of 93. When he was diagnosed with prostate cancer he took it with a grain of salt. He would often say he lived longer than he would ever have thought, but still he would miss his family. He especially loved the parties. The disease ravaged the elderly man and the pain was severe and constant. His elderly daughter and her children took care of him in his home, rotating the times they stayed with him until the cancer that had spread through his body finally took his life one cold October day. The daughter was relieved since her elderly father had gone through so much pain in the last few months, and even though she did not believe in an afterlife she comforted herself with the fact he was no longer suffering.

His funeral was sparse since he had few friends and relatives left alive. And after the funeral those who did attend went to the daughter’s house for a memorial service and dinner. As the night wore on they kept getting phone calls with dead air. Finally the daughter noticed the caller ID. The calls were coming from her father’s house. There was no one there, she had the keys. They received a few more calls during the evening and she let the answering machine pick them up.

The next day out of curiosity she reviewed the final two phone calls that the machine had recorded. She heard on the tape the faint voice of her father saying, “It’s ok Margie, I’m ok” and “Your Momma is with me, all is good”. Like so many EVPs the speech is faint and hard to hear. But Marge was sure of what she heard. Her father was saying goodbye and letting her know that he still existed in some form. A form that was safe, happy and with the wife that he had loved and lost so many years ago.

It did not look good for Lisa. The teenager had gone through years of treatment but the anguish of the chemotherapy seemed to be all for naught. The leukemia had finally overwhelmed her body and she was in the last days of her short young life. Her father sat in vigil beside her, holding her hand and wiping her brow as she sweat while the final battle raged within her fragile body. Her mother had passed a few years earlier in a horrific car crash. In those last days her father sat by powerless as Lisa cried out for her mother. He tried to comfort her but it seemed that his presence, even though ever caring, was not enough. As the father sat with her on her last night with a nurse by her side the phone rang. He left Lisa a lone with the nurse for a few moments to answer it, but on the other side there was a large amount of static. He thought for a second that through the static he had heard a woman’s voice say something but it was indiscernible. After he turned the phone off he checked the caller ID to see who it was that had called. The answer stopped him in his tracks.

The phone number was that of his house five years ago. The number had long been disconnected, right after the death of his wife. He tried to call back but got the familiar robotic woman’s voice advising him that the number was indeed no longer in service. Immediately he was called back into the room by the nurse. His daughter was passing. She died within a few minutes of the mysterious phone call. A phone call that he still believes was made by his long deceased wife. And upon reflection he is sure the faint words he had heard through the static had said, “She will be safe with me”.