Gizmodo
A grieving widower claims to have been receiving calls and text messages from beyond the grave. Frank Jones, whose wife Sadie died five years ago, says he has been plagued by SMS messages and missed calls since she was buried—her beloved cellphone in the coffin beside her.
The weirdest part of all of this is that 20 years ago, when Frank and his family moved into their house in the British resort town of Blackpool, they were plagued by paranormal behavior. Doors were slammed, bedclothes pulled off the kids while they slept, taps were turned on—and all this was put down to a malevolent presence called "The Thing."
So, the Joneses called in Blackpool's answer to Ghostbusters, the Fleetwood Spiritualist Church, who cleansed the property of The Thing, according to them a spirit "trapped between two worlds." For five years everything was A-OK until the family was hit by a double tragedy: first the death of son Steven, then Sadie just three months later. After she was buried, the weirdness returned.
Shortly after his wife's death, Frank claims to have had a missed call on his mobile, which didn't ring. "The call was from my own home number, but there was nobody in the house," he explains. "When I went inside there was a smell like cigarettes which Sadie used to smoke and the smell of her perfume." The 59-year-old also claims that his late wife has been sending them all SMSes from beyond the grave. "There have been messages with words Sadie would say but there's no number." [The Register]
Comments
I am a paranormal investigator myself and this is interesting. Haven't heard of this before. I have seen entities affect electronics before, but not like this.
"I'm worm food. LOL!"
I read a story similar to this but it turned out that a kid at the funeral swiped the sim out of the dead person's phone and began calling the family. Kids do the funniest things.
@sandmanfvr: "paranormal investigator"!? How many community colleges did you have to flunk out of to receive that prestigious title??
I only kid, of course!
@sandmanfvr: If i give you my credit card number, will you provide me blurry images of either big foot or Louis Anderson?
this trend of getting burried with your cell, pretty cool i guess. This way after the second coming or ragnarok or whatever, when the dead walk the earth, we'll be able to find each other more quickly!
I will make sure to be buried with my iPhone.. that way since I won't have a body temp I wont be able to use it lol. Though I would have eternity to let edge download things... no more need for 3G!
The cell phone she was buried with must have had one of those micro nuclear reactor batteries which of course leaked and therefore caused the corpse to reanimate and start sending txt messages:
"I'm alive, bring brains and shovel"
Sample Texts from wife:
"OMFG, my BFF is here 2!"
"I saw U W/ the NSFW Giz post, FTW?!"
So... why did they bury her with her phone, again? That kinda' got glossed over.
"im tellng cops you did this 2 me. ROFL april fools I luv u oxoxox"
@faabshaam: I TLKD W GOD. THNK I MISS U 4VR. :(
this is just weird. If she died so long ago, she probably was buried with a Moto StarTak phone, with a 2 hour battery life.
Dammit. She gets reception buried 6 feet under and I can't get a single bar of reception in my office. What a cruel injustice.
You've got to be fucking kidding me!?
I can see it now, somebody at the coffin paying respects, they see the cell phone in the casket, takes it and says to his buddy, "Hey, I have a really good idea for a joke..."
Oooh. Spooky. Poe wrote a great story about this.
I think it was entitled "The Tell-Tale Cellphone."
Unless her cell phone is using her decomposing corpse as a power source, that dead woman has stumbled on some rather impressive battery tech. Actually, using her own corpse to power her cell phone would also be kind of impressive. I bet she could parlay that into a pretty sweet position at Nokia or Apple if she were so inclined.
@sandmanfvr: The other day I saw a cloud that looked like Mrs. Pacman for like... a second. What do you think that means???!!!
I see it now...funeral homes will start offering Motorola KASKET's, the trendiest phone for your recently deceased.
"Can you hear me now?"
"There's no number"? So there's no indication it's from the wife except that the messages "have words Sadie would say"? Brilliant...
The phone hasn't been recharged since she was buried, and presumably service has been cut. Of course, if the answer is that ghosts can do anything, then she didn't need to be buried with a cell phone for the prank texts to be alarming to this nitwit.
Oh the roaming charges...
Some people will tend to find the "paranormal" in their experiences.
wish u were here
instead of me
Silly how some people will believe anything they want to.
I'm sorry but, April Fools was 2 days ago.
Creepy shit, I just got chills up my spine even though I don't believe in most of this junk.
I already get annoyed at getting text messages from people who are alive. If any of you fuckers start texting me from the grave, I'm digging you up and breaking your thumbs....and taking your jewelery. (Hey, I need something to hock to make it worth my while)
@Samifumi:
That's wayyyyyyyy good! No doubt
Remember that time there was a storm and the old lady kept getting strange calls and heard heavy breathing on the other end? She called the telephone company for assistance, but little could be rendered. Then it turned out that the storm had knocked over a telephone pole and the line had fallen on top of her husbands grave, and that's where the calls were coming from! Yeah, that was a good Twilight Zone episode indeed.
@mikestan86: Hahah
I'll bet the CEO of Meizu will be sending out vaporware iPhone clone updates long after he's gone, too.
Let's say I have a hobby. It might be a little strange, let's just pretend its grave robbing...
If I ever found a cell phone, while grave robbing, I don't think I could resist the urge to send some texts to anyone labeled "husband" "mom" or "GF". It would just be too great a temptation.
Even stuff like "You need to prove to god you love me by giving away all your money... in cash... behind that bush."
@IKEACAR: That should read KASKT - you know Motorola only allows for one vowel in their product names.
scarbrtj at 10:57 AM said:
"Oooh. Spooky. Poe wrote a great story about this.
I think it was entitled 'The Tell-Tale Cellphone.'"
No, no no. It was entitled "The Tell-Tale Telephone". Poe would never waste perfectly good alliteration like that.
Maybe some telemarketer should leave his company business card near the grave. She could make a lot of money making calls about changing long-distance providers. Straight diz-zumb.
I wonder if Motorola will do the same when they die.
is the message "help, I've been buried alive"?
Not funny...?@Johnny Chimpo:
Well, i guess buried with phone is better than, what egyptians did, burying the owner's dead body, along with a servant(s) (after killing them ofcourse!), favorite pet, clothes, perfumes etc...
Nothing in this story is inexplicable. The call from home when "nobody was there" - obviously someone was. The smells of cigarettes and perfume? Lots of people smoke, and I'm pretty sure the dead wife didn't have a monopoly on the brand of perfume. Texts from beyond the grave? Either somebody took the SIM out of the phone, or they cloned it.
Clearly this poor guy is susceptible to believing his dead wife is still around, and somebody is having (a rather cruel) joke at his expense.
Wait until he gets the bill...
@paulinsf: good going guy... Gizmodo gold
Seriously, why is he paying the bill? If she wanted to come back to life, she can do it without burdening him with the bill.
Comment on Dead Woman Buried With Cellphone Allegedly Sends Texts to Husband Aimee Semple MacPherson, a Bible-thumping preacher from the 1930s, is buried with a regular telephone, having told her parishioners that she expected to rise again soon. She is in a cemetary in the Silverlake district of LA and the phone bill is regularly paid by her church. The number was listed in the 1970s and probably still is. I used to call. It rang, but no one answered.
oh, and what carrier can provide coverage with a person buried 6 feet under? That's kinda impressive.
ahhh... nothing like coming home to a mix of cigarettes and perfume.
He's still paying the bill five years later?
zomg I get liek 4 bars in here
Maybe they should put some bars above ground stupid fukkers.
TLKD W ST PETR, U NOT ON LST, BUY ASBSTS UNDRWR
I have the Nokia phone that's in the picture. It's kind of freaking me out now.
that dude has seen way too much twilight zone.
I've received calls from 000-000-0000, and other equally strange numbers, but than i remember its probably blockbuster telling me to...return no country for old men...