Who might be calling? Where could they potentially be calling from and how can you ever trust that the person on the other end is actually who they claim to be? The fact that the telephone provides a conduit between these two separate places and realities is fertile soil for the imagination for the simple reason that it presents the user with countless potential unknowns. Then there is the fact that this other participant can be miles away in another location not always known to the caller. This, in and of itself had connotations of mediumship and necromancy for early users of the telephone.
Firstly there is the action of dialling, reciting or performing a specific set of actions to seemingly ‘conjure’ from thin air the voice of an invisible participant and then listen.
Over the decades various stories and urban legends have sprung up that link the telephone with the supernatural, in particular with ideas that this device could be a way of contacting and conversing with malevolent or supposedly unreachable and even deceased partners.Īs a machine that allows conversation with an unseen partner it was perhaps inevitable that the telephone should attract these kinds of stories. Estimated reading time - 7 minutes Creepy Calls and Accursed NumbersĪlmost from the moment that the telephone was first introduced to the public, it has been considered an instrument capable of strange and undoubtedly creepy uses.
