Incoming Call (Unknown)
I wasn’t planning to write about this, mostly because I still don’t have a good explanation and I’m not sure I want one. But a few people I’ve mentioned it to said I should document it somewhere, if only to have a record in case it keeps happening.
About three weeks ago, I started getting calls from a number I didn’t recognize. That’s not unusual by itself — spam calls are constant — except this one didn’t behave like spam. No voicemail. No repeated dialing. Just one call a day, always at the same time: 9:17 PM.
The first night I ignored it. The second night I let it ring out again. By the third night I answered, expecting either a robocall delay or silence.
There was no delay. Someone was already there.
Not speaking. Just… present.
I could hear what sounded like very faint room noise. No breathing, no movement, just that soft electrical hum you notice when a phone line is open. After about ten seconds, the call disconnected on its own.
No callback option. When I tried to dial the number, I got an automated message:
“This number is not in service.”
That should have been the end of it.
But the next night, at exactly 9:17 PM, it called again.
Same result. Silence. Low ambient noise. Disconnect after ten seconds.
At that point I assumed it was some kind of spoofing glitch. I blocked the number.
The call still came through the next evening.
Not from a new number — from the same one I had blocked. My phone displayed it exactly the same way, same area code, same seven digits. I checked my block list while it was ringing. It was still there.
I answered again, more out of curiosity than concern.
This time there was a sound.
Not a voice. A click.
Like someone pressing a button on an old landline.
Then the call ended immediately.
That’s when I started paying closer attention.
I checked my call logs going back months. The number had never contacted me before. No connection to anyone I knew. Reverse lookup returned nothing — not even a spam flag, which is rare by itself.
I decided to test something. The next night, I sat waiting a few minutes before 9:17 with the phone already unlocked in my hand.
At 9:16, my screen lit up.
No vibration. No ringtone. Just the incoming call screen appearing silently, like it had skipped the part where a call actually comes in.
I answered before it could “ring.”
For a second, there was nothing at all — not even the usual background hum. Then I heard what I can only describe as a recording of movement. Fabric shifting. A chair leg scraping lightly across a floor.
And then, very clearly, three taps.
Not random tapping. Deliberate. Evenly spaced.
Like someone knocking on a surface to get attention.
After that, the same disconnect tone.
I checked the call duration: 00:09.
Every call so far had lasted between nine and eleven seconds. No exceptions.
At this point I did what most people would do and asked friends if they were messing with me. No one claimed responsibility, and honestly, the logistics don’t make sense anyway. There’s no number to trace, no way to return the call, and no app on my phone shows anything unusual running in the background.
A few nights later, something changed again.
Instead of ending at ten seconds, the call stayed connected.
I didn’t say anything. Neither did whoever — or whatever — was on the other end.
After about twenty seconds, I noticed a faint sound I hadn’t heard before.
Breathing.
Not into the phone. Not close to the microphone. Just somewhere in the space. Slow. Calm. Like someone standing in a room, waiting.
I finally said, “Hello?”
The breathing stopped.
The line went completely silent.
And then — I don’t know how to phrase this better — I heard what sounded like my own voice, very quietly, as if played back from across a room:
“Hello?”
The call disconnected immediately after.
Since then, the number hasn’t called again. No final message. No escalation. Just… stopped.
But here’s the part that made me decide to write this down tonight.
I was scrolling through my contacts earlier, looking for something unrelated, when I noticed there’s now an entry saved that I definitely didn’t create.
No name. Just a number.
It’s the same one that had been calling me.
And under it, in the notes field, there’s a single line:
“9:17 was the first time you answered.”
I checked the edit history.
The contact was created yesterday.
At 9:17 PM.
3 responses to “Ep. 6: Incoming Call (Unknown)”
The part where you found it in your contacts gave me chills. Technology failing is one thing—recognition is another. That crosses into something else entirely.
This sounds like an old routing glitch or recycled number issue. Phone companies reuse lines all the time, and weird overlaps can happen. Still creepy, though.
I work late, and now I’m going to think about this every time my phone lights up at 2 AM. Thanks for the new paranoia.