Whenever anyone tries to call my parents' phone, it just rings and rings. The actual phone at my parents' house does not ring, though. Also, sometimes it comes up as busy instead of ringing, even though my parents have said no one was on the phone.

Furthermore, when my parents call me using that phone, stranger things happen. Sometimes there is clicking on the phone line, or weird static. Several times, my mom has heard a message saying something like "invalid authorization" or whatever when calling people.

All of this happened a few days after my brother called me on that phone about something. We have not done anything illegal or expressed any intent to, but let's just say that, if certain hypothetical people believed what we were talking about, they would definitely want to know about it. It would be akin to us talking about having developed a working fusion reactor in secret, or something like that. I don't really want to go into what it is, because (a) nobody would believe me, and (b) I want this thread to be about the phone problem. If you really want to know, I'll talk on AIM about it (tchntm43).

After this conversation with my brother on that phone, the problems with that phone line started happening.

You might be asking why a bugged phoneline would give away all these obvious problems. My parents have a very old phone, the rotary type, and it might not work correctly with whatever bugging techniques are used today. Well, that's a possible theory, anyways. I honestly don't know what is going on, but given the timing of it, I am just a wee bit paranoid.

Pre-paid cell-phones are the way to go.

Tie a phosphorous flare to a foghorn then play that into the phone.

Akira > all.

I am just a wee bit paranoid.

You don't say! It's nothing. No one is listening to your phone conversations mainly because you're harmless. Besides, if you were up to something shady, you'd have to be an idiot to discuss it over the phone.

Of course, if your parents live within the beltway, then their phone likely is bugged.

It's an old phone, that's it. But thanks for the weirdest thread I've seen in a month. Good on ya!

Wow. That's very...odd. You may want to do some googling and see if you come up with anything similar. I've never heard of ANYTHING like this before so I'm thinking it may just be a problem with your phone service provider. Call and ask them if anything's up.

Failing that flee the country because the CIA is going to get you. :p

I know this sounds probably sounds really funny, but I think if you put yourself in my place, you'd be pretty freaked out, too.

I emailed my dad to tell him to call me, and I get no response. Not even an email response. This is very strange because my dad spends like 2/3 of his waking hours on the computer reading newsgroups and checking email periodically.

I tried calling my mom's cell phone. She normally keeps it turned off, but I figured that maybe I can leave a message, if she has that set up. When the automated service finally picked up, it said "The person you are trying to reach... 'Magic' (in the voice of a real person, like when you make a collect call and say your name) is not here right now. Leave a message blah blah blah." The person that said the name "magic" was definitely not my mom, nor do I have any idea who "magic" is. I did not dial the wrong number because I have it saved in my cellphone memory and I just press the button for her phone.

I tried dialing the house number again an hour ago to see if anything had been fixed. While it kept on ringing as usual, I swear I heard the sound of a phone picking up, followed by that sort of airy sound when the phones are connected but no one's talking. Both sounds were while it continued to ring. This freaks me out more than anything that has happened so far.

So basically, I cannot contact my parents right now, and when I try to, strange things happen. I just called my friend in that town and asked him to check out what is going on at the house.

My parents have a very old phone,

Might be time for a replacement. I'd say its more likely that either:
A: Your old phone is malfunctioning.
B: Your carrier moved to a new (perhaps digital or something)
way of transmiting calls that isn't completely compatitble
with the old phone.

Try a new phone. or call the phone company, and ask questions.

Kill Someone

First off, where do your parents live? where do you live? are you close to each other, do you use the same phone service provider?

there is such a thing called a dirty phone line. it means because of location, a problem with the line, animals hurting the lines, stupid kids messing up the lines, the service not being installed correctly, etc., it causes problems and/or static with the line. sometimes it will cause the line to completely malfunction, sometimes it won't work at all, sometimes it'll just act screwy.

my advice would be to A- replace the old phone with a normal phone (don't use portable phones, police scanners and anyone who has purchased a police scanner from radio shack or whever can pick up on your conversations.. trust me, I own one ;)), then B- call the telephone company and have them come out and check for problems on the line. if there is no problem and you've replaced the phone and it's still acting funny, then I'd probably worry ;)

Oh, and also, any of you are using DSL internet, that could be causing the problems too.

I don't think DSL would do what's happening to Tech's parents' phone. Usually when our DSL line goes whacko it will just refuse to work and won't give off anything.

I did just read something on Snopes that may relate to this. There's a new phone scam out there where the scammer will call and pretend to be in desperate need. He/She will then have you forward ALL your calls to a long distance number thus giving the scammer free long distance.

If you can get a hold of your folks see if they got a call similar to this recently. If they did, have them contact the phone company.

I also think you should have them get a new phone because that may also be causing the problem.

just test it out. I am going to kill *so and so* and see what happens