Posted on 09/12/2016 7:02:46 PM PDT by Fester Chugabrew
Several weeks ago the police arrived at our home in the middle of the day and informed us that a 911 call had originated from our residence. I was not home at the time, but my spouse, her friend, and some of my children were. Law enforcement was kindly informed that all was okay, and they moved on.
When I heard of this, the first thought was that my little grandson perhaps dialed the number inadvertently. He's a curious little guy who knows how to climb up, grab a phone, and start pushing buttons. Since it was entirely possible he could have done that, the inclination was to assume as much.
I called the phone company to request more information as to when and whether the call actually took place. Sure enough, they had a record of it. I asked them whether it was possible for such a thing to happen without physically picking up the phone and dialing the number, and they said there was such a thing as "ghost dialing."
The same thing has happened twice more now within the past week or two. In fact, at about 4:00 AM today, an officer came to our door to see if we were okay.
I called the police department later this morning to inquire and to let them know we are concerned about 911 calls originating from our home without intent. The officer who answered my call said we are not alone in experiencing those occurrences, and that it may be due to a cordless phone with low batteries that has 911 programmed in.
At this point we are certain it is not my grandson.
I called the phone company to report these incidents. Lo and behold, the technician - if that's what she is - said the same thing was happening to her son, and that this has been occurring more and more frequently of late.
For the record, we use a cordless phone and have been experiencing terrible static and intermittent signal for months, with our phone company (Frontier) being slack to address the issue even though we have the "inside the house" agreement when it comes to wiring. The phone batteries are good, and we have not programmed 911 into it.
So how does this happen? Is this something we should take to Alex Jones? Has it happened to you?
Happened to me. Cordless battery landline with dying batteries called 911.
Were the dying batteries in the handset(s) or the base unit? I am assuming the base unit does not need batteries because it receives 12v from the wall . . . but who knows?
In the handset. Charging on the base unit. However, not actually charging, because the batteries were too old and dying.
telephone switches are programmed to switch calls to 911 if
random digits are pressed
digits and noise are ‘seen’ by the switch
the ‘hookswitch’ is randomly pressed (or appears to be pressed)
The assumption is that a person partially incapacitated and trying - but failing to dial 911 - needs help.
You can talk with your local carrier to see of this programing is in place. I suspect your ‘static’ may be the issue. The likely culprit is the outside plant having a corrosion problem.
Does this happen after a rainstorm?
First thing you must do is get your line problems cleared up. You say it’s been going on for months. Do you have a log of when you’ve reported this problem? If so, report the problem again to the repair # and TELL them that if not cleared up this time you will be calling the PSC. If you do not have a log, talk really nice and try to play on the sympathy of the repair rep and see if you can draw out some info on your passed trouble reports, dates, times, when cleared etc. If they don’t fix it after this call, the next time you report it you will have a log so you can proceed as above.
I have Frontier also and I also had an ongoing, intermittant line problem. Although it took a while for it to get cleared, talking nice eventually got me a month’s free service.
Most likely associated with cordless equipment. If the handset or receiver has a 911 feature (one button dialing) , bleedover from a more powerful radio transmitter might cause it, like a gov’t radio in a police car, fire truck, Emergency whatever vehicle. I know of one instance that took weeks to track down the source of the trigger as it was random times of day.
On land lines, a person with a little knowledge of the phone system can make calls “from your house” very easily. Not spoofed, but really over your circuit. Not likely, unless there is a prankster in your area.
Listen to me and then take a tranquilizer. There are no Ghosts. None. That is a figment of imagination with no thread of reality. It is a sign of non reality mental illness. Someone is hacking your phone!!Pay for an expert fast!!
I came across this:
My neighbor, Rich Wyckoff, says the police officers were professional and polite; one officer took the time to tell him what was going on. The officer said HPD had received what they call a dropped 911 call from our house, meaning a phone call came into police communications with no caller on the other end.
When police dispatchers get dropped calls, they say they always phone back to speak to the homeowner to ask if he or she made the call and to determine the nature of the emergency.
When no one answers at the home where the 911 call originated, HPD routinely sends multiple units to investigate because of the possibility that crime might be underway in the home: a homeowner could have been murdered or be in a hostage situation or suffering medical emergency.
Did anyone from the police call first before they came out?
That happens with old cordless phones. Somebody had a bright idea midway through to 2.4 and 5 Ghz range and screwed up with a panic alarm.
Just pick up a AT&T or Panasonic set of phones from Costco for $100 and be done with it. You can have a phone in every room and the police won’t gun you down while you’re sleeping.
You may have pneumonia.
More from the article:
The repairman discovered that when our phone line was converted from copper wires to fiber optic, the phone company forgot to sever the old copper connection.
The phone company says the copper wires may have shorted because of dampness and condensation. When moisture gets into copper wires the resulting electrical short can send out pulses to the telephone company’s central exchange, which can kick off 911 calls. I know that sounds weird but Hawaiian Telcom says it happens.
The repairman disconnected the old copper connection and we have been free of phantom 911 calls ever since.
http://www.civilbeat.org/2015/11/denby-fawcett-ghost-911-calls-are-a-growing-problem/
I've been taken to task many times around here for complaining when I believed I was reading about improper police behavior. So my bona fides are in place when I say that I was impressed in this thread by how polite, concerned, safe and professional the cops have been in the reported incidents. Fair is fair.
Yes, we had one.
A policeman knocked on our door and when we answered he said they received a 911 call from our house stating we reported a missing child. We have no kids. He said okay, made the loop around our street, left.
Our cordless phone is brand new, brand new batteries. No one seems to know anything about the call.
My husband thinks some kids on a golf cart may have been playing on a cell phone and it pinged at our house. Doubt it but still, it was the strangest thing.
My car key fob used to set of the next door neighbors’ house alarm system. That was fun.
The only Samsung cell phone I ever owned butt-dialed 911 three times the first week I owned it. I didn’t own it a second week.
Line battery is not 12v. It is nominal 48v DC.
Daayzee Daayzee giiiivve meeee youuurrr aaannnsssuuurrr dooo
It’s possible the 911 system has an error that incorrectly populates your number when a neighbor calls 911.
There is a cellular monopole site behind my business. For a long time if somebody called 911 through that cell tower, it would populate my business line at the PSAP. They would always call my business line to see if everything was ok. Since I do work for them and know all the dispatchers, we’d laugh about it and they never sent an officer.
Once a federal burro cat called and accused me of calling her and hanging up. I told her I was the only person there and didn’t call her. She called me a liar and hung up on me.
“Did anyone from the police call first before they came out?”
Why would that matter?
I was always told they have to come to the house because calling back could reach an attacker who would just say that 911 was called in error.
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