# Voices from cell phone? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 10, 2015, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voices-from-cell-phone/740122 "2015-12-10T21:45:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![DummyGladHands](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/49beb7/32.png) [@DummyGladHands](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DummyGladHands)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voices-from-cell-phone/740122/1 "2015-12-10T21:45:58Z")
Had the phone’s hot spot on for a few minutes, the device I was testing wouldn’t connect. Turned off hot spot. Hadn’t made a voice call for at least 4 hours. Phone sitting on my desk and I start hearing people talking. Blame my co-worker, nope, not her. Voices continue. Phone off, not powered off, but just sitting there with a black screen. Pick it up and damn, the voices are coming from the phone. Galaxy S3. Checked phone icon, nope, nothing on, checked all icons-nothing is on, not the internet not anything. I can hear what sounds like 2 women doing some kind of demonstration–maybe making crocheted flowers or something. Could not turn it off until I turned off the phone. Restart and now it’s fine, but what the hell was that?? ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voices-from-cell-phone/740122/2 "2015-12-10T21:49:32Z")
Did you have an app in the background open, maybe a browser? ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voices-from-cell-phone/740122/3 "2015-12-10T21:52:47Z")
that, or maybe the amplifier driving the speaker was picking up and demodulating AM radio? Similar to how some portable radios and computer speakers do. As I understand it, the speaker wires act as an antenna to pick up the AM signal, and the negative feedback circuit in the amplifier de-modulates it and amplifies the audio to the speaker. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voices-from-cell-phone/740122/4 "2015-12-10T23:08:19Z")
I started hearing radio from the speakers attached to my desktop PC. I re-routed the cables and it stopped. ---
**Author:** ![DummyGladHands](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/49beb7/32.png) [@DummyGladHands](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DummyGladHands)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2015, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voices-from-cell-phone/740122/5 "2015-12-11T17:25:16Z")
Ok, thanks to anyone who tried to help. It’s happened again today. Same woman or women’s voices, same subject. I had a couple of the youngsters in my office come and listen. NO windows open at all, NO YouTube, nothing at all “on” if you will, but they heard it, and proclaimed it spooky and nothing they’ve ever heard of. I Googled and got nothing at all. ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2015, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voices-from-cell-phone/740122/6 "2015-12-12T04:10:13Z")
I had this same thing happen to me two nights in a row a few weeks back. The phone was sitting on a table, I hadn’t touched it for an hour or more, when I started hearing a woman’s voice coming from the speaker. No apps running or anything, and I think what I was hearing was on a loop. The only way to make it stop was to turn off the phone. I was baffled. Glad to hear its not just me! ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2015, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voices-from-cell-phone/740122/7 "2015-12-12T05:45:53Z")
Okay, you have just set the stage for a Steven King book. Seriously, send him the idea and see what happens. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2015, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voices-from-cell-phone/740122/8 "2015-12-12T06:05:37Z")
Oooooh, I remember this one… but only halfway. Yeah, as **jz78817** said. It’s one of the types of electronic noise. The circuits in your phone are resonating at a frequency which picks up other electronic signals. It’s how radios pick up a station or another, by changing the resonant frequency of the circuit. Commercial electronic machines actually have to be able to pick up that kind of things, as part of the whole FDC-and-similar approval requirements; it says so in the manual of any electronics you buy, but most people never read it. I used to have a record player that picked up the ham radio of a neighbor if I played 33s while he was transmitting (so, I learned to play only 45s on Saturday afternoons), and a radiocasette which would pick up the radio from the nearby police station when the antena was set to 105FM and there was a casette halfway through. The results were the same, unexpected voices, but the actual mechanisms were exactly different. What I can’t recall, and I don’t have my Electronics classnotes any more, is which type was which. ---
**Author:** ![LiliesOfTheField](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c0e974/32.png) [@LiliesOfTheField](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LiliesOfTheField)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2015, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voices-from-cell-phone/740122/9 "2015-12-12T22:53:06Z")
This happened to me two days ago also. Similar phone. It sounded like two women giving a cooking or crafts demonstration. Like they were talking to each other, but not in a natural conversational style–more like fake talk-show conversation. At first I thought it was someone else’s telephone convo, but it wasn’t. I figured somehow it was an ad playing in the background or a you tube video but nothing I did turned it off except a restart. I wonder if it was a glitch due to some software update, since a few of us had it at the same time. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2015, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voices-from-cell-phone/740122/10 "2015-12-13T01:21:38Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Commercial electronic machines actually have to be able to pick up that kind of things, as part of the whole FDC-and-similar approval requirements; it says so in the manual of any electronics you buy, but most people never read it. It’s the Part 15 regulations of the FCC’s rulebook, which I know because I _do_ read those kinds of things, and I never understood that part: Why _can’t_ I build a noise filter into my electronics? Is my filtering going to interfere with anyone else’s use of the spectrum? (No.) Is my filtering going to make my product unsafe? (No.) It almost seems rather vindictive: “Ah, you won’t apply for a real license, eh? Become a Technician or suffer the wrath of noise you can’t filter! Muahahaha!” Derleth, IOU0, Unaffiliated Extra DNR. ---
**Author:** ![DummyGladHands](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/49beb7/32.png) [@DummyGladHands](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DummyGladHands)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2015, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voices-from-cell-phone/740122/11 "2015-12-14T14:26:07Z")
Shoeless and Lilies, EXACTLY!! That’s what I was hearing-totally sounds like a dull demonstration program and the I heard it 2x and both times it was the same crap! So glad someone else heard it!! ---
**Author:** ![DummyGladHands](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/49beb7/32.png) [@DummyGladHands](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DummyGladHands)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2015, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voices-from-cell-phone/740122/12 "2015-12-28T13:54:22Z")
So I know you all think I’m crazy as hell, but my phone did this again yesterday. Sitting on the table, nothing at all open, hadn’t been touched in hours, and bam! Sounded like a crafts show of some sort-a guy this time, talking about measuring and cutting wood, I think, with a hokey type-you’d-expect musical accompaniment. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2015, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voices-from-cell-phone/740122/13 "2015-12-28T14:18:20Z")
Do the voices tell you to, er, “do” anything? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2015, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voices-from-cell-phone/740122/14 "2015-12-28T15:09:05Z")
I think I may have figured out what was happening with mine. Over the weekend I was playing a game on my phone (one of those jewel matching things) and even though I had the game sound turned off, in the background I could hear audio for what sounded like an ad. If I paused the game, the audio stopped. Resumed game, phone started talking again. So I’m guessing the first time this happened, I must have been playing the game earlier in the day, maybe it was still running in the background later in the day and started piping ad audio through the speaker? Just a WAG but it seems to fit. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2015, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voices-from-cell-phone/740122/15 "2015-12-28T15:20:23Z")
So, at least two of you are somehow picking up what sounds like discussions of crafts on your cellphones. It’s weird that it’s the same or similar subject matter. ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2015, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/voices-from-cell-phone/740122/16 "2015-12-28T16:04:20Z")
The fact that you’re only hearing craft shows makes me think you’re somehow picking up a PBS broadcast. Like “Create TV”. Do you ever hear ads or station breaks?