Yesterday, I was out for a walk when I noticed the words “Witching Signal” painted neatly on the pavement. Within the next block, I saw it twice more. Then I saw it in an alley .5 miles away. It’s painted like those “buried cable” warnings you sometimes see.
Google keeps telling me I meant “Switch signal,” but it was definitely “Witch signal” all four times.
What the heck does this mean? Here’s a photo if that helps.
I’m guessing the spray painter is being mirthful.
This story reminds me of weird graffiti I saw back in the…very early 90s? I used to travel I-75 up north from SE Michigan fairly often, and for a few years running there was was graffiti on the concrete abutments of road overpasses that said something like (going from memory) “FACT: the more you love demons, the more they torture you. Horrible pain”. It started maybe around the midland Michigan area and was repeated for several miles of abutments, maybe a half dozen times.
It was pretty darn creepy, but in the end I think the Occam’s Razor explanation for that, and maybe for the OP’s ‘Witching Signal’, is that spray paint is cheap, and teenagers are bored.
“Switch[ing] signal” is a real term, but I can’t think of a reason it would be painted on the sidewalk.
I can’t help wonder if someone misunderstood or misread an instruction to paint a “witching symbol” on the sidewalk, like a pentagram, or a stick figure with horns, and so literally wrote “witching signal.”
That occurs to me because I used to spend a lot of time on a site called “Cake Wrecks” and there were lots of examples of bakery employees literally writing instructions on cakes, sometimes slightly misspelled, eg, “HAPPY BIRTHDAY underneat that JIM”; or “Thanks, (comma) Jillian with a J.”
ETA: Why witch symbols? somebody just saw The Blair Witch Project for the first time? It’s some kind of scavenger hunt/paper chase-type game? lots of ;possibilities.
When I saw it the first time, I thought it was someone having a bit of fun. In fact, that’s why I took the photo. The next two times I wasn’t sure. Though the alley is about a half-mile from the first three repetitions, I walked up and down 8 or 9 blocks in the neighborhood before I walked down the alley–no “witch signal” until a block down the alley. (I wasn’t looking for more writing. I just wanted to walk by the house with the lovely garden and another a few blocks over that had friendly hogs in the yard, plus I was getting some steps in.
I think RivkahChaya is right and it’s probably some intriguing variation of a scavenger hunt. There are teens (I assume) who are always tagging a long wooden fence in the neighborhood, but they seem to be more politically minded, as their preferred topics are anarchy, Gaza, and cops. I doubt they’re well-versed in any of them. Also, their spray-painting skills leave much to be desired.
I’m happier thinking it’s some imaginative kids than that it’s some boring term for electrical switches.
Solost, that IS creepy.
Thanks for the help, everyone!
Might also be the name of a local band?
There’s a coven meeting under your sidewalk,
I wonder if it might be related to “water witching” or “dowsing”, a practice claimed to find good locations to drill water wells? At least when I bought my house between Baltimore and Philadelphia forty years ago, belief in dowsing was strong enough that water witches were often hired. In fact the volunteer fire department nearby is the “Water Witch” fire department. Perhaps somebody marked some spots that a water witch said they got a signal?
However, places with sidewalks often have city water and wouldn’t need to drill wells, so maybe that blows that idea.
Could it have meaning, in terms of electronics and broadcast technology?
I suspect the word “signal” may be the important part.
Maybe Burger King was shooting a commercial and that spot was where someone was cued to eat a Croissan’wich.
I’m thiinking it must be kids.
Stole paint from Dads garage and had fun tagging the sidewslk.
The last graffiti I’ve seen that was nutty, picture this…big letters
“GANG SHIT”
That’s genius! If it isn’t, it should be.
[quote=“CalMeacham, post:7, topic:1018118, full:true”]
There’s a coven meeting under your sidewalk,
Oo! I like this idea. Next time I go by, I’ll chant, “Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble” and see if a secret passageway opens. I’ve had trouble with that line since one of my freshmen students thought it was, “Bubble, bubble toilet trouble,” so I may not be able to hide my grin.
I thought of that, too, but…city water.
See, that’s the whole reason I posted in the first place. If it had just said “Witch” or “Witching,” I’d have assumed kids, but the “signal” part made me wonder if it was something to do with engineering or electronics. I couldn’t find anything like that by googling, so apparently that’s not the case.
Go stand in the corner. Oh, you know what you did.
It’s certainly pithy.
Hmmm. And every place a main pipe rain under the sidewalk, the dowser felt a strong signal?
I’ve never heard the term “witch” used in technology, and in IT I hear all kinds of weird crap used as names for devices and systems.
I also did a search and that isn’t a communications term outside maybe a few obscure brand names for products.
I’m just speculating here, but Ditch Witch is a well-known company in the construction industry that makes trenching and underground digging equipment, and would likely be involved in utility installs or repairs. One of the products that they sell is the Ditch Witch 910 which is a transmitter/receiver system used to locate underground pipes and cables. Perhaps the “witch signal” marking is something that a utility company or locator service painted on the sidewalk or pavement to indicate where they picked up a signal from the system. I don’t know if that’s a common practice, but it seems an at least plausible, if perhaps less fun explanation than bored teens or a subsurface coven.
Actually, that makes the most sense of any of the possibilities. I think you’ve nailed it! Thanks much.
I just googled ‘witching signal’ and found a couple things.
This page has a ‘Witching signal’ capital ‘W’ in its content (about halfway down the page), but it mentions ‘switching signal’ several other times, so I’m thinking the ‘Witching signal’ occurrence is (probably) a typo:
This reads ‘witching signal’ but doesn’t give much info about what it is:
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-witching-signal-with-ADT2-and-Dm02_fig8_361469577
Finally, it looks like others are seeing and noticing the ‘Witching signal’ messages as well, unless this Instagram post is by the OP:
I’ve never posted on Instagram. It’s nice to know I’m not the only one who’s wondered, though!
If it actually said “witch signal” I’d agree with you, because that would make sense. But it doesn’t say that.
The only Witch in the sciences is a mathematical curve. The Witch of Agnesi, so-called, was the work of Maria Gaetana Agnesi in Italy in 1748. The explanation for its name is a groaner of a pun.
The Italian name la versiera di Agnesi is based on Latin versoria (sheet of sailing ships) and the sinus versus. This was read by John Colson as l’avversiera di Agnesi , where avversiera is translated as “woman who is against God” and interpreted as “witch”.
She lookalike this
