Ringing Phones by obiwan [Reviews - 4] 
Subject: WWW Form Submission
Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2007 01:01:20 -0800 (PST)
To: obiwan@ghosts.org
Name: Valerie
Email: ravenamos@gmail.com
Location: Alaska
First let me preface this story with I am 52 years old, college educated and employed in a professional capacity. I am fairly well grounded and have never thought of myself as a kook:) I'm not sure that this qualifies as truly paranormal but it was certainly odd.
I was working for a title company at the time of this occurrence and since it was summer time, it was our busy season. I often worked late and usually kept my adult daughters (who lived with me) apprised of my time frame for getting home.
On this particular evening, I was the only one working late and in the back room of my office researching documents when I heard the direct phone line on my desk start to ring. Each desk had a direct line phone and each phone has a slightly different ring tone so as to identify whose phone was ringing.
Thinking that it was one of my daughters calling to find out my e.t.a., I hurried to answer. As soon as I reached for the phone, my hand just touching the handset, it stopped ringing. Just at that moment, the phone on the desk next to mine started ringing. I reached for that phone and again, as soon as my hand touched the handset, it too stopped ringing. I stood there perplexed for several seconds when the phone on the desk across the room from mine started ringing. Then stopped. The phone on the desk next to it started ringing for five or six rings and stopped. The phone on the desk next to that started ringing and so forth; all the way around the room. One at a time, the phones on the eight desks in my department rang in turn for five or six rings then stopped. I thought this very odd but not particularly spooky. Just odd. I finished up what i was doing and headed for the barn for the night.
I hadn't been home for more that a few moments when my home phone rang. It was my sister who lives in another state calling to inform me that our elderly mother that lived near her had not unexpectedly, passed away about forty-five minutes ago. I was speechless for several seconds and then just blurted out what had occurred at my work. What made this sooo bizarre was that my mom (who had a rather macabre sense of humor) and I had a running gag that she would call to tell me when she died..."Yeah, you live so far away from us that when I kick off, I'll call you so you know...", was her usual comment to me when we spoke on the phone. I could hear my sister smiling at this on the phone when I reminded her of mom's usual comment to me and my sister went on to say that mom said she would call me; she never said she would TALK to me!
Shortly after this happened, I talked to a friend of ours that works for our local phone company to see if this episode would occur if the phone company would be checking phone lines after hours and was assured that NOTHING like this would transpire while checking phone lines. Since this was a "closed" phone system (i.e. each phone having a separate phone number /line and not running through a PBX type system) there was no way that each individual phone would ring without dialing that particular phone number and further, the phone company does not check phone lines in that manner.