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10:09 pm
April 2, 2008
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Awaba
| | Awaba | |
| Investigator | posts 87 |
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I work in an office that's located in an old building in an inner
suburban area near Melbourne in Australia. I have keys to the place
and my job requires me to start earlier and finish later than most of
the other office staff. (no, I'm NOT the cleaner!) :P
One
morning I got in about 7am and unlocked the front door, turned off the
alarm and went towards our kitchen area to make some coffee.
As I passed one of the offices, a female voice called out "Hello John!" from what seemed to be about a metre away.
I turned, thinking that someone must have started early and that I had missed seeing them as I walked past their office.
It
was then that I realised that I had just turned the alarm off! There
was no way anyone could have been there with the alarm on – with motion
detectors/heat sensors etc.
So I went out the door and looked up
and down the street to see if someone passing may have said "Hello
John!". The street was empty.
I went back inside and went through the whole building. I was definitely alone.
And yes, my name is John.
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3:25 pm
May 5, 2008
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iwanttobelieve
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| Investigator in Training | posts 25 |
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I have no explanation for that…but it is messed UP!
I guess that your mind could have somehow produced the sound? You know, like to fill in the void of the silence? I think that my ghost story, which I'll post, could be explained in much the same way.
Still – have you heard any stories of anyone else having experiences at this office? Did you tell anyone at work this story?
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"The truth is out there." -FM
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1:44 am
May 6, 2008
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Awaba
| | Awaba | |
| Investigator | posts 87 |
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About 3 months later, I was in another part of the office talking to 2 other employees during a lunch break. We all heard a woman's voice call out "John!" from the office next door.
I knew at once what it was. I ignored it, not realising that the other 2 had heard it as well.
They turned to me and one said, "Aren't you going to see who it is?"
I pointed out that the office the voice had come from was empty at that time of day and went on to say, "It's probably just the ghost."
One of my co-workers then got up, saying it was rude of me not to see who was calling me, and went to see who was calling out for me.
As I had said, and as she found out when she went looking, the office the voice came from was empty.
I had a couple of similar auditory experiences at this office. I worked there for 6 years (or more) until it was broken into and set on fire in November last year.
It is currently being rebuilt and we look like moving back in at the end of May.
THAT should be interesting if the theory that places that have recently been renovated can be made active by the act of renovating!
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10:03 pm
May 6, 2008
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Stephen
| | San Jose, CA | |
| Admin
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It sounds like a pattern I've noticed– people seem to hear speechlike sounds, particularly saying "hello" and using other long "O" sounds, in areas with long hallways or vertical spaces. Does your office have such a hallway?
I haven't been able to find anyone who's done any work with audio simulacra, if that's the right term, so the following is a wild-ass guess. Still, here's my hypothesis. Hallways can act as a resonant cavity, just like your mouth and throat, and can form vowel sounds. All you really need for vowels is a buzzer (your vocal cords) and a tube (your throat and mouth). Same thing can happen with any sound source– maybe an echoing squeaky board– and your hallway.
So where do the consonants come from? Well, first, our brains do a great job filling in partially-heard snippets of voice. Since what you heard was your own name and the most common way for a conversation to start, those are a couple of words that your brain would be most likely to come up with.
I'm curious: can you remember which syllable was stressed, and whether the "H" was voiced? In other words, was it "HELL-oh John" (like the Big Bopper on "Chantilly Lace", or maybe Roger Waters on "Comfortably Numb"), or was it "Lo John"?
I wouldn't particularly raise this theory on your story alone, but like I've said I've heard a few people report hearing the word "hello" in long hallways, and that interests me. I imagine that your remodel will probably change your acoustics, and that the ghost will stop saying "Hello John". If it keeps happening, I'd love to hear a recording.
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Stephen the Friendly Skeptic
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11:58 am
May 7, 2008
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iwanttobelieve
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| Investigator in Training | posts 25 |
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I am in love with the idea that there is some sort of wormhole that allows sound to travel through time – implausible and ridiculous as this may be – but some sort of version of this theory whose result would be what happened to Grant and Jason in the RI hotel with the Princess EVP.
I would just love to believe that that EVP is real, although I personally am thoroughly convinced that it was hotel employees with a microphone and speaker hidden somewhere.
Awaba, it will be interesting to see what happens to your "ghost" after the renos! Did your coworkers laugh it off, or think it was strange that nobody called your name out? Did it freak people out? Maybe it's someone calling a totally different John from another era, and it's pure coincidence. Too bad you don't have a little recorder on you 24-7 to catch some EVPs!
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"The truth is out there." -FM
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1:19 pm
May 7, 2008
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Awaba
| | Awaba | |
| Investigator | posts 87 |
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Our 'offices' are in a set of three small buildings, all sharing common walls. They are about 100 years old and were originally shops with dwellings attached at the rear.
Doors have been made in the connecting walls to allow us to pass from one building to another.
The 2 women who also heard the voice, both said it was female and caled out "John." When I told them it was something I had heard before, they both got spooked.
I heard from another of the women who worked in the offices that she had heard 'noises' at night and refused to stay on the premises after 5pm.
You couldn't class these as EVP's 'cos they were heard at the time – but I guess there could be EVP's just waiting to b e recorded. Time will tell.
The power is on. The carpets are back down. Just waiting for phones, furniture and computers before we move back in.
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1:56 pm
July 18, 2008
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Awaba
| | Awaba | |
| Investigator | posts 87 |
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Well, after a seemingly endless number of delays, we moved back into our old offices 3 weeks ago.
I have to report that it is quiet. Very quiet. One part of the building (my old offices in fact) at the rear was so badly damaged by the fire that it was demolished and is now just part of a larger parking area.
I am now in a 'new' part of the building. 'New' in that we had not used it before, but the same age as the rest of the buildings.
The previous tenant who had the rooms where my offices are now, died on the site of a heart attack about 2 and a bit years ago. ( Before we aquired this part of the building.)
If he's still about, he's keeping quiet too. 
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7:27 pm
November 30, 2008
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Awaba
| | Awaba | |
| Investigator | posts 87 |
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An update. It is still quiet. I'm a little disappointed… 
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8:09 pm
November 30, 2008
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Oubliette
| | Igloo in NJ | |
| Lead Investigator | posts 574 |
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In my experience, just the opposite happened. When my house was renovated, the haunting stopped.
I don't quite believe that renovations trigger a haunting. If one theory is correct-that the things we hear and see are somehow imprinted on the environment-wouldn't it make more sense that renovations would destroy the "recordings"? All I know is transforming an old bar/pub into two downstairs bedrooms put an end to whatever it was causing all the weird happenings where I used to live.
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If 50 million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.
Anatole France
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