Are headphones the new line to the dead?
A woman’s experience with her new Sony headphones has become the latest digital-age ghost story. She recounts hearing unexplained voices and noises through the headphones, with no discernible source or explanation.
This has stirred a mix of fear and fascination, turning a simple tech issue into a chilling narrative that has the online community on edge.
The Headphone Horror Story
The story began with the woman excitedly discussing how she received the Sony headphones as a Christmas gift from her aunt and uncle.
She said she’s been enjoying the headphones ever since due to their superior sound and long battery life. But these headphones quickly became the center of an eerie experience.
She recounts the story of one night, when she was listening to scary stories on YouTube to fall asleep. Moments later, she began to notice faint background noises – banging and voices, that seemed unrelated to the content she was consuming.
The user originally thought it was an oversight by the content creator. But, she was unnerved to discover that the noises continued even after she paused the video. This led her to question the source of these sounds.
Upon removing the headphones, she found her surroundings at home to be completely silent, ruling out external environmental sounds as the cause of the disturbance.
The silence was briefly comforting until she put the headphones back on, only to be greeted by the unknown sound again, with the addition of shuffling noises. She described this new noise was akin to someone’s sleeve brushing against a microphone.
She also highlighted that the headphones didn’t come in their original packaging when she received them as a gift. So she didn’t know where exactly her aunt and uncle got them.
This worsened her fears as it implied that the headphones might not have come directly from a manufacturer but could be a secondhand device with a mysterious past.
Similar Incidents of Unknown Noises and Voices in Headphones
Confounded by the experience, she turned to the online community for explanations. Soon enough, people online started sharing their own stories, saying they had heard weird things through headphones or speakers before.
Others also mentioned that this phenomenon also happens on other devices, like a baby monitor.
Theories and Explanations
Several users suggest various potential explanations for these auditory anomalies.
One theory says that high-quality headphones, like the woman’s Sony model, might inadvertently pick up external radio signals. This could explain voices or sounds being transmitted into the headphones.
This is similar to how old electronics could sometimes pick up radio signals by accident.
Many of them shared old tales of experiencing the same thing with older devices.
One user even shared that their mom swore she heard the radio with her stove years ago.
Another user explains that this can be caused by the noise-canceling feature of the headphones. They explained hearing a “shuffling” noise similar to what the original poster described due to their hair brushing on the ear cups.
Another explanation involves the brain’s pattern recognition capabilities. In environments with a mix of sounds, the brain might create the illusion of voices, similar to how it interprets shapes in darkness.