Imagine a phone booth. Tucked in the desert.. in the middle of no man's land.. And the phone is ringing--people from around the world are calling.
And someone answers.
It's all true.
There is a famous story of a phone booth in the Mojave Desert.. It had a different area code in 1997 when it first became famous. Now it's 760-733-9969 ..\
It was installed in the 1960s, and it's eight miles from the nearest paved road, and fifteen miles from a highway.
According to REALITY, it was originally installed to provide phone service to miners. Of course, paranormal chatters and purveyors of creepiness don't like fully told reality, so it's cooler to think the whole thing was a mystery.
There was a surge of traffic and calls to the booth after a 1999 LA TIMES story detailed the Mojave phone booth. From that pre-turn of the century report:
The craze began two years ago after a high-desert wanderer noticed a telephone icon on a Mojave road map. Curious, he drove out from Los Angeles to investigate and wrote a letter to a counterculture magazine describing his exploits and including the phone number. After spotting the letter, computer entrepreneur Godfrey Daniels became so captivated by the idea he created the first of several Web sites dedicated solely to the battered booth.
Since then, word of the phone has been beamed to computers virtually everywhere.
It has evolved into a worldwide listening post straight from the mind of a Rod Serling or a David Lynch, captivating countless callers.
Last night on Ground Zero with Clyde Lewis, the whole notion became famous again. Lewis was chatting about the notion of space, and making a call to the wild dark wonders of the universe in hopes that someone would answer. It compared it to the Mojave phone booth.. He gave the number out on the air, as did people on his Facebook page, and the calls lit up quickly.
I called myself a few times today.
At one point I heard someone proclaiming Jesus' love for her.. a few moments later I called again and heard someone having a complete mental breakdown.
I talked to someone who gave himself a somewhat dirty name.
And I also heard strange voices and people pretending to be freaky and creepy.
It was good fun.
Tonight the conversation was more interesting, with Ground Zero fans coming together to speak about issues, get to know each other.. and just talk.
In our NET world, it's fun to actually talk to someone. That is the theory of Periscope and why, I believe, it's so popular so quickly.
And perhaps the Mojave phone booth can be the same.
For those wondering, you're not calling a phone booth anymore.
As reported in 2013, The Mojave phone booth's number, 760-733-9969, was acquired from the CLEC by phone phreak Lucky225 on July 31, 2013 and now rings using voice over IP. Originally, callers joined a conference where strangers could once again connect just like when the phone booth was active..
And now, lots of people are rediscovering something that became somewhat of a strange bit of lure and legend of the desert back in the 90s..
All over again.