This Paranormal Life - Coded Messages from Deep in the Desert - The Mojave Phone Booth

Episode Date: June 30, 2026

LONDON LIVE SHOW⁠⁠⁠ https://www.tickettailor.com/events/cheerfulearful/2084541 The Mojave desert holds many mysteries from ancient Native American lore, to Area 51, and undiscovered creatures like the Yucca man. But one of the most strange and forgotten pieces of modern American folklore also calls the Mojave home. Deep in the desert, hundreds of miles from civilisation lay a phone booth that visitors claimed held a strange power, to connect them to unseen forces, or even extraterrestrial visitors… this is the story of the Mojave Phone Booth. Become a commune member to get access to bonus episodes: ⁠https://thisparanormallife.com⁠ Follow us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join our Secret Society Facebook Community⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Buy Official TPL Merch!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Edited by Philip Shacklady Researched by ⁠Ewen Friers Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's 1996 and a man is driving through the Californian desert late at night. It's pitch black and he's miles from civilization. I guess he got tired and distracted behind the wheel because he's certain he's lost. He was looking for a house out here in the middle of nowhere when he must have taken a wrong turn and now he's miles down a winding dirt road in the Mojave Desert. He's about to turn back when he sees something in the distance, a light. But it's not a street light. of it. Curiosity gets the better of him and he drives towards it. Soon it becomes clear. It's a phone

booth, lit with a dim light. It doesn't make sense. It's literally in the middle of nowhere, no houses, no roads, no people at all. He pulls over and gets out to get a closer look. Just then, it rings. Fear sets in. How could that be? What are the chances? He walks slowly towards it and lifts the receiver, reluctantly holding it to his year. I can see you. Someone whispers on the other end. He slams down the phone and turns to walk away when it rings again. He picks it up.

I can see you. He slams it down and runs away. It starts ringing but he isn't going to go back to answer a third time. He hops in his truck and floors it back through the desert. All the while he feels the uncanny feeling that someone or something is why. watching him. But who could see him? And what is this mystery phone box in the middle of nowhere? And if dolphins are, as smart as people say, what's to stop them rising up and taking over, shouldn't we strike first? Answers to these questions and more on this episode of

This Paranormal Life. Hello. And welcome back to This Paranormal Life, the weekly comedy podcast, where we investigate a different paranormal tale every Tuesday. Welcome to the podcast. I'm your host, Kit. This is your other host, Rory. How are you doing today, Rory? What a crazy start to an episode. Dude. What? Mysterious phone calls inside a telephone booth in the middle of the desert?

Yes. That is scary. I love that he answered the phone and someone was like, I can see you. He's like, oh my God, hangs up. He's like, what am I going to do? What was that? Phone rings again. Hello?

Oh, God, it's the I can see you guy again. Shit. Oh, yeah. Of course. I don't know why. Just autopilot kicked in there for a second. This is a very exciting story because, one, I've never heard of this before, a telephone booth in the middle of the desert. But two, Kit, we've been to the desert.

We've been to this corner of the planet. And we have investigated mysterious objects out there, specifically the mysterious black Area 51 mailbox. Yes. This is, we've got a lot to get into today, guys. But yes, spoiler alert, we have been to the Manhattan. have a desert and we drove all the way through it to get to Area 51. So we know that the desert holds many, many secrets, many of them paranormal. And yeah, yeah, the black mailbox, you're not dissimilar in some ways.

What is a mailbox but the original phone? Yeah. You know, 100 years ago, if you wanted to show someone a picture of your penis, you would have to print it and send it in an envelope to a mailbox. Yeah. Obviously now, with the technology, it becomes much easier. but this was the original phone. But much less fun.

And do you know what's crazy though? It's like a kind of blow your mind moment. It's like the mailbox is so much older than the phone booth. But mailboxes still exist. Where's phone booths are like gone? Yeah. Because I'm like telling the story and even I'm kind of like, no one under 27 knows what we're even talking about.

Right. What a mailbox is? No, a phone booth. Oh, right. A phone booth. Yeah. It's like I just said. I mean, we're not far off.

mailboxes going as well. Pretty far. It's just a Gen Z you're holding an Amazon parcel being like, what the fuck even is this? Sorry, it's a, it's not, is this some kind of app or some kind of what? This is why you guys need to

sign my petition to bring back Ravens. I think we should bring back Burr- We don't have time for this, right. All right. What? Sending messages via Ravens. Like Game of Thrones style. What do you need to say via raven that you couldn't say with a text

message? I'm watching you. Oh, well, that's true. You just get a burner phone. Easy. I like the idea of like sending a bird with your message. You're just sending one of those birds like parrots or those really smart crows that can just talk. Right.

Yeah, they just have to recite it. He's depressed. You up. A you up, Raven. Damn, you know Shakespeare was sending those in the middle of the night in medieval times. Send it a you up raven to some medieval shoudy. Before we dive into today's episode,

quick reminder that the best way to support this show and to get tons of episodes in return is by heading over to this paranormal life.com. You head on over there, the links in the description. We've had a vibrant community over there of thousands of people going for the last eight, nine years. Nine years. A long, long, long, long time.

And there's hundreds of exclusive episodes, hundreds of behind the scenes after-party episodes that come out every single Friday and tons more. Over at this paranormal life.com. And if you don't join... Whoa, hey yo. So I'm gonna say.

Chill, chill, chill, chill, chill, chill, chill. Can we beep that? Can we like blur that or something? The audio listeners aren't going to know what happens. That was insane. I have a gun. Rory flashed a piece. Also, beep the word gun.

In 2026, do you think we can really say that without getting demonetize? on TikTok, on YouTube, on everywhere. You can say that. I think it's fine. We're already demonetized everywhere. I'm kind of joking. Thisparanomalife.com.

Don't listen to the threats. That's the tagline. I have a hand bun. I have a 9mm hand bun in my pocket. We won't say what it is. Guys, guys, guys, this week we are talking about the Mojave phone booths. To be clear, Roy, you haven't heard of this? Never before.

Well, this is one of the most famous and puzzled. puzzling pieces of modern American folklore. And the story begins with an anonymous letter sent into a small magazine publication in the 90s where people would send in weird or interesting stories. This letter went. Recently I spotted a small dot with the word telephone beside it on a map of the Mojave desert, 15 miles from the main interstate in the middle of nowhere. Intrigued, I headed out to find it in my old jeep.

After many hours, I do find it. The glass is shot out and the phone book's missing. But it works. Apparently, this booth was put in after World War II for the use of a nearby mine, which ceased operation in the 60s. Why the local phone company keeps it operational is anyone's guess. Oh, if you're interested, the number is 619-733-99. Let it ring for a long time if you want a response.

Okay. I mean, that does make sense. How many people are going to be passing by? the world's most remote phone booth. Yeah, exactly. As a quick aside, Roy, do you remember using phone booth? I remember, I think I've used it two times in my life, whenever I had to call my parents before I had a mobile phone.

But that's the only time I've ever used it before. Yeah, it's kind of sad that they aren't still in action, because I don't know if they've done this everywhere in the world, but in Britain, they kind of converted the existing phone booths into kind of, toilets for homeless people. And so kind of anyone could just walk in and just kind of take a shit. And there actually isn't any plumbing or anything cool like that. It's more, they more just, I say converted.

They kind of just left them exactly the way they are pretty much. Sure. Just kind of abandoned them. Just kind of abandoned them rather than, you know, they could have done a bunch of cool stuff like maybe turn them into like a Wi-Fi hotspot or something. But I think they mostly just let them rot. Yeah. But it does feel like it's like a great public utility.

It used to be really handy when we were little kids in the 2000s. Also especially handy because I'm going to really date myself here, but you could do a collect call. Do you remember that? Is that where the other person pays for it? Yeah. So there'd be like, I guess your mom and dad would get a call. And it would be like, phone operator here.

There's a child that's just been arrested called Rory. And he says that you're his parents. Do you want to accept the call? They're like, Jesus Christ, yes. This is the third time this month. It's like, all right, we're going to charge you. Okay, so this letter was printed in a magazine and one man, Godfrey Doc Daniels, read it in Phoenix, Arizona,

and wanted to know more. Why? A phone booth in such an incredibly remote location. So we started researching it, calling the phone regularly, documenting his results on his website, juice of clubs.com. Which, I don't know why it was called that, but apparently it was dedicated to the Mojave phone booth.

It's like, bro, it's 97. You can get any website you want. You could have Pets.com. Google, for Christ's sake. That sounds like he originally had a domain to upload all of his, like, magician tricks. And he's like, I'll just use that website. I'm not going to change it. The deuce of clubs is investigating a phone booth now.

You just know there was a lot of, like, low-poly, like, animated gifts on his web page, the dancing baby and shit. This guy could have had Facebook. You could have investigated this. Brother, we all could have had Facebook. None of us thought of it. I was too busy jacking off and making flash animations to start Facebook. God's damn it.

And while we imagine Daniel's ringing this phone booth, it is important to get across just how isolated this booth really was. The nearest paved road was 15 miles away. Yeah. The next nearest. town was Baker about 50 miles away. Just miles and miles of endless desert, located deep in the Mojave Natural Preserve,

somewhere between the hollow hills wilderness and dead mountain wilderness. Phil, why don't we queue up just the first image? Just so we can get a sense of that, Roy, this is, if you're driving along, I can't remember what it is, like the I-15 or whatever it is, that's the turn off. Yeah.

And then you got ahead down that for 15 miles. Brother, you could have just shown me a screenshot from our own vlogs. Yeah, it looks like a photo that we took. That is exactly what it feels like. Kit and I were basically driving in the desert through empty stretches of roads from Chipotle to Chipotle. Because it's one of the only chain restaurants in North America that does vegan food. Okay, guys. And so it was a lot of this.

I shit myself so many times. There, no. You're like, luckily we only managed to find one. bathroom in the desert, this old phone booth in the middle of nowhere. I'm like, it's the only place it does vegan food, Roy's like, you don't have to have six maritos at every stop with the extra spicy Chipotle sauce. Yeah, there really is nothing out there, guys. It's kind of an amazing sight to see. It really does. And also, as a little spoiler, we did talk about this on our previous investigations into Area 51, the Mojave, our journey to

contact in the desert out there. That is what the secret entrances to Area 51 look like, almost exactly. Yeah. They're just dirt roads off into the mountains. It was one of the first times in my life. I've gone on a journey, gone on a car trip where I remember we had to stop off at the store and buy stuff to make sure that if the car broke down at any point, we wouldn't die in the desert.

Yeah. We were like, we have to buy big gallons of water and just like some cereal bars or something. just in case the worst happens. And I was like, I've never really had to experience that before. Yeah, I've told the story before whenever the first time I went to Joshua Tree. And my wife and I were there pretty late at night. I think we wanted to see sunset, see if we saw some cool stars. And we're kind of walking about in the evening and the twilight.

And Danielle, my wife was like, here's the rule. I can't get out of eye shot off the car. And I'm like, we're literally fine. we can wander like around this corner past some boulders. It's fine. We're going to be able to make our way back. And then the more I thought about it, I was like, do I know that for sure? Do I?

Let me just examine the first principles here actually, because now I think about it, no phone signal. Actually, now I think about it, no light sources of any kind. It was like, yeah, and rattlesnakes. So maybe you're right. Maybe we don't get out of eye shot at the comments. You're like, it's fine. We'll just head to that, that,

city on the horizon where the water flows freely. That's a mirage! You're already hallucinating! But babe, how are we going to die when there's an RC cola vending machine right here? You're almost dead from dehydration already in five minutes. It's a scary place. It really is. It can be. I mean, even on the way into these national parks, there's like tons of missing persons posters. Very scary stuff. Actually, Philwell, we're at it. Let's see the next image, which I've believe is an image of the Fung Booth itself. Bring it up.

Wow. Okay, so I gotta say, a photo of this thing was already more than I was expecting today. I genuinely thought this could be like an urban legend. Similar to the black mailbox, you know, something that could just exist in stories and legends and creepy pastas. So this is awesome to see the mailbox in the desert. Guys, it's a real old-timey mailbox, says telephone on the top. the glass walls. And it does seem to be connected. It looks like around it, there is some kind of line.

You gotta stop saying mailbox, by the way. We've got to start saying telephone booth. It's a telephone booth, obviously. There are wires coming from it as well. So it is connected to something. I know. The wires are almost the most mysterious part. It's like, what the?

Yeah, because when you think about it, it's got to be connected to something. Yeah. But yeah, it is sitting next to, it's a beautiful kind of, vista here of the Mojave desert where we're just next door neighbors right now with Joshua tree national parks. So there's a beautiful Joshua tree literally right next to it. I mean, it's so picturesque. It's like some kind of turn of the century kind of yeah, like landscape photography of

North America. Very, very cool. I'm expecting the singer of Maroon 5 to be in here right now. This is a music video. I'm not a pay phone trying to call. Anyway, that type shit. It's like a music video. While Doc continued his research and blogged on his website, I began calling every day, taping each call. As the line rang, I would state the date and time of the call. But surprisingly, it was after less than a month of calling, that is such a long time, that Daniels got his first major breakthrough.

On June 20th, at approximately 10 in the morning, I heard a busy signal. You know, like the tone, like, Yeah, yeah. He hadn't heard that before. No way, I shouted. I thought I must have dialed incorrectly. I dialed again, right number, still busy. Either there was something wrong with the line, which I thought was most likely, or there was a real human being on the phone in the middle of the desert. I kept pushing the

redial button until about three minutes later, the line started ringing. Then I heard an actual human voice. This human was a minor called Lorraine. Age minor or profession minor? I want to make that distinction right now. Okay, good. She explained that she was part of a tiny group. Tiny as in a small number, not as in small people. Okay, I'm worried now. Jesus Christ, okay.

A tiny group dotted around the area who had hung on making a living from mining the volcanic rock that appeared nearby. At just 14 years old, she'd been working in the mines. No, stop! So she's also a miner. She sounded hot. Whoa! Whoa. Duce of clubs.

No, no, no. As an impossibly isolated community who relied on bulk shipments of water, fuel and food for survival, this woman claimed the phone booth had been installed in the late 40s to connect these remote miners to the outside world. Ah. While initially excited, that first conversation was actually pretty undramatic. Daniels simply asked her a few basic questions about her remote existence and the environment around the phone booth. During the conversation, however, he remarked about some weird noises interfering with the signal. He suggested that it might be a Geiger counter or the FBI.

But Lorraine replied, no, it's just something in this phone line. It's a long, long, long telephone line after all. I love that she's trying to like gently calm him down. It's like there's a bit of static on the line. It's like, it could be the FBI or probably extra trustee. It's like, why are you jumping to that? It's a phone box in the desert miles in the middle of nowhere

He's like so eager to find the conspiracy So Doc who was documenting all of this And this was the late 90s So we have to try and remember There were about eight websites at this point And thanks to Doc's website Word was about to get out about the phone booth But not before he went to see it for himself

And in August 1997 Him and his friends drove to Burning Man But seeing as the route passed by the Mojave Nature Preserve, they decided to try and find the phone booth on the way. Driving through the black of night with no Google Maps to help them, they eventually found it. It was just as I'd imagined, a lonely communications outpost at the end of a long, long chain of telephone poles. All its glass had been shot out, but I thought it was beautiful. At that moment, I felt I might never leave it. In fact, well...

Doc scares me. Doc scares me sometimes. Bro, cancelled Burning Man. Can you sell the tickets? You don't need Burning Man. In fact, we almost didn't leave it. We spent hours making phone calls to anyone we could think of. Which, honestly, it's really hard to put yourself in the frame of mind of the 90s.

But you have to remember, it was impossible to make a phone call that wasn't from your home. So the novelty of making one in the middle of the desert is actually kind of funny. I suppose so. Yeah, I guess that's the novelty here. I'm finding a little strange so far because, you know, we had a real world version of this. Okay. Which was in our investigations into Area 51, we did an episode on the mysterious black mailbox that may or may not exist in the desert. We drove out into the desert just like this and we found the mailbox. Yeah.

We captured that moment on camera. It was genuinely incredible. we pulled over, filmed it, looked inside, saw the post. 15 minutes later, we were done. We were like, it's hot out here. Let's go home. At no point did I think I might never leave the mailbox. I might see if I can fit inside.

So, and I don't want to judge this guy. As you said, it's the 90s. There was less going on. But I'm struggling to imagine for returning to me. I mean, being like, I'm hungry. man, when we hit another Chipotle, he's like, I'm staying. I'm like, what? He eats the key, the car keys?

No! We're both staying, brother. We'll live out the rest of our lives here at the mailbox. Well, I think sometimes maybe yes, sometimes maybe no, because I do agree there was no situation where we stayed there forever. But on the other end of things, we actually did do exactly like, don't. which is we heard about a thing, we went to go find it, and then we shared it with our tens of thousands of followers online being like, look how amazing and cool is it.

Yeah, that's very true. Which is kind of crazy. Like, honestly, almost 30 years later. He just had a website and we have a podcast. Oh, we actually, all right, Jesus. Okay, I just defended him for a while, but Phil, can you please pull up the photos of Doc and his friends? So that's, I don't actually know if that's Doc or not.

Maybe that's Doc or one of his friends. Um, okay. And so that's them just kicking back, you know, taking photos, making calls. One of them did bring a marble bust of the composer Wagner. I don't know why. I think there's another photo. And that's them like, bro, that is a burning man destined car. These are some spiritual people, guys.

They're lying out by the mailbox. There's rugs on the floor, candles lit. Yeah, some real, like, old school hippie vibes. You just know that stock on the right, because you had to get right next to the mailbox. Yeah. I thought those were sleeping bags. I think they're kind of just like rugs.

They are, yeah. They've laid out rugs. But hey, guys, no phones in sight. These guys haven't even heard of clavicular. No toxic masculinity. This is just guys being dudes in the desert. We need to bring back this type of, this type of bro. I do think there's something genuinely cool, fun and cute about this.

It's a reminder of how much of a simpler time it was. And honestly, it's not just the 90s, because not to get hung up on the 90s. It's honestly just the time of, I think, like, the early internet, which connects straight into like the 2000s. It was like a simpler time that was weirdly more mysterious. Like, in these guys' case, they had to, we found out about the black mailbox through the internet,

but these guys had to find out about it in a magazine. From an old map. And then that someone wrote to the magazine, using a letter and then they had to buy a map and tracked on where it was and then drive through the desert at night to find it. Yeah. There was more of a sense of like the world hadn't been fully discovered, you know? Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I got to say, I love this story. I think this is a really cool idea, a really cool premise. I'm going to need something paranormal to happen real quick. Don't you remember that I can see you? Like, did everyone forget that I can see you?

Legitimately did. As I mentioned, the website meant that word was now getting out about the booth, which led to more coverage. And eventually, the New York Times wrote about the Mojave phone booth, and before long, the phone was ringing off the hook. But as the phone booth received more visitors, that's when more weird stuff started happening. Visitors would report lots of strange experiences around the phone. Some experienced the same strange static and distortion on the line that Doc had heard. Some felt vibrations coming from the desert floor itself when the booth would ring, as if the booth was connected to something underneath the earth.

Some who saw the booth at night claim that they saw lights moving in the sky above the booth. Some swear they've seen UFOs in the vicinity of the phone booth. One guy went into the phone like Neo from the Matrix. He was removed from the simulation and entered the real world. There's a non... I need... This is a good hot take. We need to research this.

There is a non-zero chance the Wachowski's knew about the phone booth. This was entering the public consciousness, I guess, around the same time as the Matrix. They could. And the Matrix, of course, utilized the concept of the hard line that you would go to a phone booth,

pick up the phone, and get taken out of the Matrix. Yeah, we don't really have phone booths anymore. So if the Matrix was made now, could you, like, send someone a Snapchat? and that's how you get out. Right. It's like, I need 4G.

I need 4G. It's like quickly down the halls, you'll get full bars down there. Send someone an Instagram reel. You can leave the world. Neo famously said. He's like spinning in his chair. Like, Link, I need an out.

TikTok isn't loading. It's like, you didn't download the latest update. You can't send or receive any TikToks until the app's down downloading. Where can I get full service? There's a Starbucks on the corner. They'll have free Wi-Fi. Dun-Dun-Dun-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-Running down the streets.

The barista at the Starbucks is like, got a coffee for Mr. Anderson. Oh, shit. Blur that. Blur that. I don't want to get DEM all the time. I pulled the gun out again. And it wasn't just people experiencing strange things around the phone booth.

The phone booth itself was a little. a strange effect on people. There was something about the isolation of this phone booth that people were using it to kind of open up and confess their deepest, darkest secrets to total strangers. That's not good. It was almost like a confession booth of sorts, but many felt it was more than that. The strange occurrences were as if the booth was a portal or a beacon or an antenna of some kind. One man, Rick Carr, said that a higher Pah told him he needed to camp by the booth and answer every call that came there. He lived there for 32 days and answered over 500 calls.

And one day, he says he received a particularly interesting call. He claims he received a phone call from the Pentagon. He said, who's calling? Why? And they replied, Sergeant Zeno. Oh, Lord. I asked for this. I asked for this.

Don't pick up the phone. Not me picking out the phone. Phil, can you show us a photo of Rick, not Sergeant Zeno. I would really rather see Sergeant Zino. I'll be honest with you. Rick looks way too normal to be camping out and answering phone strangers from. He said that he was on like a spiritual journey to answer the phone as many times as he could. That is so weird.

He just basically volunteered to do a customer service job for a month. he's like hello mohavi phone booth how can I help you today you're cheating on your husband okay well I'm sorry to hear that I can connect you to Sergeant Zeno he'll be able to take it from here why would he be called Zeno

I know even if he works with aliens why is he called Sergeant Zeno in this world that Rick got this call it's the world of men and black where the aliens are

Are the aliens are wearing suits walking around the pentagon? Because in our world, the guy who is seeing the most insane paranormal shit is called Mike. His name is still like Mike Smith. His name isn't like Zorlach. Officer Grogulon. Yeah. That's the name they gave me. So I just went for it.

But Rick wasn't alone. A lot of people who called the food loose. He was. He was very alone by the sounds of things. Literally. but not figuratively, because a lot of people who called the phone booth claim to be connected with strange individuals, some of which didn't sound human, leading to the belief that somehow they are being connected with hybrids, aliens, or even ghosts. I mean, this does sound nuts, but this is kind of a tale as old as time in terms of things we've looked at on this paranormal life.

and maybe it is the explosion of the information age that people have made the kind of technological forms of communication synonymous with the paranormal. In the same way that hundreds of years ago, people were starting to use Ouija boards to communicate with ghosts. Once personal computers came along, they started trying to talk to guys who died in the 1500s.

We covered this in the ghost inside the computer from the 1500s. Or time travelers posting on message boards So it actually isn't that kind of unprecedented for it to be this kind of mysterious phone booth. And then people are like, I think I talk to a ghost. I mean, to be fair, if I dialed the number for the phone booth and got connected to Rick Carr, I might not think I'm talking to a human either, to be honest. A guy who sounds like he just made up his second name based off the thing that just drove past him.

Who am I talking to? Rick Carr. And he's like, that'll throw those feds off the scent. So just to clarify, there are people at the phone booth receiving strange calls, but also people calling the phone booth

saying they're talking to strange people at the phone booth. I think 90% of people are calling the phone booth. Presumably just because of the amount of effort it would take to get to the phone booth. And they're having most of the weird experiences. And then there's like the odds kind of, you know, dark tourists off the beaten track traveler who drives out as a destination to find it. But they too are also having weird experiences.

Like the one I mentioned at the start of the episode where someone just said, whispered, I can see you repeatedly. Yeah. So it's kind of both ends. But I think on a numbers game, 90% of people are calling it. Because that's much easier to do. Okay. That's good for me to understand. While I'm trying to defend it on the basis of this kind of like technological explosion of the 90s and 2000s

and people were having a paranormal experience with this form of communication, we do also have to bring up again, Roy, something you mentioned earlier, the fact that we have been to this part of the world and not just to go to Chipotle. Yes, is there lots of Chapoalas? Yes. Are they delicious? Yes. But it's also a very paranormal place.

We did an non-location investigation in this part of the world. We attended the contact in the desert UFO conference. It's there because it's considered to be maybe the most UFO active hotspot on earth. Then we drove north through the desert to Area 51 in Nevada. And Rory, I don't know if this crossed your mind yet, but I had a little inkling. Once I saw the geographical location of the Mojave phone booth, I was like, well, I don't know familiar. Because we drove from 29 pams in California six hours or whatever to area 51. It was a long drive.

We passed it? We passed within 20 minutes of it. No way. And like bearing in mind, I said it's at the end, it's not on a road. Yeah, yeah. It's 15 miles off. a main road. And the Mojave Desert I checked is 25,000 square miles

and we pass within 20 minutes on. Damn. That's so cool. So if you and I had planned to go 20 minutes out of our way to meet some miners in the desert. Yo! Well, no, that's what you're saying. We would have reached this town

where we could have actually been by the phone booth. Where people who work in mines. That actually breaks my heart a little bit to hear. It does. The problem is, though, there's so much stuff out there. Because we're never going to do that drive again. No. I mean, there's no...

Because, like, would we go back to contact in the desert? Yes. Would you go back to Area 51? Maybe. Maybe. Would we do them both in, like, two days? I don't see why. But, yeah.

But I feel like I do have to go, though, now. But yeah, that would have been really cool. Yeah, yeah. Even just for the photo shoot alone. 100%. Yeah. Sorry, us being nearby is not the point. The point I was trying to make was,

it's not only that, it's not only the UFOs, it's not only the black mailbox, it's the Area 51 Research Center. It's the several cryptids known to be native to that area, including the Yucca Man and stuff like that. It's not baseless that this is just happening in Paris, and there's a weird phone booth and some weird stuff has happened. It's connected to the fact that this is like one of the stranger places

in North America. And, okay, do I think the Yucca Man built? built the phone booth? No. Do I feel like the Yucca man is answering the phone? Maybe? No. But what is more likely is, is it connected to the legitimately proven weird government research facilities in this part of the world? Right. Because we covered Area 51, but there is a crazy secret of history of U.S. Air Force bases in that part of the world. And you're wondering if this is connected somehow? Is it like, is it like a that's where like undercover age they go to f*** here, you know, they go to get given orders in the middle of the desert.

I don't even know. Or passwords or something. I mean, that was the thing with the black mailbox, which is it itself isn't inherently paranormal. And there were legends that it's the mailbox for Area 51. That's absolute nonsense. Of course it isn't. They're not just sending classified documents to a mailbox in the middle of the desert.

But where it did become a part of the kind of paranormal history out there is a boss. Bob Lazar, one of the biggest UFO whistleblowers, he talked about this mailbox as a geographical point that would be a great place to go to see UFOs. Oh, that was it to watch the... Yeah, he would talk about these light shows. Yeah, he would bring people to the mailbox. Of like UFO testing. Just because he needed in the desert a point that he could, you know, direct people towards,

go to the mailbox, you'll see it on this road. be seeing something kind of similar today where it's like, look, maybe the telephone box isn't paranormal, but it is a pin on a map. A landmark. A landmark that has been involved in the surrounding confidential, classified paranormal activities. What about the guy whispering, I can see you? I don't think he could. I don't think he could. Was that Sergeant Zeno? I don't know who that was. That's a really good point, though because even like I kind of like the story it's like all right if you can see me what am I wearing

you're wearing air force ones and you're wearing shit what are those jeans those are actually really nice jeans where did you get those are those Levi's or like bootcut you don't see bootcut much these days but looks good on you you haven't you I can tell I can tell

all right he's your boy Zino let's do a quick fit check what's on the feet what's on the wrist There you go. Thanks. Zeno, I got the new Jordans. Damn, what are those? It's a good point, though. I like what you're saying about the landmark because I actually like a couple of those experiences that are a little bit unusual but believable. Like the kind of rumbling, the vibrations on the earth,

or seeing the light show up above you of potential UFO activity. Because, yeah, maybe UFOs need landmarks too. maybe that's part of the weirdness. Again, it's like, it's like a, it's like circumstance because we already know this is a UFO hotspot. There's UFOs in the area and then just so happens that if you go to this one, like it's almost like a lightning rod.

It's like there's just a place of electrical activity, there's a visual landmark, maybe the aliens come to check that little bit out. So kind of anything's possible. Yeah, yeah. Well, maybe the best evidence for this being a secret government project. was that in the year 2000, the phone booth disappeared.

Okay, it was decommissioned. And at that point, it was receiving constant visitors and calls. So it was, I don't know if it was like a nuisance or something, or it was like, I don't know, the maintenance or I don't know, but it was permanently removed. Let's face it, this is also just the period of time when phone booths around the world were being increasingly decommissioned. Yeah.

Although I say that, that's kind of a years later, because mobile phones weren't kind of fully, fully, fully adopted until a couple of years after that. And visitors even made a grave for the phone booth. You know these Burning Man motherfucket had to do it. Phil, I think we've got an image of the thing. Wait, so it doesn't, so we wouldn't have been able to see it? It would have been able to see the site. Wouldn't we able to see the phone booth?

Oh, well, I'm a little less sad now. It's snowing? I don't understand the desert at all. This is crazy. Because I assume when you were like, it got decommissioned. I'd be like, oh, so it's just been left to ruin. No, they, this is... There's nothing there!

This is what I'm saying. Secret government site. They decommissioned it because it was getting too hot. The secret agents couldn't go to do their secret agent stuff because there's too many people. So they were like, remove the, I don't know why they're Russian. Remove the phone booth. That also wasn't Russian. That was very German.

The phone booth. Yeah. So they left a little headstone in its place. And it said that, to this day, visitors who go there might be able to hear a phantom ring or a strange vibration or electronic sound rising from the desert floor. That's very cool. As if the lines are still under there. Yes. Which I know isn't true because a lot of the American phone booths are overhead wires. But yeah. But still cool. Yeah. The lines that make it be able that dot could call someone or above,

the lines to the hollow earth are unethed. underneath. What are we doing today? But Rory! The story of the booth actually doesn't end there. You know why? Why? Because while the booth is gone, what about the phone number? 6197339969. Very cool. Does the number still work? There's only one way to find out. Have you tried calling this yet or are we doing this live on the podcast? I haven't. I've heard some rumors. What if you just get unplugged from the Matrix right now on the podcast? There's like a digital screech and you turn to code and disappear.

I'm like, I think Phil, we don't have jobs anymore. I think that's the end of the show. I don't know what to do now. Or my face turns into Agent Smith. Hello, Rory. I like give Phil the option. I'm like, if you want Phil, you can call the number. I mean, we've both seen the movie.

The real world is substantially worse than the Matrix. So I'm probably going to stay here. But if you want to call it, you can. Okay. So I'm about to call the real phone number that's never changed of the Mojave phone booth. Do it. Don't put it near me. Do it on your side.

Oh, shit. We're sorry. The number you have dialed has been changed to a conference. Press 0.4B.4. Press 1 through 9.4 conference. Hmm. You are the only. party in this conference.

There's whole of music. What? It's like, I'm getting a lot of static. I think it's every time I talk. It's kind of creepy though. It seemed to say that the phone number, it said press zero for board or

press 1 through 9 for conference but it said we're the only person in the conference so in theory other people can join maybe I feel like we have to go back and do the board whatever that is we'll try that that worries me because it makes it sound like we're going to go straight to the pentagon and Zeno himself yeah okay let's see if I can get back there without redialing

that song is incredible does it still work It was decommissioned in 2000. 9.4. All right. 715. Messages posted on the bulletin board. One to repeat.

Two to continue. Three to record your own. Two to continue? Yeah. Okay. Hey, y'all. How you doing? I just heard about this phone.

This little phone deal up in there and there in the middle of the days or something. He's drunk. One to repeat. That was it I can do this all day I really could Hey y'all How are you doing

This is Jamie from Nashville This is a same guy Oh it's a different guy Nashville Not Arizona That's not how tech's work mate Oh you gotta beep that That's his mobile number

That's his mobile number Last one I haven't checked in for quite a while The messages were just over Lord, so you couldn't listen. So I decided on my way to my other job, say, hey, from Minnesota where it's about 90 degrees today. Summer in a couple weeks. She's going to my other job, I'm 10 waitresses.

I got to go to the person that's trying to cross the street that no one will slow down when I like... Oh wait, oh shit. I don't want to alarm anyone, but I just got a text. From the number? From the number. What is that? Coins vanish in black. Black. The worms do not know your name. Entropy completed. What?

All right, that's everything for us this week, guys. Thanks for tuning in. Um, I think, uh, gotta go into hiding for a while or something. The worms don't know my name? Yes. Oh, the worms. I don't know what's happening. This is a confusing episode. I got a text while we were on the phone to the number.

Check it out. Coins vanish in black. The worms do not know your name. Dude, you know what? exactly what this is. This is in the movie when the secret agent sits next to you at the bench and says some weird stuff.

And you need to know the thing to say back to it. So you need to text back like the crow flies at midnight. Shit, bro. You know, we have to have the response. What are you waiting for? Text them. Well, I don't know what the answer is.

I don't want to do it, so you do it. I don't know what the answer is. Well, What was that shit you just said? That sounded mysterious. It's usually nothing to do with the first sentence because... Yeah, it has to be a non-sequitur. Because if the first code word is like,

the weather's nice today, and your client is supposed to say, yeah, isn't it? You just turn to the guy and be like, it's you. Well, it could be related, but it would have to be like... Super weird. It's got to be weird. Yeah, it has to be a little weird.

Okay, so what do we want to go for? They said, coins vanish in black, the worms do not know your name. Why don't we just, when in doubt, be honest. But why don't you just say, look, bro, I don't know what that means. Just tell me where they're keeping Zeno. I'm going to write, but the soil will hold the past. I like that, okay.

P.S. Where Zeno? Yeah, try it. Oh, I'll do, the soil will hold the past. Brackets, Zeno sent us. I'm sure you're. going to say Zeno style. Okay, I'm good doing Zeno style. Hashtag Zeno style.

All right, this point will hold the past. Zeno style. Was his name even Zeno? Dude, is that what it was before I said this? I think so. All right, well, I'm going to send. Send. What does it even mean?

I sent it. Coins vanish in black. The worms do not know your name, but the soil will hold the. past, Zeno style, sent no response. Which I assume they would respond really quick if they're waiting for the right answer. Should have gone with the crow flies at midnight. That just sounds like the right answer.

Why don't you send it? This is like two teenagers, like trying to text one girl together. It's like, no, we can't double text if she didn't reply to the first one. Yeah, because maybe it's like we just have to put in the right password, the right number of words. You could just try infinitely. Right. Well, I don't have that many text messages, so this is to a US number after all. Okay.

All right, well, I'll stop there then. Okay. Well, I'll let you know if we get anything back because that was disturbing. And I have to be honest, I did not think that was going to happen. It's a little strange. But isn't this so insane? The number still works. Wow.

And we were hearing, like, that is, I started to get a little bit emo just then. That, like, even all these years later, I don't know why it's still working, but. Like the fact that people are still using that number in the same way as they were using the phone with a whole lot time ago. Well, it sounds like someone has rerouted the number to now be whatever this is, this system that can hold essentially voicemails from anyone. It's thousands of voice messages. Yeah, very cool. Holy crap. Actually, you know, it's easy to be cynical about that.

I actually think it's quite sweet. You're just listening to a few of those messages. It sounds like it's just people calling and talking about their days. or like wanting to chat to people, basically like a regular online message board. It's just like, hey, I don't actually have a lot going on right now. Don't know who to call. If you want to hang out, I'm in Nashville.

Yeah, now you mention it. It's 3,000 people at rock bottom, isn't it? No. It's just like, wow, I realize there's no one to talk to in my life. I didn't say that. I think it's a community supporting each other and talking about their feelings. Wow. I mean, what does it even say about how much?

my day is going that I've turned to a f*** up or some shit to, no, I'm joking. It is true. It is sweet. And that was some, I mean, that was bars what that woman said. She was like, karma, go out, tip someone today, be nice to them because what goes on comes around, guys. And I'm just realizing we haven't recorded our message. We've got to leave one. Let's do it.

Okay. Should we rehearse what we want to say or do we just do it? Free ball it. Okay. No prep. Go straight in. Play it cool, too. We only get one chance at this. All right. The crow flies at midnight.

No, come on. Zeno style. Yo, this is Kit and Rory from this paranormal life to number one paranormal podcast. So? Yeah, just calling to say we love this. It's a really cool idea. And we hope everyone out there remembers to live fast, investigate, and die young baby. Zeno style.

You're on the board board. What do you say we're on the what board? I don't know. It sounds like this is something you could access on a website. It sounds like it's being stored somewhere. Yeah, I don't know if there's a website for all this. But yeah, it's being stored for sure. But I don't know if it's on juice of clubs.com.

Well, I, there's no point in me talking. What do you make of that? I mean, it's cool. People are keeping it alive. They've obviously, yeah, got the number and relocated it to this system, this voicemail system. Or? No. That's the Pentagon.

We were just talking to the, they're conducting a human experiment. 3,700 messages? You shouldn't have given them our names then. You started it by saying it's Kit and Rory from this by normal life. By home address is one. Way, chill. And look, that is it. This is the history of the Mojave phone booth from its kind of discovery, essentially, in the 90s, at least online, through to the present day, sitting here in 20, 26, almost 30 years later.

I kind of can't believe that is still connected because I had read rumors that you could call the number, but I was seeing chatter online about this from as long as maybe eight, nine, 10 years ago. So the fact that it's still going is kind of nuts. We will flash up the number on the screen or in the description so you can try it out for yourself. If you like, although at your own risk, don't say your address. Don't say your address. Don't do that. But it is cool. I mean, this is the mystery of the phone booth.

No one really knows what it was all about, whether the paranormal experiences were real at all, or whether it was maybe people's minds playing tricks on them. All I know is the internet is alive with stories of people going to visit it, experiencing weird things while they were there. and honestly its spirit lives on in many many different ways because and this is a bit of a curveball Rory but this might speak to you

I believe it kind of got caught up in the Cicada 3301 story for a while did it? Yes or people believe they were linked at one point I do have a screenshot of I believe someone received messages

from this number and it was just like it looked like code. It was like strings of just like hash keys and numbers and letters. And people were trying to figure it out. They believed like this was connected to the Ccated 3301 and I think a different kind of online mystery as well. So it's had such a long life on the internet that it's even been involved in kind of more recent weird mysteries and creepy past us. I mean, I wish it had a longer life in this world. It's such a shame that it was obliterated and removed. off the face of the earth.

I mean, I'm glad the line is still live, but it's one of those things. I don't know enough about technology and how this works, that it's like the fact that we can call the number and talk to anything on the other line, does that actually have any connection to the geographical location of this phone box and the original lines that were used to connect these calls?

I don't think it does in the same way that, like, when you change phone, you can just get your number moved over. I think probably what you're able to call today is just the fact that someone has gotten ownership of the phone number and set this thing up rather than like, we're, we were just talking with the box underground in the Mojave Desert. It's predirected. It's possible we were. I don't think so. Talking to the box. I don't think so. I think that's entirely possible. I mean, numbers have to be geo located, right? So it must be a California number.

That's true. Yeah. Maybe. I don't know. I don't even know what I'm saying, really. At the end of every episode, we do have to decide whether we're going to say, heading into conclusions. I don't know.

I don't know what the fuck is saying. You have to decide whether we think this investigation, this case is paranormal or not. Look, I get it. There's not exactly a ton of paranormal evidence for this one. There's a very paranormal place. Some interesting things happening to the people involved. But really, we're dealing with more. of a modern mystery piece of folklore.

And a very cool one at that. And then I just couldn't believe we were actually able to interact with ourselves. That being said, Rory, do you think the Mojave phone booth is paranormal? Listen, as I proved to my family, you can love something and still be disappointed in it. And I think that's what's happening in today's case.

I love this. I think it's really cool. It's a great corner of the world. It's a really exciting premise. You know how much I loved the mysterious black mailbox in the desert. Yeah, you didn't want to leave it, famously. A very famous thing.

And that's one I saw with my own eyes that we touched, that we got to experience gun to my head right now. Would I say that even that was paranormal? No, I wouldn't. I think that's a regular mailbox. You know, that's because UFOs weren't flying directly overhead. I don't think they were in this case either. They weren't.

You didn't mention that there were UFOs flying overhead. There were lights in the sky that people interpreted as UFOs. It's already so upset. I haven't even said, but I think yet he's so upset. I just think it's funny. No. It's a no for me this week. I'm not going to go on a whole big rant about it.

I love this. I think it's really interesting. It's a no for me this week. I'm really sorry about that. I'm just kidding. It's a no for me too. I do think it's a story I've had a lot, a lot of fun with looking into and I think it's extremely cool. And maybe it speaks to me as a citizen of the early internet, late 90s, early 2000s. This was just the kind of cool stuff that used to populate.

Stuff that blends the physical world and the online world. And in this case, the paranormal world. But I don't think we're actually talking to ghosts here. And we don't have enough evidence to say we're talking to UFOs, even though I think we might be. So it's a double no on this week's episode. But thank you for listening anyway. I hope you try out the phone number at your own risk. And let us know in the comments how you get on.

Do you get some weird text messages too? And now that we put this episode out, I'm like, I need to listen. I need to call the board again in a week. And hopefully there'll be lots of messages from TPL listeners. That would be funny. Hey, you know what? Hashtag flood the board. We could do that on the after party.

Oh, that would be funny. The after party, if you don't know, is our weekly extra episode that we do where we talk about all the behind the scenes of making the show, producing the episodes, and talk about stuff that we simply couldn't squeeze into this week's episode. So that's a great idea. We should listen to the board and see if we can hear some TPL messages. Great idea. The after party over at this paranormal life.com.

link is in the description to go check out all those great after-party episodes, all those great bonus episodes, and I think Roy you posted the other day, we hit 1,000 just to let you know how much stuff's over there. We've hit 1,000 all-time posts on

This Paranormal Life.com on our Patreon. So head on over and check it out, support the show. Yeah. Oh, and reminder, our supporters got first dibs on live show tickets for our big London live show this Sunday, October 11th. in the Clapham Grand in London. We're having a huge party doing a live show of our brand new show.

We bought a time machine. Not this Sunday. Well, it's this Sunday 11th of November. Whatever I said. 11th of October. On a Sunday. It's this Sunday. Four months from now.

Sorry, the time travel's going to be f***ed up. Yeah, to be fair. The time travel. Guys, you know when the show is? It's last week. All right. It's tomorrow. It's Christmas, it's New Year's.

It already happened. Time means nothing when you turn on the machine that we have for the show. You're done. Yeah. Should we tell people what it really is? I told him Sunday 11th. This Sunday 11th of October, 26, 28. Check out the tickets.

Links also in the description. Grab a ticket. Come hang out with the commune in person. We're going to be having an official after party and everything. It'll be a lot of fun. Yeah. Check out this paranormal. We're going to be back on Tuesday with the brand new paranormal tale, back on Friday with the after party over at this paranormal life.com. Thank you for tuning in. Remember to live fast, investigate, and die young, zeno style. There you go.

We love this cool idea and we hope everyone out there remembers to live fast, investigate and die young, baby. Zeno style. Pretty good. Thank you.