Typically, in these cases, someone
answers a ringing phone and hears their deceased loved one speaking to them
from the other end of the line. The message is usually very short, although
sometimes an actual conversation takes place. The voice of the deceased is
generally (but not always) recognizable. As with apparitions and dreams, these
calls sometimes come to more than one person at approximately the same time,
and they sometimes come to friends or neighbors of those for whom the calls
appear to be intended, as if to emphasize that the calls are not just figments
of a grief-fueled imagination.
Consider a case reported by Dr. John Lerma. A hospice patient of his named Mary Esther had just passed away, and the nurses were attempting to call her son, but his line was continually busy. While Lerma was at the nurses’ station asking for an update on their attempts, the phone rang. The caller ID said the call was coming from Mary Esther’s room. The nurse answered but quickly passed the phone to Lerma. She appeared frightened by what she’d heard on the other end. Lerma says he heard a lot of static and a faraway voice that repeated the phrase, “Tell my son I’m okay.” The nurse said it sounded just like Mary Esther. They then rushed into her room to see who might have placed the phone call but saw no one there besides her dead body. Thirty minutes or so later, Mary Esther’s son arrived at the hospital. He said he, too, had gotten a call from his mother. It had happened after her death but before he was aware she’d died. She told him over and over, “I am okay. I love you. Don’t worry about me.”
This next case, taken from Kasprowicz’s book, is an example of a more extended conversation, one in which the deceased passed along important information about a dangerous medical situation. An American man named Russell Reynolds had just been driven to a motel in Boise, Idaho, to prepare for undergoing open-heart surgery the next morning. His caregiver was with him in the motel room when the phone rang. She answered but got an odd look on her face and told Reynolds it was for him. Reynolds had no idea who it could be since he hadn’t told people about his trip. A male voice on the other end of the line asked if he was Russell, and when he said yes, the man told him not to go see his surgeon the next day. “It’s not your turn to die,” he said. Reynolds asked who was speaking, and the man replied that his name was Oscar. The only Oscar that Reynolds knew was a coworker who’d died of cancer the year before. Reynolds could hear a bunch of other voices in the background of the call and asked where Oscar was. Oscar replied, “I’m between heaven and earth.” Then he again repeated that Reynolds shouldn’t have the surgery, that it wasn’t his turn to die, and the line went dead.
Reynolds went to the hospital the next day as planned but asked to speak to his surgeon. A few minutes later, Reynolds noticed the surgeon pacing outside his room. When he finally came in, he told Reynolds the surgery was going to be postponed. Another doctor spoke with Reynolds later and explained that the surgeon who’d been scheduled to operate on him had lost his last three patients. Reynolds then had open-heart surgery a week later with a different surgeon, and there were no issues.
Sharon Hewitt Rawlette has a PhD in philosophy from New York University and writes about consciousness, parapsychology, and spirituality for both academic and popular audiences. She lives in rural Virginia. She received an award from the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies for her essay “Beyond Death: The Best Evidence for the Survival of Human Consciousness,” available at https://bigelowinstitute.org/contest_winners3.php. Footnotes in the essay are not included in these excerpts.
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