Witnesses of: Black Eyed Kids, Phone Calls from the Dead, The Cursed Heart
episodePreviously titled “623: Witnesses of: Black Eyed Kids, Phone Calls from the Dead, The Cursed Heart” — renamed by the publisher on Aug 2, 2026
Transcript
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Gather round, because this happened. September 12, 2008. The 4.22 p.m. Metrolink left Union Station packed with commuters. Charles Peck stood in the aisle of the front car. He was 49 years old. He texted his fiancée, Andrea. I'm almost there. That was the last message he ever sent. Minutes later, the commuter train slammed head-on into a Union Pacific freight train, both traveling over 40 miles per hour. Combined impact speed, 82 miles per hour. Charles Peck died instantly. 12 hours later, his family sat in a living room watching news footage of the wreckage. Then Andrea's phone lit up on the table. The caller ID said Charles.
We think of telephones as everyday things, plastic and glass, good for ordering pizza or doom scrolling through social media. But since their invention, people suspected they could serve another purpose. Nikola Tesla built a radio to reach the spirit world. Thomas Edison believed he could do the same. He called it a spirit phone, a device to bridge this world and the next. In 1920, Edison told Scientific American he'd been working on an apparatus to see if it is possible for personalities which have left this earth to communicate with us. He died in 1931 without completing it, or so his assistants claimed. But these calls do happen. In 1979, scientists published the first comprehensive study of phone calls from the dead.
They documented over 100 cases. 72% occurred within 24 hours of death. 89% featured heavy static or poor connection quality. 94% described voices as distant, mechanical, or hollow. Average call duration, six to 15 seconds. The pattern was clear. The calls were real.
What happened during the Chatsworth train crash?
But were they messages from beyond or something else? Sometimes the dead call to say goodbye. Sometimes they call with a warning. Dean Kuntz is famous for writing horror novels, but his most terrifying story is one he lived. Kuntz was in his home on a Tuesday afternoon in 1988, working alone in a quiet house. The phone rang, an unlisted number. He picked it up and heard that heavy rhythmic static crackling through the receiver. Then a woman's voice cut through the noise. It was faint, but distinct. It sounded exactly like his mother. But his mother had been dead for over a decade. Koons didn't speak. He couldn't. The voice didn't say hello. It didn't ask how he was doing. It said only one thing, repeated in a flat tone.
Be careful, Dean. Be careful. It didn't sound like a recording. It sounded like a transmission from somewhere else. Then the line went dead. Two days later, Kuntz visited his father at a mental care facility. His father suffered from dementia. Kuntz walked into the room, and his father looked at him, reached into a drawer, and pulled out a knife. The blade was eight inches long and razor sharp. His father lunged and tried to stab him. Kuntz caught his father's wrist inches from his chest. His father was 73 years old, but fought like a man possessed. It took three orderlies to pull them apart. Kuntz wrestled the knife away. He subdued his father without getting hurt. If he hadn't been on edge, if he hadn't been warned, he might not have reacted fast enough.
How did Charles Peck's phone calls guide the rescue team?
His mother reached across whatever separates the living from the dead to save her son's life. But Charles Peck wasn't calling to warn anyone. He wasn't calling to say goodbye. He was leading them somewhere.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:01–2:46
2
What happened during the Chatsworth train crash?
2:46–4:15
3
How did Charles Peck's phone calls guide the rescue team?
4:15–8:19
4
What are the documented cases of phone calls from the dead?
8:19–10:15
5
What strange events occurred after Dean Koontz received a mysterious phone call?
10:15–38:00
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