The Why Files: Operation Podcast
623: Witnesses of: Black Eyed Kids, Phone Calls from the Dead, The Cursed Heart
12 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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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.
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Chapter 2: 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.
Chapter 3: 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. Looking to refresh your wardrobe this year without draining your bank account?
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Quince.com slash the Y-Files. The Chatsworth crash was the deadliest train accident in California history. I lived in LA at the time I remember it. The impact fused the trains together into a single mass of twisted steel. The fires burned for hours. Thick black smoke was visible for 20 miles. 2,500 gallons of diesel fuel leaked from ruptured tanks.
The smell of burning plastic and diesel reached Northridge six miles away. Andrea was at the station waiting for Charles when the news broke. She drove to the crash site, but the police held her back. She joined his parents, his brother, his sister, and his stepmother in a waiting area. They sat in that room for hours, terrified, waiting for the survivor list.
Then they were waiting for the list of the dead. And then, in the middle of that silence, Andrea's phone rang. She looked at the screen. Charles. The room went still. She grabbed the phone with shaking hands and pressed answer. Charles, baby, are you there? She expected a voice, a cry for help, anything.
She got static, that low, rhythmic hum, like wind blowing through a long tunnel or someone trying to breathe through damaged lungs. The call lasted six seconds, then it dropped. The family stared at each other. Pocket dial? Glitch? Five minutes later, it happened again. This time, his son's phone rang. Caller ID? Dad. He answered. Dad, where are you? Static. Heavy, hollow silence.
In line with dead. Then his brother's phone rang. Then his stepmother's. For the next 11 hours, his phone launched a desperate campaign. It called everyone he loved, his fiancé, his parents, his siblings, his children.
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Chapter 4: What are the documented cases of phone calls from the dead?
They assumed everyone in the front car was dead. They moved carefully, treating the wreckage as a crime scene. But if a survivor was calling out, this was now a rescue mission. The fire chief sent 250 firefighters to the site. 50 paramedics stood by. They brought cutting equipment, jacks, cranes. Over 100 tons of steel had to be moved piece by piece without causing further collapse.
Police contacted Verizon and traced the signal. Every call came from Peck's phone. Every ping came from the same location. The phone was broadcasting from the epicenter of the disaster, the lead passenger car, crushed to half its original size. The firefighters went back in. The work was dangerous.
Wreckage twisted under immense pressure, fires still smoldering, air thick with smoke and the stench of burning plastic and diesel. But they had a target now. They cut through steel. They lifted heavy debris. Every time the phone rang, they got a fresh ping. The signal guided them through tons of twisted metal. 35 calls, 35 pings.
The rescue team worked through the night, exhausted, running on adrenaline and hope. At 3.28 a.m., 12 hours after the crash, the call stopped. Maybe the phone battery died, or maybe Charles had lost consciousness. But it didn't matter. They had his location. One hour later, just before dawn, they broke through the final layer of debris. They aimed their flashlights into the crushed car.
The beam hit a man in his seat. It was Charles. He didn't look injured. Unconscious, maybe. For a second, they thought they'd pulled off a miracle. They didn't. My Lowe's Pro Rewards members. Go big during Pro Savings Days at Lowe's. Buy more and save more with up to 20% off job site essentials like primed finger joint boards when you spend $3,000 or more.
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Chapter 5: What strange events occurred after Dean Koontz received a mysterious phone call?
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Charles was still strapped into his seat, not pinned by machinery, not trapped under rubble. He didn't look injured. A firefighter reached out and checked for a pulse. Charles' skin was cold. Charles Peck was dead and had been for a while. The injuries were catastrophic, crushed thoracic cavity, severed spine, massive internal bleeding. His heart stopped instantly when the trains collided.
The crash occurred at 4.22 p.m. Charles Peck died at 4.22 p.m. According to the medical examiner, brain function ceased the moment of impact. No suffering, no waiting for rescue, instantaneous death. He was dead 12 hours before they found him. He was dead before the first call to Andrea. He was dead for the call to his son, the call to his brother, the call to his stepmother.
Dead for every single one of the calls that guided the rescue team through the wreck. The comfortable explanation is technical glitch. Maybe the impact short-circuited the phone. Maybe damaged wiring was causing it to randomly dial contacts from his favorites list over and over for 11 hours. But there's a problem with that theory.
When firefighters found Charles, they wanted to secure his personal effects, especially the phone that guided the entire rescue operation. They checked his pockets, empty. They checked the floor around his seat, the seat pockets, the debris within arm's reach, no phone. They expanded the search, sifting through wreckage in every direction.
They checked underseats and overhead compartments beneath debris. No phone. They swept the area with metal detectors. They photographed every piece of wreckage before moving it. Standard protocol for securing evidence. They found his wallet. They found his keys. They never found the phone. The device that made 35 calls over 11 hours.
The device that pinged cell towers and transmitted a signal strong enough to guide a rescue team through the wreckage was gone. It wasn't in his hand. It wasn't in his pocket. It wasn't anywhere in the car. The signal came from his seat, but the source didn't exist. Charles Peck died instantly. He didn't have a pulse, no brain activity, no phone. Yet for 11 hours, he reached out.
He called the woman he was going to marry. He called the children he was leaving behind. He called everyone who loved him over and over until they found his body. And once they did, he hung up. We want to believe that when we die, we leave this world completely. But stories like this make you wonder if the connection is ever fully severed.
Maybe in the static between stations, a signal can still get through. So tonight, before you go to sleep, check your phone. Make sure it's charged. Make sure the volume is on. Because if it rings in the middle of the night and the caller ID shows a name you haven't seen in years, don't be afraid. Answer it. They might need your help. Or you might need theirs. Gather round, because this happened.
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