Phantom Singing: Road Trip Edition | True Ghost Stories & Strange Theories | Ep #59

0:00 Welcome stranger to Madam Strange ways, where I Madam strange ways narrate your true strange stories of the unexplained. Whether you're a skeptic, A believer, or some secret third thing. Stick around after the story where I'll share my strange thoughts and research about said strange story. And along the way I'll also drag you down a slew of strange rabbit holes, kicking and screaming if needs must. But before we get to the the true strange story, the strangest of Shout outs to my Patreon patrons TJ Hotter, G Man Music, Ted Keith, Tori, Octavia, Corvidae, Keith 2 and Marielle.

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1:28 Disembodied singing while driving through fields by Spiritual Friend 235. I want to preface this story by saying my mom and I sought every explanation we could and are extremely skeptical and believe evidence based scientific practices are best. If you have a logical explanation, I'm all for it. I was driving through some planes today out of my hometown on a road trip with my mom. The area where N is very field heavy and planes based. We had exited a highway onto a back Rd. through some land with cars before us and behind us. It's the kind of Rd. that twists and winds through large privately owned land and MC mansions. Trees were sparse but lined the length of the roads. The cars near us kept respectful space as we're going 60 miles an hour around single lane curved roads. As I was driving, we had a story playing in the car. My windows were rolled up, the air was whirring lightly, and we were going about 60 miles an hour. There wasn't visible wind, but that's not to say that air wasn't moving at high speeds with the vehicle or through the fields.

2:41 There were rumble strips in the concrete outside the paved lines on the road to keep you on the concrete in the lanes and not in the grassy area. As I was coming around a right curve, my mom and I heard a strange operatic singing noise. We looked at each other to acknowledge it wasn't just one of us hearing it, and we ignored it. Then it happened again. My mom asked me incredulously if I heard the sound. I said yeah and turned down the story we were listening to. I turned it up and down to confirm the sound wasn't some backup noise for the track on the sound system. And it wasn't. The singing sounded like a concert that you were parking for, but not in front of, not in the arena or near the stage, but a distant song that you recognize as music but can't quite decipher. As if someone was singing into a microphone in the distance but in my back seat.

3:38 I told my mom to check her phone if it was somehow playing music. It wasn't. My phone was plugged into car play, but the system was turned down. She paused the story on my phone just to be sure. We rolled the windows up and down, trying to determine if the singing was inside or outside the car or the wind or another vehicle with loud music. If another car had their sound up as loud as it was for us to hear it in my car going 60 miles an hour with the distance between us as it was, it was loud music. We couldn't find the sound, though. We kept hearing it for a good few minutes, long enough for me to wonder if I was going crazy.

4:21 It wasn't inside or outside or nearby or in the distance. It wasn't anywhere yet we were hearing it. We could not determine the sound of the singing. If it was the wind, it was playing an extremely ominous Aria similar to a siren song. It wasn't identifiable inside or outside the car. Even sharing this, I would love some sort of explanation. Was it the wind on the road around the car somehow registering as a woman's song? Was it my tires on the ground but heard through the car and not outside of it? Curious to hear opinions or to clarify any information. I couldn't describe it other than an operatic Aria. Some soulful and lamenting noise making that registered as a longing sound without a source.

5:09 The words were indiscernible if there were words. Curious to know others thoughts. Hey, it's Madam Strangeways from the future. Yeah, I know, I'm already here. How? Something's wrong if I'm already talking to you. Anyway, if you're confused about some random references in this episode to the last episode, which has nothing to do with whatever I'm talking about, it's because this is a lost episode that somehow fell through the strange cracks and I just now realized. So it should have been published a few episodes ago.

5:52 In fact, now it is now being published now in the future instead of the past. So there you go. All right, Madam Strangeways, from the future out back to the past. Spiritual Friend 235, thank you so much for allowing me to read your story on the show. Spirit. Can I call you Spirit? Spirit. Thank you so much. I would have felt absolutely insane. But like so many things, especially the unexplained, something can be crazy. Making something can make you feel crazy, but that doesn't make you crazy. And also, what is crazy anyway? Like, what do we mean when we say that it you know, I, I know I, I need to stop saying it.

6:36 I need to stop saying insane and crazy, unless I'm talking about my mom. And then you would totally agree with me that it is absolutely the most accurate thing you could possibly say. Anyway, this situation would have made me feel like I was losing my mind. I think I'm losing my mind is what I would be thinking the entire drive. Because seriously, like you've, you've you've looked at everything, especially like you've checked the phones, the radio's down. How are you still hearing this soulful, creepy Aria? How are you listening to the first of all, opera is expensive. Aren't tickets, are the opera expensive? I mean, you weren't in a box, you know, like AVIP box, but still.

7:19 And there probably was not an operatic concert going on outside. And like you said, it would have to be super loud in order for it to come through to the car. So what was it? All the electronics are not guilty. The radio, what is it? Well, you know, I've got thoughts. You know, I have thoughts because that's what we like to do here. We, the royal, we, the strange, we the royal strange, we like to do that here on the show. It's just me. It's just me, by the way. But what I like to do is talk about not only paranormal theories, but also the mundane or naturalistic explanations. And one of the reasons that I like to do that is because I like to remind everyone that you can feel afraid and not be in danger. Like when you experience something that is unexplained, that doesn't necessarily mean it is unexplainable. It just means that in that moment, you can't explain it. And so it may feel very scary, but that doesn't mean that you're in danger.

8:12 However, that being said, always trust your gut. Your gut is generally right, unless it's my gut, in which case my gut is paranoid. So, you know, it's always a toss up with my gut anyway. Trust yours, not mine. Anyway, that's why I like to go over both paranormal and mundane, you might say skeptical. And that is where we're going to start today. Right off the bat, reading this story, immediately I was like, I already have a theory. I already have a mundane theory and I'm so excited to share it with you guys. If you have not heard of it, it's a musical Rd. Now a musical Rd. is a road or section of a road which when driven over causes a tactile vibration and audible rumbling that can be felt through the wheels and the body of the vehicle. What are you?

8:57 What are you saying to me? You may be saying to yourself. What are you saying right now Madam? Hold on. This rumbling is heard within the car as well as the surrounding area in the form of a melody. Musical roads are known to known to exist in Hungary, Japan, South Korea, Spain, the United States, China, Iran, Taiwan, Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates, Argentina, Belarus, Russia, and Turkey. In the past, they could be found in France, Denmark, and the Netherlands as well. I don't know. I guess France, Denmark, and the Netherlands don't have any whimsy left. I'm not sure. I'm not sure why they removed those. So on this road, on this musical Rd. each note is produced by varying the spacing of the strips in or on the road.

9:39 For example, an E note requires a frequency of about 330 vibrations in a second, therefore strips I. I'm lost, but I feel like someone will get something out of this. Therefore, strips 2.4 inches apart will produce an E note and a vehicle traveling at 45 miles an hour. OK, you know what? You know what? We're just going to here. Here you go. Here's an example. This is a musical Rd. located in the UAE, United Arab Emirates, so obviously not the same Rd. that spirit was on. However, I now bring you Beethoven's Ninth by a road in the UAE. Like, I want, OK, I want you to imagine not knowing that you're on a musical road and all of a sudden this is happening to you inside of the car.

10:42 That would freak you out, right? I OK, listen, listen, Spirit, maybe you, you got to you got to give me credit that this is I feel like this is a a strong contender. Now, it did say that there's some in the United States. Well, here's what I found. Route 66, the musical, which is weird because I just mentioned Route 66 in the last episode and these episodes could not be more different. The topics, the locations interesting. Anyway, Route 66 strange, you might say. Oh strange. Route 66 Musical project The Route 66 Musical Rd. Project has been certified by the Route 66 Centennial Commission as an official project to celebrate the 100th birthday of the historic road.

11:25 Route 66. How cool is that? So I go to the website, I'm like, I want to tell my listeners when they can go drive on these musical roads and there's no information. It's like TBD, OK, it's 2026 and that's when this is supposed to be happening. So I don't know, I feel like we can't fix our potholes. I don't know that we need to be installing whimsical musical roads just by just a thought. All right, Anyway, moving on. But also pause because spirit, spiritual friend, I just want to be clear, I don't know if what you were driving on is a music is a musical Rd. God, I can't get words out. I don't know that what you were driving on is a musical Rd. Maybe this is completely, absolutely not what you were experiencing. I am just introducing alternative theories. Just some ideas are just brainstorming and there's no bad ideas in brainstorming.

12:15 All right, moving on. This is from clickondetroit.com In December 2004, the mysterious sounds of Van Dyke Rd. Ghosts, aliens or just new asphalt? That's the headline. Macomb County, Michigan. Eerie noises on northbound M53 near 18 1/2 Mile Rd. in Macomb County have drivers scratching their heads and pulling over, thinking there's something wrong with their road or the cars. Good news, there's not. I was very worried. I don't know if you were worried, listener. The freshly repaved stretch of Van Dyke is emitting eerie noises that some say resemble creepy music. Ghosts. An opera singer.

12:58 Hello. An Aria. An operatic Aria is what we heard. And now we're talking about hearing sounds that sound like an opera singer. OK, moving on. Or sounds of the ocean. Or even an alien abduction. Now this is a quote. It sounds like aliens. Like UR, like I'm being abducted, said Paris Lockett, who drives the route daily, often late at night or early morning. Can I just say we did not need to include err dot dot dot. We do not need to include ERRRRR. In journalism. There is, there is a level of acceptable cleaning up of a quote. So like, you know, filler words like and like and err, as an example, you generally don't include those. You don't.

13:46 You generally don't include those in the quote unless you're really trying to drive home that they were stumbling over their words that they just couldn't get a thought out. I just feel like that was very disrespectful to Paris Lockett. I don't feel like we needed to include that. I think we could have cleaned that quote up and instead of it saying it sounds like aliens, like dot, dot, dot, like I'm being abducted. I feel like I could have said it sounds like aliens, period. Like I'm being abducted. Comma. End Quote. You see what I mean? That's all I'm saying. All right, moving on. This is the same article. This is another quote. It's like I'm under the ocean, added Cott Setzer, a frequent driver on the road who works at a business nearby. Now see, we didn't have any filler words in Scott's. Do we think Scott didn't say any filler words? I feel like he probably did, but why doesn't Scott? Anyway, his quote continues.

14:33 The first time I drove on the road with my girlfriend, with my girlfriend, who I definitely have everyone, did you hear? I have a girlfriend and we were driving on that road together. She immediately started thinking that something was wrong with her car and ever since they did road work on there, all the customers have been coming in and complaining that it sounds weird, especially my girlfriend who is real, my girlfriend, everybody. The mystery has sparked many questions and concerns on social media and among drivers in Macomb County. So Local 4 photographer Jason Wilger and I drove over this, drove over the stretch of asphalt about a dozen times on Monday, December 9th.

15:18 OK. I mean, you got to be scientific about it. You can't just go once. You got to do it twice at least. Maybe 3 * 4. Sure. Six. OK, 12. Is it just me or did maybe, maybe the writer of this article and their photographer just wanted some alone time in the car? Just a thought already continues. Michigan Department of Transportation m.spokesperson Diane Cross said this change sounds are caused by ridges or waves on the road that occasionally formed during the final stages of asphalt paving. So these are not like rumble strips, like, like Spirit said that we're on either side of the road to like wake you up if you're, you know, veering off.

16:01 And these are not like the musical ridges to make a song, nor are they ridges like as in Raffles. It's not those either. No, no. These are just sort of like imperfections that happen during the final stages of asphalt paving. Just to be clear. Cross advises drivers not to pull over unless they're sure their car has a problem. She recommended waiting until the next exit if you feel uneasy. Also, the ghostly groans are temporary as cars and snow plows travel over the road during winter and early spring. The ridges will wear down and the sounds will disappear. I feel like that's, I feel like that's kind of likely. What do you guys think?

16:41 What do you think, spirit? What are your thoughts? Can we find out? I don't know where this stretch of road was so I can't go back and check. I don't even know. Do they keep that sort of like infrastructure history? Is there someone we can contact to see if how how recently that road had been repaved? I feel like it's pretty compelling from a mundane perspective. I feel like that is a pretty compelling explanation. And me personally, I always, not always. I often wish that something is actually mundane and not a ghost because like in this case, I would rather it be mundane because I don't want to be here in operatic scary Arias while I'm driving.

17:22 On the other hand, when I hear something in my house, I do want it to be a ghost because I don't want it to be a human being in my home, you know? So it just kind of depends on the situation. Anyway, I think that's a pretty compelling mundane explanation, but I do have one more for the skepticals, Skeptic, for the skepticals out there, here we go. OK. And this one. OK. Spirit, I know you said that both you and your mom both heard the music, which is why, by the way, I have not mentioned that it could be auditory hallucinations. I didn't mention that because you both heard it typically. You know, Spirit, you might not have listened to any of the previous episodes, but something that I do bring up a lot are hallucinations because they're extremely common. I am not talking about hallucinations right now because you both heard it. However, even though I still don't think that what I'm about to say is necessarily the case because you both you and your mom heard it, sometimes I do like to include things that are kind of unlikely for this particular story, but I think that maybe they would help someone at some future time. Like for instance, apparently, apparently there's a form of tinnitus where people hear music as if it was coming from a radio.

18:30 What it's called musical ear syndrome or musical tinnitus or tinnitus I think as they say in the UK. All right, this is from the West Tennessee Hearing and Speech Centre website. It feels like why did I choose that? This story is not said in Tennessee to my knowledge. I don't know where it's set. I just I liked this description when I was researching it. I liked how they, I like how they phrased this. So we're so shout out to the West Tennessee Hearing and Speech Centre website. Great job. What is musical ear syndrome? Musical ear syndrome, MES, is when someone hears music that has no external source. Some people hear a single instrument playing a simple melody, others hear several instruments playing a complex piece of music, and still others hear a voice singing with or without accompaniment. The most common melodies, however, are hymns, Christmas carols, and patriotic music.

19:23 Which would be, what, a nightmare. I already get really bad earworms. Like obsessive earworms. Like one clip, one a few words out of a song on constant repeat in my head to the point and then I start singing out loud. And then I've done it so many times that I get mad at myself. Like I can't even think. I don't even want to think about it 'cause I don't have one in my head right now, so I don't even want to think about one 'cause it's going to be in my head again anyway. Drives me crazy so I cannot even imagine. Hymns, Hymns or Christmas carols or I don't want any of these. Anyway, it continues. I cut it off, Hold on, it was continuing. How is this different than when you can't seem to get a piece of music out of your head, which is what I just said. In the case of MES, the melody sounds like it is coming from an obvious and specific direction, like a radio, so it's not clear that it's internal.

20:12 It sounds self evidently external. That's why for so many people it can take a while to recognize what's really going on. Now. I thought that was so, so interesting because it does sound like it's coming from a radio. But this also reminded me, Doctor Oliver Sacks, who wrote one of my favorite books, Hallucinations, he has another book where he talks about musical hallucinations specifically, and it's called Musicophilia. It sounds like it's not. It's it's not. It's not like that. It's about musical hallucinations. OK, but he does talk about some musical hallucinations, auditory hallucinations in his book Hallucinations. So if you like this topic, definitely go check out Doctor Oliver Sacks's books Hallucinations or Musicophilia. But he talks about this and something else that he specifically mentions is that the his patients that are hearing these sounds, they generally they genuinely go around the house trying to find a radio. They're like, where's this song coming from? That's how real it sounds to them. And he also said, again, most people do hear hymns, Christmas songs and like patriotic music.

21:15 Like imagine what fresh hell, imagine spirit. I don't think this is what explains your situation. But if anyone listening ever has anything like this happen, maybe it's not a radio, maybe it's not a secret radio. Maybe you have what is it called MES or like musical tinnitus. It's possible. And now we move on to the paranormal theories, right? So remember Paris Lockett, we talked about them not that long ago. Paris, you know Paris who said, uh, aliens, which again, so rude. Anyway, Paris might have been on to something because maybe it was aliens.

21:59 It could be aliens, like in Signs where Bo's baby monitor is picking up the little alien clicking conversation. That's my impression of alien clicking. I feel like that's pretty good. There's something there. I didn't do any editing there. That's just that's just pure talent. Anyway, maybe the radio in Spirits Car, even though it wasn't on, was picking up an alien concert like in that Daft Punk album. Interstellar 5555. Do you say 5555 or do you say Interstellar 5555? Hmm. Are you Daft Punk? Do you know the way that it's supposed to be read? Let me know, Madam strangevoice@gmail.com. You know the alien band, right From you remember, like the all the animated, you know, music videos to that whole album, the Daft Punk album?

22:49 I'm belaboring the point anyway. Or it could be like in the Fifth Element, you know, maybe there's an entire species of aliens who communicate solely through music and song or the sounds of their, OK, the sounds of their like intergalactic, planetary, planetary, intergalactic interdimensional ships sound like music to us, but to them it sounds annoying. Like like traffic to us, maybe. What if our traffic sounds like songs to another species to another alien species? Excellent questions, I feel. But because there wasn't any missing time or because like, the car kept going and didn't immediately like run out of juice and leave them stranded.

23:30 I it's probably not aliens, or at least it's not an alien abduction, which, hey, that's got to be a relief, right? Right. OK. And this story happened surrounded by planes like PLAINS, not like in an airport. This happened surrounded by nothing, basically, is my point. And on land landlocked, assumably, presumably landlocked, right? That's where this happened. So probably there aren't any sirens out there, which this is something that kind of came to me immediately when reading it, as well as like, oh, sirens who lure men to their death in the ocean with their spooky, enchanting music and their song. I thought, oh, I can't be sirens 'cause they're like in plain lands, Like plain lands.

24:20 Anyway, I thought, well, are sirens only in the water? Is there not like a different type, A subtype of sirens that are land sirens? Why can't there be land sirens? You're telling me that's impossible? OK, because it looks like actually actually, as I'm pushing up my glasses up my nose, actually, it seems like some scholars believe that sirens are actually manifestations of human souls after death. And originally sirens were depicted as bird ladies. Like not like the goat man where I was like, which goat way does that go? Is that half goat, goat on top or goat on bottom? It's not like that.

25:01 No. It's like a bird with a human woman's head. A bird body, human woman said. Which is not nearly as sexy as I was expecting it to be. I was definitely expecting something different than that. Or I don't know, maybe you're into that. I'm not going to yuck your Yum. Anyway, sirens were originally bird creatures before the influence of Christianity turned them into seductive sea singers. Which I could spend a whole other episode talking about that deep dive. But if you think about it, if they were originally bird creatures, birds live on land. OK? They live in like the air and like trees. But like, yeah, I guess there's some aquatic birds, but like, mostly birds are over land. And what are planes Land.

25:48 Couldn't some sirens operate on land? I feel like I'm onto something. I feel like maybe there could have been a land siren. Is that the name? Is that where we're going with? Is that the name I'm committing to? Land siren? Plains siren? That doesn't really trip off the tongue. It's the double S there in the middle. I don't know. Let me know, let me know. Let me know what you think we should call the land sirens or if maybe is that a good enough name? Let me know, madamstrangeways@gmail.com. Are you a land siren or are you a water siren? Are you any? Are there different kinds of sirens? Have I just blown this case wide open? How many kinds of sirens are there? Let me know madamstrangeways@gmail.com. All right. And finally, and obviously, the paranormal explanations for this one are kind of, one might say, weak for this episode. But I'm going to land on a personal anecdote because if you were to ask my grandma, may she rest in peace, she would have told you the story that I'm about to tell you right now. So I guess I could have just said that my grandma told me this story.

26:47 I don't know why I used so many extra words. Whatever, it's fine. So she grew up in South Carolina on a farm with no electricity. So she would always tell us how at nighttime when all the lights were off in her house, that you couldn't see your hands in front of your face. And if you went outside, you could not see your hand in front of your face if it was like a new moon and you only had the moon to light things so they didn't have electricity. I guess that's not like super relevant to the story. I'm just telling you how she told it to me. Anyway, she told me that one night laying in bed, she heard what sounded like a choir and a horn, like a trumpet perhaps playing in the middle of the night.

27:27 It got louder and then quieter, as if it was moving towards them and then away from them. Now this was the late 1930s. There weren't roads by her farm, so there wasn't like a car driving music could, were there? Did the 1930s even have music in cars yet? Hold on. OK, Google, Were 1930s cars equipped with radio? Yes, but they were expensive options. OK, stop. Shut up. I don't want any more. Stop talking. OK, Yes, they were, but they were expensive, so probably. OK, look, it says here that there were car models that required large external antennas and bulky vacuum tubes.

28:09 That's ridiculous. So no one was driving around with a radio playing angelic choir music in the 1930s in the middle of the night. Anyway, I would also say that there probably wasn't a group of marauding choir boys harassing farmers with their song. And yet that's what she heard. In the middle of the night is this choir seemingly flying overhead. And the next day, they got word that her grandmother had passed away the night before. She always told me it was angels come down to bring her grandma's soul up to heaven, which is like, really sweet but also kind of scary. She taught me a lot of scary stories as a kid. Like, what are you doing? Stop scaring me. But I guess, like, what do you mean? So like, the angels went and got your grandma wherever she was because she didn't live with them. So she went and got your grandma. And then she, like, the angels took a detour. You know what I mean?

29:00 So that you go on tour. Is that how that works? Angels take you on tour like a farewell tour. I saw how that works. Is that in the Bible? I don't think so. I think it's too cool to be in the Bible of farewell tour with the angels. I don't think that's how it works. But what do I know? I'm not an Angel. Are you an Angel? madamchangeways@gmail.com Let me know. Do you do farewell tours with with souls? Anyway, this is what my grandmother would explain that song. She would say, well, I would figure that someone must have died. I suppose someone might have just died and that was their spirit going up to heaven to be with Jesus. I don't know, Mom, if you're listening right now, I hope you're flattered by my extremely accurate impression of you. I think she would laugh.

29:52 That would that would be her explanation if I had her on the show. You know what, I could have just told you that I had her on the show. I could tell you that I had a Ouija board right here and she was just saying all of this stuff. And you'd have to believe me because this is radio and you can't tell if I'm doing it or not. But I would never lie to you. I would never lie to you like that. That's not our relationship. That sounds toxic. If you listening have any ideas about what might have explained this phenomena da da, da da da, then let me know madamestrangeways@gmail.com. Have you experiencesomethinglikethisletmeknowmyostrangewiz@gmail.com spirit? Again, thank you so much for allowing me to Share your story on the show.

30:32 I hope I gave you some food for thought. And if you ever go down that road again, you know I want to hear from you. Let me know. Genuinely update me if you drive down that road again and you don't hear it or you do hear it. Maybe it is a siren. Maybe it is a Land Siren TM. Anyway, as usual, if you have a strange story that you'd like to hear read on the show, let me know. I need you to e-mail it to me right now, this very moment, at madamstrangeways@gmail.com. Stop what you're doing. Stop, stop, Stop what you're doing and write your story and e-mail it to me immediately. Right now I'm waiting and I can't wait to read it.

31:19 Remember that you can feel afraid and not be in danger. You're safe here with me, probably. Thank you for joining me for more true strange stories of the unexplained. I'm running A1 Madam Show here, so please do me a strange solid and follow the podcast. Leave me a rating on Apple or Spotify and maybe even join the Patreon at patreon.com/madam Strangeways for bonus content. Madam Strangeways is produced and narrated by me. Madam Strangeways theme music is by marina.ryan@marinamakes.co. Cover art is by Andrea Shiselle, rolled on at Cult of Teddy on Instagram. Every Strange story is shared with the permission of the author.

32:04 You can submit your own true strange story to madamstrangeways@gmail.com. See you soon, she said ominously.