0:02

In 2008, a

0:05

fatal train crash

0:07

occurred in Southern

0:09

California. A

0:16

man was among those who tragically passed in

0:18

this accident, though for the following 12

0:20

hours, his family received repeated calls

0:22

from his cell phone. Today we

0:25

look at the supernatural implications of

0:27

the Charles Peck calls. This

0:29

is Red Web. Welcome

0:38

back, Task Force, to another episode

0:40

of Red Web, the podcast all

0:42

about the unsolved nature of this

0:44

world, true crime, mysteries, cryptids, everything

0:46

in between. I'm your resident mystery

0:49

enthusiast, Trevor Collins, and joining me,

0:51

hearing this mystery for the very

0:53

first time, Alfredo Diaz. Repeated

0:56

phone calls? That's,

1:00

I mean, that's hard

1:02

to explain. I mean, sure,

1:04

from a technical standpoint, you could probably

1:07

set some type of system up. Sure.

1:10

You know, Justin, I mean, I'm already up with this out there right

1:13

now. If I

1:15

unfortunately meet an early demise, it's

1:17

going to be a sauce situation. Oh,

1:19

God. It's like, OK, I think this podcast

1:21

is over because I'm no longer with you.

1:23

We'll still get it like two years, three

1:25

years with a podcast out of this man

1:27

somehow. Yeah. There's

1:30

going to be a lot

1:32

of like leftover tapes and

1:34

recordings and voice reactions and

1:36

whatnot. And so this will continue. It

1:40

will not end with my demise. I

1:42

both love and I hate that. So

1:45

this isn't the first time we've talked about

1:48

the supernatural, the paranormal kind

1:50

of interacting with technology. And

1:53

this is something that happened in 2008. Smartphones

1:55

on the market really blowing up.

1:57

But we've talked about, you know, maybe the future.

2:00

It's gonna be the future and we've that's always I think

2:02

Christian I we were kind of talking about

2:05

this before we recorded this feels like another

2:07

subgenre to Paranormal activity kind

2:09

of topics to ghost stories. Yeah

2:11

as technology advances We talked about

2:13

them interfering via not

2:15

interfering but communicating via emails

2:18

via websites Leaving messages

2:20

in that way talking via phone calls

2:22

or at least calling and

2:24

so I mean I'm sure

2:26

the task force is already predicting. You know,

2:29

we are the movie podcast about mysteries So

2:31

they're anticipating that because every time we talk

2:34

about something like this I go pulse I

2:36

go I go white noise, but not the

2:38

2022 one because you're just causing confusion now

2:42

Kylo Ren Until

2:48

I was looking up scenes while we were

2:50

researching this this outline I was looking

2:53

up scenes from that movie But

2:56

yeah, I don't know so we're gonna talk

2:58

a bit about that We're gonna go through

3:00

the background the crash and kind of how

3:02

all that unfortunately went down and then talk

3:05

about the discovery phase the Investigation into these

3:07

calls and into the wreck itself

3:09

And then of course a lot of this episode is

3:11

going to live in the theories dissecting kind of is

3:14

this a technological issue? Is

3:16

this something a little bit more morbid

3:18

or is this a more supernatural event? And

3:20

there's kind of some Studies

3:23

behind that angle that I'm actually really

3:25

excited to talk about. Yeah, it's so

3:27

2008. Mm-hmm Is

3:29

this what type of cell phone

3:32

is this? We don't know

3:34

unfortunately. Okay. All right So

3:36

I'm just saying if it's like a razor flip phone, you

3:39

know Maybe then he's the cool kid in

3:41

stock on like how does that get stuck on call

3:43

though? Right now even then like I love

3:45

that you're pulling it apart already Yeah,

3:48

we gotta give it the smartphone There's

3:50

no real way that you can break

3:52

the chip to constantly ping right? I

3:56

don't yeah, it feels like I love that you're asking that

3:58

because it's the right thing to ask the

4:00

early stages of smartphones as I lived it.

4:02

That's this is the time literally the year

4:04

where I think I got a razor smart

4:06

like phone, not smartphone, just a flip

4:09

back in our day. Yeah, back in our day, my

4:11

knees are starting to creak and this

4:13

is kind of where smartphones are really starting to

4:15

creep out in there, but like it's, it's not

4:17

hit the broad market yet because they're not cost

4:19

effective enough yet. And so I'm wondering,

4:21

again, we don't have that information, but there's

4:24

something there with the old school phones and

4:27

computer chips and whatnot. So maybe he had

4:29

one of those not flip phones, right? Like

4:31

the brick ones that are like kind of

4:33

cool, but I don't know. That's definitely

4:35

a good angle to be thinking about though. Yeah.

4:38

The smartphones, I don't know. I'd be lost

4:40

on that one. Not a software.

4:42

Let's begin. Let me take you back to September

4:44

12th, 2008. Charles

4:47

Peck, AKA Chuck was riding

4:50

a Metro link commuter train in Los Angeles after

4:53

his flight in from Utah. He was working

4:55

for an airline in Salt Lake City,

4:57

Utah, and he was in town in

4:59

Los Angeles to interview with the position at

5:01

Van Nuys airport. Peck's fiance, Andrea Katz,

5:03

was from West Lake Village, a city also

5:06

in Los Angeles County. They had been

5:08

waiting to start their planning for their

5:10

wedding for when they both could live in

5:12

the same state. She would be

5:14

waiting to pick him up at the other end of

5:16

this train, the last stop in Moorpark at 4.45. Unfortunately,

5:20

at 4.22 PM in Chatsworth, the

5:23

train Peck was on collided with a freight

5:25

train going the opposite direction, creating a collision

5:27

at a combined speed of 83 miles per

5:29

hour or 133

5:31

kilometers per hour. While

5:34

225 passengers were on

5:36

board in what became known as the Chatsworth

5:38

train accident, 135, more than

5:40

half of the passengers were injured

5:43

and 25 people were killed.

5:46

Katz was on her way to Moorpark when she

5:48

heard about the news on the radio news of

5:50

the crash. Peck's parents also lived in the area,

5:53

so they joined Katz as they waited for the

5:55

news from the crash site. I

5:57

can't even imagine. Oh my God.

6:00

And I'm like, my goodness, just waiting to

6:02

see there are some survivors. I'm like, Oh

6:04

my gosh. Especially now in the background, that's

6:06

just heart wrenching.

6:08

He's trying to move to state to be

6:10

with you to have forever. And you're

6:12

waiting for him. News comes in horrible.

6:15

Now, not long after hearing about this

6:17

news and waiting with the parents, Peck

6:19

actually called cats, but when she answered

6:21

the phone, all she could hear was

6:23

static on the other end. Cats,

6:25

of course, instinct kicks in. She starts to give

6:28

and share encouraging words to try to keep him

6:30

positive, regardless of what he might be going through.

6:32

He told him help was on the way and

6:34

that things would be okay. For

6:36

11 hours, Peck continued to call cats,

6:39

his children, his stepmother, his brother and

6:41

his sister. When his family picked up,

6:43

they too only heard static on the

6:45

other end of the phone. Okay.

6:48

Hold on now. So it

6:51

wasn't just pinging one phone. It was

6:53

pink, different phones, multiple phones. And

6:55

specifically the family. And there's like phone records

6:57

of this stuff. So this, okay,

6:59

Christian's shaking his head. Yes. So this happened. Yeah.

7:02

Nodding his head. Yes. So

7:04

we're talking cell phones, painting off

7:06

the towers, phones showing record of

7:08

calls coming in, family exclusively. Yeah.

7:11

I'm very intrigued. I

7:14

want to think of what we eventually get to

7:16

like the theories because this is

7:18

just again, just initial

7:20

like gut check. The stuff like this

7:22

to me, I'm like, boom, smoking gun.

7:25

How is this? Ghost, gun,

7:28

back it up. Patrick schwayze. Real.

7:31

Wait, what? Oh, oh, I see what you're saying.

7:33

Okay. Well, before, before I get into my instance,

7:35

I think I'm with you and I think I

7:37

know where you're going, but I want to dig

7:39

into it before I get there. Okay. What's

7:42

standing out to you? Why is this odd? I've

7:44

just the ping in multiple phones. Right.

7:47

And that just seems like that has to be

7:49

a man. That's like, it's a

7:52

manual function. I don't, unless

7:54

there's some, like that, like if there

7:56

is a malfunction that would have to

7:58

be through the South. or

8:00

the provider, which

8:03

just seems... I

8:06

don't know, I just don't see that. Right, like

8:08

I'm making something up here because I

8:10

don't know much about cell signals, but

8:12

like if he was caught, made call

8:14

to somebody and the phone signal got

8:16

interrupted, but the tower kept pinging that

8:18

one call. Yeah. Yeah, so now that

8:20

it's multiple people, that's interesting. It just

8:22

makes it a lot harder, like how

8:24

you constantly... How do you malfunction

8:27

to the point where you're pinging your

8:29

contact with it, as opposed to

8:31

just one person? Right. Even then,

8:33

pinging the one person is... I'm

8:36

like, okay, sure, maybe it's a glitch.

8:38

Now this turns into like a wild

8:40

glitch. Yeah, and I think that's the

8:42

foundation really for the curiosity here.

8:45

So that's the pragmatic angle to take,

8:47

is kind of discussing it from that angle. So

8:49

continuing on that line of thinking, we

8:51

also noticed in the research that when the

8:53

family attempted to call him back, as many

8:55

of them did several times, the calls went

8:58

straight to Peck's voicemail. Of course,

9:00

that usually happens when someone's on the other

9:02

line, it's busy, the phone's inaccessible, the phone's

9:04

off, whatever the reason, but those

9:06

are the situations where it goes straight to

9:08

voicemail and doesn't ring. In total, his family

9:10

members received 35 calls

9:13

during this time. Damn! 35

9:16

calls over 11 to 12 hours. Over

9:18

11? Okay, come on. Now you tell me

9:21

that all that was malfunctioning for

9:23

that long. But that specific window,

9:25

because then these calls ceased around

9:27

3am. I

9:29

wonder... When's the watching hour? That is 3am. Okay.

9:33

Yeah. Just a quick question. But

9:35

I am curious, again, trying to

9:37

analyze both the pragmatic and the

9:39

more spiritual, like I'm curious what

9:42

technological reasons there would be for 3am.

9:45

That is, let's see, we're Pacific time

9:47

at 6am Eastern, so

9:50

it's not like it's a midnight turnover of days

9:52

or dates. I don't know. I

9:54

can't really mess with this one too much. Can't really

9:57

debunk is what I'm trying to say. Even then, I

9:59

guess like the... wouldn't the phone company be able

10:01

to verify that there's some kind of glitch in the

10:03

system as to why it was like...

10:06

So that's something I think we were looking into. But

10:08

then again it's like how are they... Do they even

10:10

care? Yeah. Like how do you really go? I

10:12

don't think they know to look for it yet. Yeah. And

10:15

I don't think in our research that

10:17

there was anything found about like towers

10:19

being pinged or anything else because it

10:22

all really became about like localized

10:24

information. What's on people's phones? What's

10:26

showing as who rang who? I

10:29

mean and I'll get to it. I don't want to spill the beans too

10:31

quickly but there is actual evidence

10:33

that these calls were going out.

10:35

It is part of the investigation

10:37

piece. So the

10:39

calls went out from his phone for sure. Just

10:41

from a technological standpoint how does it... How

10:44

does that work? How

10:46

does it glitch like from

10:49

a physical hardware

10:51

standpoint or just

10:54

a back end standpoint? Does it

10:56

make sense to me? This guy is a PC

10:58

techie and I'm loving watching his brain rack this

11:00

one around trying to figure it out. I'm just

11:03

thinking like in some way it

11:06

would constantly wedge and so then

11:08

from... But then again that's a

11:10

constant string of like a

11:13

specific series of actuations

11:15

on the keys. You see like if two buttons

11:17

were wedged it would like cycle down a contact

11:19

and call. Yeah but that's just like... Cycle down

11:21

a contact call. Cycle call. That's just so... I

11:24

don't know. Yeah. That's so far fetched and then

11:27

on top of that I don't really think you're

11:29

able to... I

11:33

mean maybe electronically will you

11:35

fry the CPU in

11:37

some way? I don't know man.

11:39

Like it... Yeah. Yeah

11:42

it's a tough one. Now and

11:44

even when we discuss that angle in

11:47

the theories it's not you know fully...

11:49

Yeah. Oh okay. Like solidified.

11:52

The only question I have Christian as I kind of move on I'll let you kind of search

11:54

this one up. We know this is

11:56

a very niche question. Who hung up when

11:59

the family members were... the calls were they dropped

12:01

after static or was

12:04

it that eventually they go, well, I'm gonna

12:06

hang up now because like I would struggle

12:08

to hang up but also like what

12:10

do you do? Because obviously the calls were made

12:12

and ended and made and ended. From what

12:14

we, I mean I can do some additional digging

12:16

but from what we could find in the research

12:19

it never got that specific. Okay. Now

12:21

that's kind of the background of the crash now before we move on

12:23

I do want to say this feels

12:26

again very specific but we also looked

12:28

into the distribution of

12:30

these calls. How many calls

12:32

were made to any given family member?

12:34

Were they evenly spread across them? Was

12:36

it more to let me just make

12:38

it up more to the wife versus

12:40

the kids versus the extended family etc.

12:42

There's no information on that. We also

12:45

found no information regarding calls to

12:47

other contacts in his phone because

12:49

you have to imagine that maybe there

12:51

are other people in there. These curiosities will come up

12:53

in our first theory. It's again an angle

12:56

with which we wanted to try

12:58

to either substantiate or debunk a

13:00

more technological angle. That's true too.

13:02

Like if the phone was somehow wedged or

13:04

short circuit in a specific way where it

13:07

was calling contactless

13:09

that doesn't apply here because then who

13:12

has the contact, who has a phone that's only their

13:14

family? You got friends on there you got other people

13:17

and this is only pinging the family members right? So

13:19

far. I mean like I said we'll

13:21

dive into that a little bit more in detail

13:23

but let's talk now about the search and

13:25

rescue and kind of the discovery. So

13:28

search and rescue teams tried to find

13:30

Peck and other victims of the crash

13:32

by tracing phone calls from the time

13:34

but specifically his phone calls. They

13:36

had previously searched the rubble in the first

13:38

train but decided to try again since

13:40

these cell phone calls were consistently

13:43

and actively pinging towers and phones

13:45

right? The family. So

13:47

that that called them back to the

13:49

scene. An hour after the call stopped

13:52

which would be about 12 hours after

13:54

the crash, rescuers actually found Peck. Now

13:56

unfortunately Peck was discovered deceased and according

13:59

to investigators must have died upon

14:01

impact during the crash a full 12

14:03

hours earlier, again preceding these

14:05

calls going out. Yeah, I mean

14:07

they most likely were

14:09

able to tell like get time of death and I mean because

14:13

you can tell by the decay of the body and

14:15

then by certain points

14:18

of impact on the body. Probably where they were

14:20

sat in the train and damage to the train.

14:22

Yeah, exactly. And yeah, ah man.

14:25

Yeah, now eerily enough, they never did

14:27

find the very phone that led them

14:29

to pecs body in the very first

14:31

place. Upon investigating the

14:33

National Transportation Safety Board, the

14:35

NTSB, found out that the

14:37

engineer of pecs train, Robert Sanchez, had

14:39

run a red light. Two teenagers who

14:42

were interested in Sanchez's career had actually

14:44

been texting him during this ride. In

14:46

a painfully ironic sequence of events, he

14:48

missed the red light because he was

14:50

texting with these interested teenagers. People that

14:52

also maybe wanted to be train engineers.

14:55

Oh no. Yeah, and it was

14:57

determined that Sanchez's final text was

14:59

sent 22 seconds before the collision.

15:01

The NTSB stated that if the

15:03

train had quote positive train control

15:05

as it's called or PTC, the

15:07

Chatsworth collision could have been prevented.

15:10

PTC are systems that prevent collisions and speeding

15:12

using GPS radios and computers to notify the

15:14

engineer of the train when to slow down,

15:16

when to stop. It's basically a way for

15:18

trains to communicate with the surroundings and help

15:20

you have kind of a sixth sense for

15:22

what's going on with the train. And as

15:24

a result of this very accident, the US

15:26

Congress passed the Rail Safety Improvement Act of

15:28

2008, which required

15:30

PTC to be installed in most trains by

15:33

the end of 2015. Though

15:35

sadly, not every railroad has implemented

15:37

PTC. Multiple deadline extensions have been

15:40

requested and the lack of PTC

15:42

has actually been cited since as

15:44

the cause for train collisions. Oh,

15:47

come on. Come on.

15:50

Yeah, I'm sure it's expensive. I'm

15:52

sure logistics and all of that. You got to

15:54

keep the trains moving, but let's

15:56

slow down. Exactly. Let's take

15:59

a breath. Oh well. This

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That's one of the things you don't really think

19:57

about. Like you go to the grocery store, oh,

19:59

pain. That's just universal.

20:02

But you're usually buying the stuff

20:04

that you and

20:18

use code RedWebFree for a

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20:36

my God. That's a deal. I

20:38

mean that. Wow. That

20:42

is the background, the discovery, the

20:44

investigation. Now it's time to talk

20:46

about kind of the theories that attempt to answer

20:49

what is going on behind this case, as we've kind of done. And

20:51

this is our MO. I want to

20:53

spell this out a little bit more succinctly in

20:55

each episode. But our MO is always to analyze

20:57

the case as level-headed as possible, substantiate

20:59

what we can, and leave open-ended

21:01

what we can't. We're never going to come in with

21:04

a biased answer like this has to be this or

21:06

it has to be that. We're going to just

21:08

take a look at what's going on. But

21:10

also, really, we're just dissecting the theories that

21:12

already exist out there. We're not investigative

21:14

journalists. We're not going to crack the case. We'll

21:18

give you a nice little overview of a

21:20

mystery, dive into it,

21:23

and dip out. Yes, sir. So,

21:25

with that said, the first theory, of

21:27

course, is that of a technological anomaly.

21:29

Many people have pointed out that what

21:31

became known as the calls from Charles

21:34

Peck were most likely a technological error,

21:37

especially since the calls only had the sound of

21:39

static and any return calls were

21:41

sent directly to voicemail. Again,

21:43

something that happens when the phone line is

21:45

busy, off, or otherwise unavailable. It's been

21:47

theorized that the phone was going

21:49

through its contacts or recent contacts.

21:52

That's an interesting shift because

21:55

those are two different lists. If I go and pull up

21:57

the people I most recently either texted or

21:59

called, you're gonna get a different list than

22:02

everybody I've ever saved into my phone before.

22:04

But then you can act, if you go

22:06

to the phone records then, you

22:09

could see the parallels.

22:12

Could you not? If you could find the phone.

22:14

Oh, that's... Oh, I see what you're saying

22:16

though. No. If you cross-reference like other calls

22:18

they had made in the past like week or two. Yeah. Yeah.

22:22

That should line up. It should. Yeah,

22:25

I doubt that. That would really help provide

22:27

a this way or that way answer on

22:29

this case for sure. Now

22:31

as we always do, we discuss the wrinkles

22:34

with theories. It is worth noting that his

22:36

family members were not the only people potentially.

22:38

I mean it's reasonable to assume that they

22:40

weren't the only people in his contact list.

22:42

As I mentioned earlier, the calls seemed to

22:45

focus purely on his family with an unknown

22:47

distribution and there was no information on other

22:49

contacts receiving calls. I mentioned the distribution because

22:52

if it were even spread, you

22:54

know, 35 calls across 7

22:56

people, that's 5 calls each, then it would

22:58

seem to be... I would

23:00

personally be more inclined to go, okay, it

23:02

does seem to be more of a

23:04

technological cycling through contacts. If it was a

23:08

random distribution, I would think interesting.

23:11

That feels a bit manual. But

23:13

again, it's reasonable to assume that he most

23:15

likely would have at least had his interviewer.

23:17

Remember he was in town to interview for

23:19

a position at the Van Nuys airport. And

23:22

so you'd think that he either texted or

23:24

called that person at some point and

23:27

they would either be in recent contacts or

23:29

just the address book. And

23:32

they didn't report any sort of call like that.

23:35

But also, you know, the extended contacts list,

23:37

maybe they wouldn't know. If it was a

23:39

friend in another state, maybe they wouldn't know

23:41

that it was a weird event so they

23:43

wouldn't have reported it. So there

23:45

are blind spots to this particular angle. Like

23:48

there could have been more people than just the

23:50

family getting calls and we just won't ever know.

23:52

Damn. Either way, it is

23:54

possible, though not as likely if

23:56

we're talking about random events, that

23:59

the phone error could have been could have simply just happened

24:01

to only affect the family members. It would

24:03

definitely be a very specific type of error,

24:05

and it's less likely that a phone happens

24:08

to pick out the family members. But

24:10

also, like, this is... Why is that even...

24:12

...28 address books and cell phones aren't really

24:15

that long yet because, like, phones are still

24:17

kind of a... they're not a

24:19

ubiquitous consumer device like they are

24:21

today. So I don't know.

24:24

I just don't. But someone that does have

24:26

one. Uh-huh. Especially,

24:28

like, these are earlier times. You're

24:31

just thrilled to throw any number in there. Right.

24:34

You're right. Honestly, yeah. Because

24:36

you're just like... I'm

24:38

cooking. Everything is saved. Yeah.

24:41

It's... you don't have to have a phone book or a little

24:43

notepad or anything like that. It's

24:45

all in there digitally. You're good. You're

24:48

cooking. Yeah. And so even then,

24:51

it's like if it's picking just family members

24:53

and it's some kind of weird algorithm glitch.

24:56

Not all your family members have the same last

24:58

name. That's true. So

25:01

you... you know, it probably shows in the

25:03

records... I mean, you don't have access

25:05

to it. It's not really like a

25:07

public thing. But like, I'm sure that

25:09

all the family members that were pink

25:11

didn't have the same last name. Very

25:14

likely. Right. I

25:16

mean, just in my own family alone, there's at least

25:18

three, if not four last names flying around. Right.

25:21

You know. This is a

25:23

mixture of stuff. Yeah. This is so

25:26

weird. It rides that middle ground of

25:28

being precise, but not. Yeah.

25:31

I mean, I feel like there's

25:33

such an open door for this theory to

25:35

be what's going on. I think what knocks

25:37

the wind out of it, it sails, is

25:39

definitely some of these like curious

25:42

odds. Right? Yeah.

25:45

But how could it just be that... And again,

25:47

those odds could definitely be answered by hindsight, of

25:49

course. But if we had those records or if

25:52

investigators knew to kind of look into that, but

25:54

really, at the scene, they're just

25:56

going, man, we have loss of life

25:58

here in the injured. We need to deal with

26:00

this. We're not going to chase down this kind

26:02

of weird phone call situation. It

26:05

must be anomalous. Let's move on. Right.

26:08

So we'll never really know. But I

26:10

mean, another possible explanation for family

26:12

member stuff again, your speculation. Maybe

26:15

all of the family members were listed as favorites

26:17

in the context. And maybe that had

26:20

some was that a function. That's

26:22

the other thing. I don't remember if that was

26:24

a could have been a function of cell phones

26:26

back then. It's been so long before. More smartphones

26:29

are like, listen, we got a new feature called

26:31

favorites. Just like Myspace, we got top five. Whatever

26:35

it was. I don't know. Like if

26:37

that was a thing, maybe that could have factored in in

26:39

some way that it was like great point favorites.

26:41

I don't know. Oh, you know what? That

26:43

just made me think and we don't do

26:46

this. But speed dial was a big thing.

26:48

You wouldn't have to dial in numbers or go

26:50

to your address book and click on a name.

26:52

You could say I want my wife to be

26:54

speed dial star one. That's true. So

26:57

that does inherently make a list. So

26:59

maybe, ooh, that to me, so it

27:01

like strengthens this theory that there could

27:03

be a speed dial shortlist on your

27:05

phone. I think about speed dialing. Yeah.

27:09

All right. We'll simmer on that one. Now

27:11

before we move on to the paranormal theory and the

27:14

analysis on that, we have a smaller, albeit a little

27:16

bit more morbid theory. Some have

27:18

theorized that the calls may have been the result

27:20

of a prank. Maybe someone

27:22

found pecs phone and cruelly called family members

27:25

to give them false hope. While

27:27

simple in theory, it is unlikely that

27:29

everyone in pecs contacts, as you mentioned,

27:31

Fredo were labeled as family or had

27:33

the same last name. And so this

27:36

prankster, like how would they

27:38

have known basically who to call and randomly picking

27:40

out who was going to be family members and

27:43

who wasn't might be a little bit more difficult.

27:45

Unless, as you said, Christian, there was some sort of

27:47

favorites list. Damn the, um, the

27:50

grit to just keep calling for what,

27:52

12 hours or so. Oh yeah. Holy

27:56

rest though. That's very messed up. That does

27:58

isolate it to like a higher. level

28:00

of like nefarious trolling. That's

28:02

a bit sick. You know what I mean? Right.

28:05

Like if it's like, oh, you know, 30

28:07

odd phone calls or whatever the course of like

28:09

an hour. Sure. Someone's there dialing.

28:11

Also like static. I mean, I guess

28:14

you can kind of figure out a way to generate static.

28:17

Yeah. I mean, if the phone's maybe like

28:19

damaged and the microphone's not working. Yeah.

28:21

It just kind of automatically sends that. I have a theory,

28:23

as I like to do, I have a theory that stitches

28:25

this with the last one, but I have a final thought

28:27

that kind of picks up what you're

28:29

putting down for it on it. That like it

28:31

takes a lot for somebody to sit there at

28:34

the rec site for 12 hours calling only

28:36

to then somehow lose the phone, take the

28:38

phone with them or otherwise ditch it in

28:40

the train an hour before search and rescue

28:42

shows up. And that's taking it

28:45

all the way to 3 a.m. and calling 35

28:47

times over that time. It is not

28:49

only very sick, but also like very dedicated

28:52

now again. And maybe we

28:54

should look this up because I was

28:56

not very prolific with a cell phone when I had one

28:59

as a kid. But what's the process

29:01

behind speed dialing? Was it like

29:03

star number, star number, pound number, whatever? And

29:05

was it the same for each cell phone? Christian,

29:08

as you look that up, the reason I ask

29:10

is because what if this is

29:12

neither this theory or

29:14

the past theory, but something that melds the

29:16

two kind of that the phone

29:18

was found by another victim who was

29:20

either injured or fatally

29:22

wounded. But they just kind

29:25

of picked up the phone and by

29:27

muscle memories just started speed dialing the

29:29

one, the two, the three, the four

29:31

contact and went through all nine contacts

29:34

until they cycled back through. And

29:36

they were trying to ask for help from this stranger's

29:38

phone who they assumed had some speed dials and maybe

29:40

the speaker didn't work. But yes. And

29:43

like so they couldn't talk outward,

29:45

you know, and maybe that's how

29:47

the calls happened. But it wasn't

29:49

necessarily a big technological hiccup. Yeah.

29:52

I mean, you'd probably want to

29:54

cross reference that with the

29:57

last survivor that was

29:59

discovered. or the last

30:01

body that was discovered, right? Because if

30:03

all the bodies were accounted for after

30:05

six hours, yeah,

30:08

right. Then even then, though,

30:10

I do like that thought.

30:13

The phone was never recovered. You would

30:15

find it next to someone's body. Would

30:17

it be recognizable if it was next

30:19

to someone else? Or would you just

30:21

kind of assume? Because again, the cell

30:23

phones weren't a big centerpiece to this

30:25

investigation outside of the fact that it

30:27

helped triangulate where these kind of bodies

30:29

were found. I guess I

30:31

could have located it. Well, maybe the first search kind of, I

30:34

don't man, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. But

30:37

I don't know. It's tricky one. It's tricky one.

30:39

A very tricky one. Have you

30:41

seen anything, Christian? Man, am I

30:43

making myself sound like a real young millennial right now

30:45

going, how is speed dial dial? That

30:47

word. How do you use a rotary phone?

30:50

It looks like it depended on the phone.

30:53

Got it. It would vary from manufacturer to

30:55

manufacturer. You would just hit

30:57

a single digit or single button and it would be

30:59

able to do the call. Some you'd have to hit

31:01

the asterisk and then the number. Some you'd have to

31:03

do a one or two digit code. It varied. OK.

31:05

OK. Maybe

31:08

this guy's got a real popular device like

31:10

the Nokia. Hmm. Oh,

31:13

Blackberry. Blackberry, maybe. I was

31:15

big. Yeah, I don't know. I

31:17

don't know. Personally, that isn't a theory that we came across,

31:19

but I put it to you,

31:21

Task Force, Fredo and Christian. What do

31:23

you think about that? As we go into this

31:25

next year, that's pretty solid. I

31:28

was a solid like ting of thought there. Yeah,

31:30

I definitely see. I can see it for sure.

31:32

I think we just like in our

31:34

modern modern era, which is literally only 15 years

31:36

later, was forgot about the speed

31:38

dial. You just go and I forgot about

31:40

this. Go for a calling. Yeah,

31:42

right. Yeah. Group calls and all that

31:44

calls. You just go, hey, so and

31:46

so call blank. And your phone will

31:48

go, God, the last time you group

31:50

called someone. And I was

31:53

hearing a aim notification sounds like

31:55

the door going. Oh,

31:57

yeah, I was like here like that from MSN.

32:00

messenger and stuff and I was like whoa

32:02

that was so the stalls yeah that was

32:04

so cool though you see a friend come

32:06

online or or someone

32:08

that you were like interested in and you

32:10

start talking yeah and then sometimes

32:12

you log on to see like who's on

32:14

cuz you're bored and you want to chat

32:17

and cuz like it is early internet

32:19

so there's not just like tons of stuff to do

32:21

go outside so like you log

32:24

on you're seeing nobody's online so but but you

32:26

want to be there for when people are online

32:28

you go invisible and so when a friend comes

32:31

on you go I'm on invisible yeah oh my

32:33

god pull them in my brain that we both

32:35

came online rip

32:39

that from a corner and I'd like

32:41

to know I still had playing

32:44

pinball 2000 and

32:46

you go whoa it's red raccoon anyway the next theory a very common

32:48

theory is that

33:01

the Charles Peck calls were actually a paranormal event

33:03

kind of the cornerstone of this entire story and

33:06

I really want to break it down because we

33:08

have some we've talked about things like this before

33:10

without really getting into the weeds like this so

33:12

I'm excited so Peck had passed away

33:14

immediately upon impact again according to investigators now

33:17

as the theory goes perhaps his spirit was

33:19

reaching out to his family members as a

33:21

way to say goodbye others add that he

33:23

may have wanted his body to be found

33:26

possibly to give his family some closure

33:28

knowing that by activating his cell phone

33:30

continuously it would give search and rescue

33:32

away to ping that cell phone the

33:35

Peck calls could be an example

33:37

of a supernatural concept known as

33:39

anomalous telephone contact or ATC this

33:42

includes cell phones text messages and even

33:44

EVP recordings of ghosts and

33:46

spirits are a type of ATC a

33:49

PC cases often involve static and

33:52

if a voice is heard usually there

33:54

is one but in rare cases multiple

33:56

voices have been heard and again

33:59

this is why I wanted to talk

34:01

about pulse and white noise. Parapsychologist

34:08

Dee Scott-Rogo and Raymond Bayless introduced

34:10

ATC in their 1979 book Phone

34:14

Calls from the Dead. They

34:22

found that in 27% of ATC cases

34:24

most of the calls arrived during a

34:26

time of crisis. 25%

34:28

occurred within the 7 days after a

34:30

death, 22% of calls they

34:33

studied were within 6 months, and

34:35

10% of calls were received on an anniversary

34:38

of an emotional event. So

34:40

it's not like a random chance

34:42

that they happen to be around

34:45

emotionally wrought or otherwise

34:47

highly energetic moments. Rogo

34:49

and Bayless' research began after they read

34:51

an article about two friends named Lee

34:53

Epps and Don D. Owens who experienced

34:55

something similar. I'm going to break down

34:57

their story pretty succinctly. After

35:00

years of living in the same neighborhood,

35:02

Epps moved away from Toledo, Ohio, so

35:04

his friend's communication was now limited to

35:06

phone calls. On October 26, 1968, around 10.30

35:08

pm, Owens' wife answered one of Epps' calls. He

35:15

sounded scared and said, quote, "'Sis, tell

35:17

Don I'm feeling real bad. Never

35:20

felt this way before. Tell him to get in

35:22

touch with me the minute he comes in. It's

35:24

important, sis, before Epps abruptly hangs

35:26

up." She couldn't get him to answer

35:28

when she called back. Later

35:30

that night, the Owens' learned that Epps had

35:32

been in a coma for the whole previous

35:35

day before he died around 10.30 pm. Basically

35:39

saying that either right before he passed

35:41

while in a coma or shortly thereafter

35:44

is when this call came through. Rogo

35:47

and Bayless came across more instances of

35:49

ATC in the two year study and

35:51

while it was hard to remove hoaxes

35:53

from their pools of examples, they still

35:55

concurred that ATC must actually

35:57

exist. They also believed that They

36:00

may be related to EVP recordings

36:02

as the calls appear to be

36:04

transmitted electromagnetically. Suffice to say,

36:06

the Charles Peck calls, per this theory, are very

36:08

similar to the Epps call. Both

36:10

were in a time of crisis, and both people

36:13

were already deceased by the time the calls went

36:15

out. So the main difference being that

36:17

no one heard Peck's voice, and of

36:19

course Peck repeatedly called for the following

36:21

11 hours. So what do you think?

36:24

Was this a case of

36:26

anomalous telephone contact akin to

36:28

an EVP, a prank, or

36:30

an unfortunate technological error? Those

36:33

are the main theories. Oddly enough, this one

36:35

I feel like... it... yeah.

36:38

Yeah? I don't think I've really ever said that. I

36:40

can't... like none of this... none of

36:42

these theories that like line up for me that

36:44

aren't like the paranormal one. Which

36:46

is weird, because I don't think I've ever said

36:49

that. No, but I think the Halloween special when

36:51

we went to the USS Hornet really started to

36:53

open him up. It really changed me. You are

36:55

a changed man. It

36:57

really did change me. I

37:00

can't explain what happened there. But

37:03

that video is up if you guys want to watch it. Yeah

37:06

man, I don't know. Like I said, I'm

37:08

a tech junkie, like you were saying earlier.

37:11

And like yeah sure, I don't

37:13

know the intricate details of like

37:15

cell phone towers or whatnot. I

37:17

just don't see how this...

37:19

I don't know, like the motherboard or the

37:22

CPU would malfunction in

37:24

that sort of way. RAM

37:26

would have nothing to do with it probably. Yeah,

37:29

unless it's bringing the short term memory of the RAM.

37:31

I don't know. You know what I'm

37:33

saying? Like I just... it doesn't make that... from a

37:35

technological standpoint it doesn't make sense to me. If

37:38

anything, I feel like maybe possibly the

37:40

cell phone tower, the cell

37:42

provider, whatnot. But I can't... I

37:45

can't explain. I don't know man. That one is...

37:47

No one's eerie. And like I said, the

37:50

big thing here is there are records to show that

37:52

these calls went through. Mm-hmm. And

37:55

so... I mean that's... yeah, that's how

37:57

they found him. Right. And so that's the thing, right? Like

37:59

we didn't have that. I'm like, you know, sure. But

38:01

I'm like, oh man, there's gotta be records. And

38:03

you're like, yeah, there's records. It's really happened then.

38:06

Right. You can't be like, ah, well

38:08

someone made it up. Really hard to explain. It's

38:10

interesting. And also like I'm with you,

38:12

I'm struggling to figure out how, it's

38:14

not as simple as it sounds like to cycle

38:17

through context and also send out a signal. It'd

38:19

be one thing if it was a repeated person

38:21

or a repeated action that can misfire all day

38:23

long if there's a short circuit. But if there's

38:25

like two or three inputs happening at the same

38:27

time, it's hard to imagine that the

38:30

little CPU that

38:33

they had in those phones back then would go,

38:35

okay, take this input, then that input,

38:38

then the next input. You'd think that it would just

38:40

be like short circuiting and going haywire and not really

38:42

doing anything logical. But I don't know, part of

38:44

me wants to figure out what phone they had and

38:46

go tinkering away in the red web labs. I

38:49

know. And start seeing if we could like fire

38:51

off, get like, do each of the

38:53

theories like, let's get a favor, let's get a context

38:55

list. Let's try speed dialing and see like, can we

38:57

get it to do it without

38:59

us doing anything? Could we like push a few buttons

39:01

and then let it go and see if it happened?

39:03

Like, I don't know. Yeah, I know, we probably just

39:06

can't replicate it. Yeah. It

39:08

also makes me think, and this is just totally not

39:11

in a serious manner whatsoever, like, man,

39:16

I hope you have like a fire voice message. You

39:18

know what I'm saying? Like back then,

39:20

you know, you call someone, remember back then, you

39:22

hold a phone up next to like a phone

39:24

and you're like, go shorty, it's your birthday, you're

39:28

up high, and like, hey. I'm

39:30

too busy at the club right

39:32

now. You're 15, man. Yeah. And

39:35

then the volume, you turn the volume down,

39:38

right at a good part, and then you just pop in, and

39:40

then Michael like, like a DJ. Like,

39:42

hey, what's up? Hey, what's up, shorty? So

39:45

I couldn't get the phone right now, but go ahead and

39:47

like, leave me a message, I can write back to

39:49

you. And then you turn it back up and then go. Like,

39:52

you don't know, it's your boy Tim every time.

39:56

Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's just for him. We'll

39:58

get back to him now. I don't know what

40:00

I mean, they throw on their favorite song

40:02

like I become so numb I just need

40:05

you They're gonna turn it down

40:07

and be like hey sorry can't come to the phone

40:09

right now and then he comes back and that's how

40:11

people did it That's how people did it

40:14

Now no one has like a voice like as I say

40:16

it's the automated You're totally right and

40:18

they invented something for that called the callback

40:20

tone or the ringback tone So not only

40:22

could you have a ringtone when someone calls

40:25

you called someone you

40:27

would get this really ratty like

40:29

signal of a song back to you That's

40:31

like one of those songs going like Just

40:42

give up I'd rather have the rings at least those are clear

40:45

Dude I think I called somebody in the last like

40:48

two years that had that still Are you serious? I

40:50

don't know how they did it What? Unless they answered

40:52

and then held it up and then went what's up

40:56

Yeah all right well this

40:58

has been fascinating case A little

41:00

shorter but the Charles Peck

41:02

calls wild one I think

41:05

I like that we kind of got a little bit more

41:07

into the weeds on the theories And like I

41:09

feel like we got to make it an official

41:11

one out in the world We don't normally posit

41:13

theories but I couldn't help it I feel like

41:15

speed dialing is something in play Yeah I could

41:18

see that I think that one that

41:20

one could have some big play there for sure It's

41:23

the only way I can think of that

41:25

would explain the specificity of the calls That's

41:27

a dink doo man That to me like

41:29

with the information we have I don't

41:31

know how that could be explained otherwise It's

41:35

such a pinpoint glitch

41:37

to call family members The biggest wrinkle is

41:40

like is just the odds of the phone

41:42

in a crash either A surviving Or because

41:44

obviously it did and then B finding someone

41:46

who then knew how to speed dial on

41:48

that one Yeah odds are low that's the

41:50

wrinkle there but task force let us know And

41:54

if you want red web commercial free if

41:56

you want bonus episodes of our flagship show

42:00

files on our YouTube channel. If you want

42:02

to see some bonus insights, some extra deleted

42:04

scenes, things of that nature from the Halloween

42:06

special where Fredo had a whole lot of

42:09

activity happening on the USS Hornet. Plus

42:11

we have two other ghost hunts up as

42:13

well. Head to redwebpod.com/first to become a first

42:16

member. It's essentially our Patreon. It's the best

42:18

way to support this show for $5.99 a

42:21

month. You get all of that stuff I just mentioned

42:23

and more. Again, it supports us

42:25

directly, allows us to do what we

42:27

do and continue bringing you guys mysteries

42:29

every single week. With that said, Christian,

42:31

what day is this going up

42:33

again? We're kind of pre-recording for the holidays but we're

42:35

coming up on the end of the year, aren't we?

42:37

So for this, yeah, we're actually pretty

42:40

tight turnaround. We're recording this today, December 5th.

42:42

This comes out on December 11th. This comes

42:44

out six days. My goodness. Oh. Well,

42:46

everybody get your Christmas list going.

42:48

Yeah. Juice those up because by

42:50

the time you're listening to this,

42:52

let's see, store.roosterteeth.com. There's some lovely

42:55

Red Web merch in there. If you love cryptids or if

42:57

you just love our task force emblem, I think it's

42:59

pretty sick. We have all sorts of

43:01

stuff. Either if you want to give yourself

43:03

some love and get yourself a gift or

43:05

for your task force friends and family members,

43:07

get all that in there. I think by

43:09

the 13th if you want to make sure

43:12

it can get to you by the 25th

43:14

because shipping and turnaround, all that stuff is

43:16

going to start getting clogged as people around

43:18

the world are shipping for Sanny's Day. That's

43:20

true. Yeah. Don't wait up like

43:22

I do. Don't delay because

43:24

you get stuck with all the long shipping and

43:26

then all of a sudden it doesn't come in

43:28

time. And on top of that, it's December 11th.

43:30

I just want to say this is our last

43:32

episode for the year because we're signing off for

43:34

our own holidays. We got families to go see,

43:36

things to go do, cryptids to find in the

43:38

wintertime. You know, there's winter cryptids. So

43:40

we, you know, we're going to take off

43:42

a couple of weeks, but we will see you guys in

43:44

the new year for sure. We'll be back with more mysteries.

43:47

Like a squonk with a scarf. Or

43:49

the Yeti. Can

43:51

we, can we get a ring back tone

43:54

going on the RT store? Red

43:57

Web? What would be our ring back tone?

44:00

Static? Static. Ghost

44:02

noises. Someone's whispering in the

44:04

static. Are you calling me?

44:07

What would it make sense if I said their name? Hola!

44:14

¡Hola! ¡Padi

44:16

y hoy e donde! ¡Qué

44:18

pied estar! Ay

44:21

yay yay yay! My

44:23

favorite thing about Alfredo is he's like,

44:25

it's definitely decent, but he breaks his

44:27

Spanish so much. It's like uniquely broken

44:30

Spanish and I love it. Well

44:33

the thing is, I just have bits and pieces from like

44:35

growing up in, you know, half of my family's Mexican. So

44:40

I just have bits and pieces. And that's

44:42

it. And I just throw them together

44:44

and see what happens. He knows more than he thinks he knows. But

44:47

the way he draws it out is like a

44:49

shuffled deck of cards. All right,

44:53

with that said, thank you guys all for your

44:55

support. Hope you're having a great

44:57

holiday season as it comes around the corner. And

44:59

we'll see you next year for yet another mystery.

45:11

I'm Patrick Brown. And I'm James Willim.

45:13

And we're two filthy trash men who

45:15

love watching trashy music. So join us

45:17

as we talk through some of the

45:19

worst achievements in cinematic history. It's

45:22

fighting off a band of ninjas on a pommel horse

45:24

in Jim Potha. Or fighting for

45:26

your life against the dilapidated pervert puppet

45:28

Munchy. Or watching it so

45:30

you don't have to. It's Trash for

45:33

Trash, available now on roosterteeth.com or wherever

45:35

you find your podcast.