Previously: 11 Creepy Phone Numbers That Actually Work.
The telephone is a strange and wondrous thing, when you really stop to think about it. By pushing a few buttons and holding a small device to your head, you can speak to anyone, anywhere in the world. But not all phone numbers are benign; in fact, some creepy, scary phone numbers you can call can seem haunted or even downright cursed.
[Looking for more scary numbers? Head here to see our updated list of 40+ scary, creepy, haunted phone numbers!]
And if you actually call these real, creepy, scary phone numbers that actually work? Well, some believe that, after listening to whatever strange and disturbing messages that wait for you on the other end of the line, you may end up haunted, cursed… or worse.
I published TGIMM’s original list of scary phone numbers you can actually call several years ago as part of the site’s Halloween coverage that year. And, as time went on, it became apparent that I underestimated how useful many readers would find the list; it quickly became The Ghost In My Machine’s most popular post.
Knowing all of this, eventually it seemed like a good time to revisit the original list of scary phone numbers, update it, and add more scary phone numbers to it, if possible. I’ve also aimed to keep it updated year after year, noting whether the numbers are still operational or if/when they go out of service.
[Like what you read? Check outDangerous Games To Play In The Dark,available from Chronicle Books now!]
So: Here’s a list of creepy, scary phone numbers that you can actually call in 2023, along with information and recordings about what happened when you called them and what their status currently is — that is, whether or not they’re still operational.
How daring do you feel?
It’s worth considering — especially if you’re thinking about trying any of these phone numbers out.
1-877-77-CREEP
Status: As of January 2023, this phone number is no longer in service. However, you can still hear what used to play when you called it by clicking the link below.
1-877-77-CREEP — or, 1-877-772-7337, for easy dialing — is perhaps the least mysterious of this crop of creepy phone numbers, mostly because we know exactly who created it and why: It belonged to horror-themed apparel and merch company Creepy Co., and they made it just for fun. It aped the format of the many, many horror hotlines that proliferated in the 1980s — the kind where you could dial a 1-900 number and listen to, say, Freddy Krueger read you a bedtime story.
Unlike the 1-900 numbers of yore, though, Creepy Co.’s hotline was 100 percent free to call; what’s more, it gives you a few options to explore one you do dial in. If you were the mood to hear a good, old-fashioned urban legend, 1-877-77-CREEP could help you out with that. Same goes if you wanted to hear some spooky music. And if you were looking for some groan-worthy dad jokes? Let’s just say you’d come to the right place.
Alas, as of January 2023, the number is out of service – but I made a recording when it still worked, which you can listen to here. It goes as far as the menu options you reached right at the beginning of your call to this creepy phone number.
646-868-1844
Status: As of April 2022, this number is no longer in service. However, you can still hear what used to play when you called it by clicking the link below.
The area code for the number 646-868-1844 is based in White Plains, New York — but that doesn’t really mean much, because it’s a VOIP (meaning its owner could be based anywhere). And while it’s true that the initial message you’d hear upon dialing is weird — it started with odd, bell-like tones, led into garbled, unintelligible words, and then ended with an answerphone tone — the really weird thing about this one didn’t happen during the call itself. It happened after you hung up: Within seconds, you’d receive a text message containing a jumbled mix of words.
They were arranged to look like sentences, but they weren’t sentences — they were just nonsense. They read things like, “Surprise steepest recurred landlord Mr. wandered amounted of. Continuing Devonshire but considered its. Rose past oh shew roof is song neat,” and “Chapter too parties its letter no. Cheerful but whatever ladyship disposed yet judgement. Lasted answer oppose to ye months no esteem.”
Here’s what I can tell you about the texts: They were likely generated using Markov chains or other, similar processes; furthermore, a quick Google search for each chunk of text reveals them both to function more or less like like lorem ipsum texts — that is, they’re placeholder texts used to test out and demonstrate the visual appearance of a document or typeface in a draft or trial run before the design is finalized.
Furthermore, the text you’d receive might not always have been the same from call to call: I first dialed the number in March of 2019 and received the “Surprise steepest recurred” message; but when I called it several more times in January of 2021, I received the “Chapter too parties” one.
But I haven’t been able to figure out much beyond that. This scary phone number remains a mystery — for now, at least.
618-625-8313
Status: Still operational as of November 2023.
If you’re a Stranger Things fan, you probably recognize the number 618-625-8313: It’s Murray Bauman’s phone number — that is, it belongs to the Netflix series’ resident conspiracy theorist, played by Brett Gelman. Set up prior to the airing of Season Four, the number, when called, presents you with Bauman’s answerphone recording, along with some hints about what we could expect from the then-upcoming season.
It isn’t super creepy in and of itself; however, it’s a fun Easter egg for fans — and, as I noted in an in-depth exploration of the number in 2019, I think it also functioned as a trailhead for the larger ARG that emerged from Stranger Things’ third season. (There’s a transcript of the actual voicemail message you hear when you dial the number within the TGIMM piece on the number itself, so head on over there to check it out.)
What’s notable about the Bauman number, I think, is that it’s still operational now, in January 2023, despite having been put into service in this capacity several years ago. That’s unusual for horror pop culture tie-in numbers: Carrie White’s phone number, set up in 2012 for the Carrie remake starring Chloe Grace Moretz, hasn’t worked for years — and even the phone number set up for Mike Flanagan’s 2020 follow-up to The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, was only operational for a brief while.
(I desperately wanted to include it in this updated list — I did call it when it was functional and found it delightfully spooky — but alas, I discovered when I was starting to do the early groundwork for this piece at the end of 2020 that it was no longer in service in its promotional capacity.)
There’s no guarantee that the Stranger Things team will keep it up in perpetuity, but at least we can enjoy it for the time being. And hey, this many years isn’t a bad run, all things considered.
508-690-6143
Status: As of January 2023, this phone number is no longer in service. However, you can still hear what used to play when you called it by clicking the link below.
Like another longtime favorite scary phone number, this one has a special place in my heart because of its area code: 508 numbers are based in Massachusetts, where I grew up. (True, I haven’t lived there in, uh, close to two decades now, but still. Old habits die hard and all that.) And, like the other Massachusetts-based number, it isn’t at all clear what was going on when you called 508-690-6143.
Initially, there’s a loud, repetitive honking noise some have likened to a car horn and others a buzzing sound before a minute or two of clanging takes the stage — like someone is repeatedly smashing a hard, solid object against a tabletop or something. An ear-splitting burst of static eventually breaks in; then, lastly, a “We’re sorry, but the number you have dialed is no longer in service” message plays, but not cleanly or easily — it’s interspersed with more static and interference. It finishes off with a classic answerphone beep before falling silent.
But I have no idea what any of it means. I don’t know if it’s connected to something bigger — an ARG, an abandoned art project or marketing push, a podcast, or something of the like — or if it’s just a spooky, standalone piece of weirdness. It sure is unsettling, though.
909-390-0003
Status: Still operational in January 2023.
Legends surrounding so-called “doppelganger numbers” — phone numbers which, when dialed, allow you to converse with your own doppelganger — are popular in Japan; there, it’s said that calling one, such as 073-499-9999 or090- 2048-1972, might result in anything from an unsettling experience to a potential death curse. But although these kinds of numbers are well-known in Japan, they’re not limited to Japan: You see, 909-390-0003 is a doppelganger number you can call within the United States.
None of these numbers are actually cursed, of course; they’re just test lines — phone numbers which allow you to test the audio quality of your phone through something called an echo test. As I noted in my deep dive into doppelganger number legends in 2020, there are two main kinds of echo tests: One of them lets you record a message, then plays it back to you — not unlike how, say, test calls work on Skype — while the other echoes your voice back to you, live and in real time as you speak. The 909 number listed here performs the second kind of echo test — that is, if you call it, you aren’t speaking with your doppelganger; you’re simply hearing your own voice all over again.
…Or are you?
951-572-2602
Status: As of January 2023, this phone number is no longer in service.However, you can still hear what used to play when you called it by clicking the link below.
You might have known this particular creepy phone number as “the SCP number”: When you dialed it, you heard a voicemail recording informing you that you had reached the Southern California, Division 19 branch of the SCP Foundation and instructing you to leave the date, time, location, and description of any “incidents” you may have witnessed which you believed required the organization’s intervention. Essentially, it sounded like a tip line of sorts.
The SCP Foundation is, of course, the (made-up) organization at the center of the long-standing collaborative fiction project of the same name. The project saw its beginnings on 4chan way back in 2007, when the infamous entry now known as SCP-173 was posted to /x/ paranormal board. The first incarnation of the project in the wiki format went live on EditThis in January of 2008; then, in July of that same year, it moved over to Wikidot, where it still lives today. And in the years since, it has grown exponentially, with users all over the world contributing artifacts, reports, and other stories to the mix, building out an enormously entertaining universe that’s part X-Files, part Warehouse 13, and all fun.
The number, which was a VOIP number based in Banning, California in Riverside County, just south of the San Bernardino National Forest, existed at least by 2015. SCP Foundation user genesplicer claimed to be its creator several times in the wiki’s forums; according to one post from this user dated 2017, it was a repurposed Google voice number.
Some folks who actually left messages in the number’s voicemail box over the years said that there was a chance you might have received a call or a text back; I didn’t do this while the number was still working, so I can’t verify it independently (and besides, the number existed for so long that it was a distinct possibility its creator stopped monitoring it all that closely after a while before shutting it down). It was a fun possibility, though!
512-937-2346
Status: As of January 2023, this phone number is no longer in service.However, you can still hear what used to play when you called it by clicking the link below.
This one was actually a second SCP number, although it served quite a difference purpose than the previous one: It was the hotline number for Foundation After Midnight Radio, a podcast set within the world of the SCP Foundation designed to sound like an in-universe radio show. (If you’re a fan of Welcome To Night Vale, you’ll probably dig FAM Radio.)
The 512 number actually was used for call-ins from time to time; the podcast’s creator, toadking07 (aka Eric J. Stover), put out calls on the SCP forums for listeners to dial in and leave messages for inclusion in several holiday episodes, for example. Right now, though, the podcast seems to be on hiatus — the most recent episode as of this writing was uploaded in December of 2021 — and the number is no longer working.
The message that played the last time I called in 2022 was entertaining, though: The voicemail box greeted callers by informing them, “Our site is currently experiencing a site-wide lockdown due to a containment breach,” before asking them to either stay on the line or leave a message after the tone. “Stay safe!” it chirpped at the end. How… optimistic.
408-634-2806
Status: As of April 2022, this phone number is no longer in service. However, you can still hear what used to play when you called it by clicking the link below.
The most persistent legend associated with the creepy phone number 408-634-2806 is that it was a so-called “red room number” — that is, if you either called it or answered a call coming from it, you’d be tracked down; kidnapped; brought to a “red room”; and tortured, killed, or both during a live broadcast viewable via the deep web.
This was never actually the case; red room numbers are simply an urban legend, albeit one that’s used quite effectively in the video game series Welcome To The Game. But there’s no denying how unsettling the message on the other end of this phone number was: Garbled voices gave way to a brief burst of music — the kind that sounded as if it was coming from a music box, or maybe an ice cream truck — before another voice cut in, saying, “All’s well that ends well.” Some reported hearing a voice say the words, “Return again when the dark moon reigns,” as well.
It turns out, though, that the number isn’t anything sinister on its own; it was a tie-in for the 2011 iOS game Superbrothers: Sword & Sorcery EP, developed by Capybara Games. The conclusion of the game presented players with a number, which, when called, gave you… that message. Its meaning has never been fully decoded; years later, players are still wondering about it.
But the game itself is still worth playing — as a 2016 retrospective of Superbrothers published at The Verge noted, its influence can be widely seen in many a title that came after it, including the 2014 hit Monument Valley. It’s now available for iOS, Android, Windows, Mac OS, and Linux; it was also ported to the Nintendo Switch in 2018.
The Binary Number
Status: As of January 2023, I received a generic “please leave a message and we’ll try to reach this Google Voice subscriber” message when I called this number. Previously, in April of 2022, I received only a busy signal. It is likely no longer in service. You can still listen to what you used to hear when you called it at the link below, though.
Ah, yes: The biggest mystery of the bunch. This scary phone number (828-756-0109, but check before you dial; it’s very similar to an actual person’s phone number, so please be kind and sensible if you try calling it and don’t misdial!) is now widely known as “the binary number,” due to the fact that its main feature was a panicked-sounding person spouting a bunch of ones and zeroes which converted to the word “death” in English.
It was a North Carolina number, for the curious — my phone identifies it as being based out of Marion, which is in McDowell County about 85 miles west and slightly north of Charlotte — but it was also a VOIP number set up through Google Voice, so who knows where its owner actually lived.
Alas, nothing new has emerged about this number in the years since I originally wrote about it. It’s just as mysterious now as it was then — and unless someone steps forward to reveal who they are and why they set the number up, it will likely remain as such.
407-734-0254
Status: Still operational as of January 2023.
[Warning: Spoilers for the documentary Wrinkles The Clown ahead!]
Since the mid-2010s, a creepy phone number has circulated that purportedly belongs to “Wrinkles The Clown” — “Wrinkles” being a nightmarish clown character dreamed up by a 60-something retiree who, for the right price, will come to your house and scare your kids into behaving. Video footage of Wrinkles doing just that emerged in 2014; naturally, he went viral shortly afterwards, and by 2015, news coverage in outlets as major as the Washington Post had followed. Wrinkles kept his identity under wraps in these interviews, but he said he was originally from Rhode Island, had retired in Florida, and thought that maybe his services might be useful to local parents.
Except that, ultimately, it came out that there was more to the story than met the eye. In 2019, the documentary Wrinkles The Clown was released — and midway through it, there’s a huge reveal: The story of Wrinkles as it’s been told so far is, it seems, entirely false. Wrinkles doesn’t exist; nor, in fact, does the man we’ve been told is Wrinkles. Wrinkles is a construct — he was built, piece by piece, by a person who keeps their own identity in the shadows using the anonymity of the internet. Wrinkles is a manufactured legend.
That doesn’t mean the phone number doesn’t exist, though. It does — and you can still call it today. Sometimes the mastermind behind the Wrinkles myth answers and speaks to callers in character; more often, though, you’ll reach the number’s voicemail box. “You’ve reached Wrinkles The Clown,” a gravelly voice will tell you. “I’m not here to take your call. Leave a message and I’ll call you back.” Then the voice will laugh — evilly, of course. He is an evil clown, after all.
Here’s the really interesting thing, though: We don’t really have any way to confirm whether the reveal in the 2019 documentary is, in fact, the truth — just like we didn’t really have any way to confirm whether what we thought we knew about Wrinkles before the documentary was the truth, too. The second story might be as much of a fiction as we’re told the first one was.
Food for thought, no?
270-301-5797
Status: No longer operational as of November 2023.
Superbrothers isn’t the only video game to have had a telephone-based tie-in; Kentucky Route Zero, a magical realist point-and-click adventure game released episodically between 2013 and 2020 had one, too. Called Here and There Along the Echo, it was one of a number of auxiliary experiences that Kentucky Route Zero developers Jake Elliott and Tamas Kemenczy released between episodes — and it was delightful.
What you got when you dialed 207-301-5797 was a phone tree — that is, format-wise, it was a lot like the 1-877-77-CREEP hotline set up by the Creepy Company. But it was an entirely different experience than 1-877-77-CREEP, claiming instead to be “a guide to the Echo River for drifters and pilgrims” presented by “the Bureau of Secret Tourism.” As I wrote back in 2018, “It’s weird and surreal, yet also wonderfully serene — and there’s plenty to explore as you dial your way through the various menus to which it gives you access.”
What’s more, as a Metafilter user put it in 2016, “You don’t have to know anything about the game to appreciate the sheer oddity and scope of what there is to listen to on this phone number.”
I was gutted to find it had gone out of service as of November of 2023; if it were still functional, I would have recommended pressing 5 the first time you were presented with some options, but alas, we can explore no longer. At least you can hear what the opening message used to sound like by clicking the link below.
“You Have Reached A WRONG NUMBER“
Status: As of April 2022, this phone number is no longer in service. However, you can still hear what used to play when you called it by clicking the link below.
One more video game tie-in for the books: This one was for the Hotline Miami series — and, even better, the number is used to be — 786-519-3708 — actually is a Miami-based number. (It seems to belong to someone else now, though, so do NOT call it. Don’t bother them. Leave them alone.)
As I noted in TGIMM’s original creepy phone number list, the Hotline Miami Twitter account began tweeting this phone number in 2012, before even the first game in the series was released. Tweets from the account dated early 2015 also included the number, along with something new: An extension. Calling the number led players to the message above — something about “we march into the future” and “you have reached a wrong number,” garbled and set amidst an unsettling audio background to imply something bigger at play.
And, indeed, it was: Enterprising players set to work analyzing the number, the message, and the extension, and found that, together, they revealed the title and release date of the second game in the series. Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number subsequently came out on March 10, 2015.
Hotline Miami developer Jonatan Söderström is currently at work on a new, secret project, by the way; wrote Söderström in a Dec. 31, 2020 tweet, which was then retweeted by the Hotline Miami account: “It’s new years and I wish I could write about what we’re working on. It is a passion project so I’m not sure who will enjoy it. But I’m sure some people will be horrified and others delighted!” Sounds like my kind of thing, whatever it is!
630-296-7536
Status: Still operational as of January 2023.
Remember Boothworld Industries? This is the number paired with the 2013 r/NoSleep story by Christopher Bloodworth that kicked off that whole universe. It still works now; if you call it, you’ll hear a pleasant voice telling you, “You have reached Boothworld Industries. Your number has been logged and traced. A service representative will be with you shortly for remodeling. We at Boothworld Industries say thanks. You have a marvelous day.” (There are a lot of rings before the message picks up, by the way, so wait patiently; don’t hang up too soon!)
You may or may not actually receive a call back. Some have; in fact, Bloodworth noted in a 2014 interview with Bubblebeam Magazine, “Sometimes I call back. The reactions are usually fun.” Even if you don’t, though, there’s still some fun to be gotten out of leaving a message for Boothworld.
801-820-0263
Status: As of January 2023, this phone number is no longer in service. However, you can still hear what used to play when you called it by clicking the link below.
This one was the second Boothworld number, although at first listen, the connection isn’t necessarily clear. A little digging, though, revealed a ton. Head here for more.
978-435-0163
Status: As of January 2023, I received a generic “please leave a message and we’ll try to reach this Google Voice subscriber” message when I called this number. Previously, in April of 2022, I received only a busy signal. It is likely no longer in service. You can still listen to what you used to hear when you called it at the link below, though.
Lastly, we have the creepy phone number I’ve come to think of as “the sobbing man number,” mostly because if you called 978-435-0163, the bulk of what you’d hear is a looped message of a man sobbing. He sounded like he was somewhere wet and cavernous; his voice echoed quite a bit, and there were a lot of damp, dripping noises in the background.
He wasn’t alone, either. There was… something else there with him. Something big. Something loud. And something… probably not human.
Alas, like the binary number, this creepy phone number remains a mystery. I have a soft spot for it that’s similar to the one I have for the 508-690-6143 number further up the list; 978, you see, is also a Massachusetts number. This specific one is based in Billerica — a town not too far away from where I grew up.
No additional information about this one has been forthcoming in the years since I first covered it. But two things occur to me now: One, the soundscape that played in the message is perhaps not dissimilar from what I would expect to hear from someone who had gotten lost in some kind of underground tunnel system; and two, Billerica, although possessing of many fine qualities, is, to my mind, synonymous with the defense contractor Raytheon, largely because every time I drove through the town, my route invariably took me past Raytheon’s Billerica offices.
These two things are not necessarily connected to the number; in fact, they’re probably not.
And yet…
…And yet.
Now then.
Do you dare call any of these creepy phone numbers?
It’s likely that nothing will happen to you if you do. You’ll just listen to a spooky little voicemail message, hang up, and carry on with your day.
But you might still… wonder.
What if you have been scheduled for “remodeling?”
What if you have reached an evil clown?
What if you have come into contact with something otherworldly?
There’s only one way to find out.
Just… don’t say I didn’t warn you.
***
Follow The Ghost In My Machine on Bluesky @GhostMachine13.bsky.social,Twitter @GhostMachine13, andFacebook @TheGhostInMyMachine. And for more games, don’t forget to check outDangerous Games To Play In The Dark,available now from Chronicle Books!
[Photos via vietnikon99, Glavo (remixed by Lucia Peters), StockSnap, Thaliesin/Pixabay; 幻影多媒体 3D, Unsplash/Pexels]
