A supposedly new trend is being reported, for cold mechanical voices coming from the air. Of course, this is considered a classic sign of schizophrenia, but as we've seen it can happen to perfectly sane people (and may even be beneficial in some cases) so until someone goes off stabbing babies in their eyes, we'll not going jumping to any such conclusions here. However, there is the question of how modern this is, but lets not get ahead of ourselves and start with the claims, as related by Dennis Whitney:

I have to say, there is an entirely new facet to the Contact scenario, that has now entered my life in about as subtle a manner, as driving into a brick wall. And strangely, it is now cropping up in the lives of others, revealed, thanks to the marvel of social networking sites and the like.

...

This is what it is that has occured, and why I believe we are now on the cusp of a 'new' facet of this phenomena, that may give evidence to the dimensional shift, now under way.

It started with the sound of a large mechanical bird flapping outside his window which rang a lot of bells when a friend related a story:

she happened to be experiencing a very similar sound, while on the phone with a friend of hers. What really caught my interest, was the description she gave it. She called the supposed sound a 'metallic, mechanical voice', that both parties heard. I was blown away by this description! I had never personally, previously, used those two words to describe a sound. Ever. In my life. Now here was someone that was using those very same words. And even up until recently, the 'voice' continued, but only between her and one particular friend. That is, until she tried to record it! Nothing since.

Only after she described the phone conversation, I too began to hear it, but only with one particular friend, who is a lifelong contactee in her own right. The interesting thing here was, I would CLEARLY hear an android-like voice, but in a language I couldn't understand. But it was trying to communicate something!

Things get a little problematic after that as he was impressed by the appearance of this phenomena in the movie the Fourth Kind. Unfortunately, although it claims to be be based on true events that is as much spin as the Blair Witch film being real (in fact, they have even got into trouble for their guerilla marketing campaign because they made it appear some mocked-up material came from actual newspapers). If it wasn't just made up, then it is likely they picked it up from existing cases and expanded on it. Either way it is an interesting indication of the way fiction can influence the field (not helped in this case by the studio playing fast and loose with the truth), as we've seen with, for example, the Philadelphia Experiment film.

The movie suggests Sumerian speech. To call this interesting, would be an understatement. And as I will soon write about, when the time is right, I myself, am beginning to receive 'guidance' of sorts, from what clearly seems to be of higher intelligence, from another realm. And yes, it is an interactive process. I am now able to ask questions about 'the meaning of it all' if you will.

And what was I personally told? Yes, the language is Sumerian. This is also what is being spoken into my phone, and what was outside of my window. At least in my case, the beings are of Sirian descent. They are also the same beings that inhabit the craft that stays perpetually outside of my window, as many others are now experiencing.

Ignoring the problem with the film (and more mundane answers like, crossed lines), it most obviously sounds like EVP (helped by the fact there isn't an obvious alien/UFO link) for now, although the debate is still out on whether we are hearing voices in the static or this is genuine contact from... elsewhere. We also seem to be lacking actual recordings so it is difficult to gauge how plausible these voices are. What would be interesting is if these voices are supplying information the subject couldn't possibly know and/or something that is testable. This has occurred in some cases and would be a way of moving this forward from the purely anecdotal.

Source

Hat tip

Over on the Mothman Flutterings blog (formerly Orange Orb I believe), Regan Lee points out the Mothman Prophecies connection, as can be seen in this clip from the film:

Before going on to offer another case (as well as a link with Greg's article in Darklore):

Ed Walters, author of The Gulf Breeze Sightings, described hearing weird electronic or metallic voices outside his bedroom windows at night in connection with his UFO experiences.

I was also reminded of Greg Taylor’s article Her Sweet Murmur, in DarkLore volume 1, which explores the rushing, roaring, bell clanging/chiming sounds many (including myself) experience during esoteric events. These episodes appear diverse and often unconnected from each other; UFOs, BVM (Blessed Virgin Mary) appearances, Mothman, Bigfoot or other crypto sightings, aliens, OOBEs, etc.

This link is critically important and, of course, there is actually little initially to indicate actual aliens at work.

Source

Hat tip

Coincidentally, Chris Knowles has recently pointed out Jack Sarfatti's communications, which started out with mechanical voices down the phone too:

Says Sarfatti, “In 1952 and 1953, when I was about 12 or 13 years old, I received a phone call…in which a mechanical sounding voice at the other end said it was a computer on board a flying saucer. They wanted to teach me something and would I be willing? This was my free choice. Would I be willing to be taught—to communicate with them? I remember a shiver going up my spine, because I said, ‘Hey, man, this is real.’ Of course, I was a kid…but I said, yes.”

Also the whole Shaver Mystery started when Richard Shaver claimed he was hearing voices through his welding equipment. Now I don't know how cold and mechanical they are but they were from evil, underground dwelling sadists and it was coming through electrical equipment so I can't imagine it sounded like the dainty hum of an angel:

Shaver's reality tunnel began to diverge from the agreed-upon sometime around 1932, while he was working as a welder at an auto plant in Detroit. He began to notice that one of the welding guns on his job site, "by some freak of its coil's field atunements," was allowing him to read the thoughts of the men working around him. More frighteningly, he then picked up the telepathic record of a torture session conducted by malign entities in caverns deep within the earth.

Understandably disturbed by these phenomena, Shaver quit his job and went "on the bum," a well-beaten path in thirties America, wandering throughout the Midwest and apparently doing some jail time. While in jail, the evil voices returned and tormented him with secret rays.

And he wasn't the only one:

According to Palmer, shortly after the success of "I Remember Lemuria," he went to visit Shaver and his wife Dorothy in Pennsylvania, "a novel experience and an eerie one." On his first evening there, Palmer heard Shaver's tero for himself: a chorus of five voices, sometimes speaking at once, describing awful tortures in a cave four miles below. Palmer searched the room for recording devices and microphones without result, and soon "returned to Chicago determined the run the Shaver Mystery out of [sic] its final conclusion."

...

other readers were fascinated by the Mystery, and made Amazing's letter column a lively affair throughout the Shaver period. Lots of people heard tormenting voices in their heads, it appeared; more proof that the Shaver Mystery was real. Amazing readers began to report on the location of local entrances to the cavern world, of exploring wild caves south of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for instance, and suddenly finding perfectly smooth shafts and borings, and these ventilated from below. One reader reported on an encounter with the tero in a cavern and subsequent, unsettling threats from a mysterious stranger. Another told of encounters with a "man from Agharti"; still another of encountering disembodied voices and odd electromagnetic effects near Hopland, California.

Source

A propos of possibly bugger all but one of the first things commented on when recreationally sampling chloroform is that people's voices suddenly appear to be harsh and robotic in nature (this is odd as other effects tend only to kick in on a second dose, so you can feel perfectly normal until someone speaks). Purely anecdotal, of course, but worth a mention.

So that little aside aside, it does seem like this has been reported for quite some time, although quite what is going on (or even if there is more than one cause) still seems difficult to track down. Perhaps if someone could get a clear recording that might help move the debate on but that itself still seems elusive, as with so many other such mysteries.