The Case of the Spontaneous Chime: Ghosts or Glitches?

Daniel Ryan - 29 April 2024

I saw a Facebook post from a friend that caught my interest. A weird thing happened to him on the morning of the 17th of April; he explained it as something from a horror movie. He had a doorbell where he had never put batteries in the ringer unit, but despite the lack of batteries at 6:30 am it started to ring, and continued to ring as he picked it up and shook it to double check it didn’t have batteries. Indeed, it didn’t.

It reminded me (and I’m sure people have similar stories) of toys coming to life in the middle of the night. Many years ago, when I was a child, my family was temporarily living in a known “haunted” house. One night, my electronic handheld poker game started playing its tune. I turned it off and climbed back into bed, but the toy started up again, playing the same tune. Luckily for me, taking the batteries out was enough to stop it. It was a freaky experience to have as a child. Thinking about it as an adult, I had stored the device in a bag of toys, and it was likely that something else in the bag kept leaning on the buttons.

Anyway, the comments started coming in on Facebook about the doorbell, with jokes about it being the GCSB spying, etc. But there were also more serious comments about how it may be “someone” that has passed recently sending them a message.

My first thought about the story was that the ringer unit must have been wired somehow, but maybe the button part had no batteries. I asked what brand and how old it was — it was a “Simx White Visichime Entry Alert Door Chime”, less than a year old, that you can buy from Bunnings for $64. It’s fully wireless and has a separate sensor. The ringer part requires 3 C batteries. I thought he should try to get his money back under warranty. Are haunted electronics covered under the Consumer Guarantees Act?

So, I reckon this makes a good thought experiment for you skeptics out there! What would cause a wireless door chime to go off without batteries in the ringer and sensor? Send in your answers please to newsletter@skeptics.nz.

I have a good theory about how it could have happened, and I will discuss all the potential answers we can collectively come up with in the next newsletter.