Nightfox Reports: There’s an App for That

File this under “never whistle while you piss”, because apparently people are just not paying attention thanks to cell phones. In the news you do not hear on the radio or from the television this week, all across Los Angeles and possibly around the world cell phone users are stopping dead in their tracks and chanting, seemingly in a trance. They are doing it apparently at random and often in situations that are dangerous, like while crossing busy streets or while driving on the freeway. Reports of several fatalities in the news indicate the entranced phone users stood still as they were struck by honking cars or drove their own vehicles straight into trees, other vehicles, or over cliffs. Victims of this trance have no memory of it happening but some have reported later having strange dreams they cannot describe or fully remember that nonetheless terrified them. They are noticeably weak and fatigued after being in the trance and seem to be totally unaware of their environment or any physical sensations. At least three victims seem to have been robbed while under the trance and one female victim in Hollywood was apparently sexually assaulted while chanting in the parking lot of a nightclub. None of these victims have any memory of the attacks against them and only know they were victimized because of clothes and other possessions in disarray or missing entirely upon coming out of the trance.

Whatever you may have heard, this is not an isolated phenomenon. Creature of the night CKi in Sydney, Australia reports that a tourist from Kyoto, Japan had to be picked up and carried to the curb when she stopped in a crosswalk to mumble unintelligible lyrics while listening to her cellular phone.

The words the people under this trance are chanting seem to be in Arabic, but no one can identify the lyrics and few if any of the entranced callers knows any Arabic or can remember what they were listening to on their phone once the trance fades, usually after about ten minutes. Some of the victims seem to have been in the middle of talking to someone on the phone, while others were using their phones for other functions. Police have not found any meaningful connections between the victims but they are strongly advising people to stay off of their phones while driving or walking across streets.

Conspiracy theories are spreading across the net. Here are just three of the many I have seen. Which explanation do you believe?

1) A free smart-phone music app is being distributed by a company in Egypt that causes users to compulsively chant in Arabic. What they are chanting is a spell to summon Yog-Sothoth. The spell has been made part of a catchy if strange song with a dub-step background. The company is run by a sorcerer who learned the app directly from Nyarlathotep. If enough users chant the spell at the same time, the imprisoned god will be free to enter normal space. Each time a phone user listens to any song on the app they may randomly start chanting the spell. So far, only a few thousand people around the world have downloaded the app, but it is spreading as the company that produced it vigorously markets it.

2) A hacker in Gaza has created a subliminal hypnosis program and embedded it in a Jordanian pop tune that people can download for free. He hopes to use it as a marketing tool despite the number of people who are injured or killed while under the trance it induces. The song is just a test and he is continuing to develop more precise and potent versions of the hypnosis program, some with embedded instructions to perform specific tasks. Questions about his financial backers, his links to terrorist groups, and the possibility of the app being used to turn a listener into a suicide bomber are never adequately answered.

3) A Chaldean sorcerer from Mosul in Iraq is casting a spell over his phone to hypnotise whoever is on the other end of the call to program them to do his bidding at a later date. Each day he calls dozens of numbers at random and entrances the people who pick up to embed instructions into their subconscious minds so when the time is right they will gather together to perform a horrific ritual.