The only texts I get on the regular are either from my family or from 262-966 (aka Amazon letting me know that my jumbo pack of Fleet enemas and whatever useless trash I ordered while drunk is on its way). So if my phone chimed me awake in the middle of the night with a text alert, and I looked at my phone with mostly-asleep blurry eyeballs, I’d wonder why my mom or Amazon was texting me with, “Um, I think you gave me crabs,” before realizing it came from a trick of the past. That didn’t happen to me, THANK THEE GODS, but it did happen to some. Text messages that were sent a while ago and got clogged in the system somehow were burped up onto phones in the middle of the night, which freaked some people out. And just like that, M. Night Shyamalan got the idea for his next horror movie.
The Verge says that during the night, some people, on various cell phone networks, got text messages from family or friends that were originally sent around Valentine’s Day of this year and never made it to its destination. The textee never got the message and the texter never knew that the textee didn’t get it at the time. The textee also didn’t re-send it overnight. Some were hit hard in the soul because they got texts from people in their lives who had died. But many got “Happy Valentine’s Day” messages and other old shit:
Question: Did anyone’s phone send a text message to someone else that was never sent? Apparently my husband got a text from me saying I loved him and Happy Valentines Day and I never sent that to him and doesn’t appear on my phone.
— Princesa Fiona (@LovelyMrsH) November 7, 2019
So at almost 1 am my time @harleyyy_rose phone received a text message NOT iMessage from me saying “need help” BUT my phone was in my living room and I was in my bedroom. And on my end there’s no record of that message. Anyone have a logical explanation?? Or are we haunted?? pic.twitter.com/Z81xLjYlug
— Mami (@airelkatalina) November 7, 2019
so, my best friend's husband got a text message from her at 4:45 AM that said “am I gonna get sued for sexual harassment." she didn’t send it and there’s no evidence of it on her phone (or her phone bill!) but it’s on his phone. has anyone ever heard of this?!
— josie duffy rice (@jduffyrice) November 7, 2019
— A Goldman (@AGoldmund) November 7, 2019
Before you shrug and go, “Oh, the Russians are just at it again,” you’re probably right, but The Verge asked Sprint and Verizon about the haunting of the phones throughout the night and one blamed a maintenance update while another blamed it on a third party.
At fault seems to be a system that multiple cell carriers use for messaging. A Sprint spokesperson said a “maintenance update” last night caused the error. “The issue was resolved not long after it occurred,” the spokesperson said. “We apologize for any confusion this may have caused.”
T-Mobile blamed the issue on a “third party vendor.” It didn’t clarify what company that was or what service they provided. “We’re aware of this and it is resolved,” a T-Mobile spokesperson said.
I guess we’ll never know what really happened until Robert Mueller or the Ghost Hunters take on this case. But you can tell yourself that the ex who dumped your ass, broke your heart inti a zillion pieces, and left your genitals cold sent you a text message on Valentine’s Day begging you to take them back! That text obviously got clogged up in the Great VD Text Clogging of 2019, and is still clogged. It’ll hit your phone in the next text purge. But in the meantime, go ahead and text your ex with, “Get over it, I’ve MOVED ON…. but want to come over later?”
Pic: Twitter