Season 03 Episode 09: Come Talk to Me (Rerun)

life forever. With a title taken from a song by Peter Gabriel, this week's rerun is Unexplained, Season three, episode nine, Come talk to me, won't you please? Sun me? If you sure? Sus Friedrich Jergensen did not believe in ghosts, at least not in the traditional sense of something that had once lived, somehow remaining after death, much less that the dead could talk. He did not follow any religion or pin his master to any one political party, and

neither did he believe in an interventionist god. He had seen too much for that. Jurgensen was born in Odessa in February nineteen o three, then a major city of the Russian Empire and soon to be cradle of revolution. Though his family lived a relatively charmed life by comparison to many of its citizens. His formative years were nonetheless surrounded by misery, as he once put it, and it

certainly wasn't lacking in drama. By the time he was forty years old, Jurgensen will have fled from Bolshevik revolutionaries to Estonia, before later moving to Berlin to train as an opera singer under the great Italian tenor Tito's Skeeper.

After a period of almost unrivaled sexual and creative freedom in the city, he will later watch in horror as a new Puritanism takes hold, while those not blessed with the privilege of being able to work in the arts, struggling under crippling poverty and unemployment, are drawn ever closer to the rising tide of fascism. Its subsequent fanning of a growing antisemitism leaves the Jewish skeeper no option but to escape to Palestine, where Friedrich will join him for

eight years, swapping one war zone for another. Returning to Europe in nineteen thirty eight, Friedrich, now a successful opera singer in his own right, makes plans to continue his career in Italy. However, after visiting his parents in Estonia, the cold climate plays havoc with his health and his voice, eventually forcing him to give up his singing dream. He returns to Italy soon after with the intention of becoming a professional painter, only to find war waiting for him

once again. Unwilling to fight for a fascist cause and having no distinct nationality of his own to defend, Friedrich, whose mother was Swedish, flees to her home country. By the end of the Second World War in nineteen forty five, Jergensen, who by now speaks ten different languages, is forty two years old, married, and finally ready to settle down. Incredibly, despite all that he has seen and experienced, the most extraordinary moment of his life still awaits. You're listening to

Unexplained and I'm Richard MacLean Smith. It is thirteen years later, and a now fifty five year old Friedrich has established himself as a talented portraitist and archaeological painter, admired even by the Pope. At some point in nineteen fifty seven, having spent many years working at the ruined Roman city of Pompeii, he accepts an invitation to hold an exhibition

in its grounds. The magic of the place had infatuated him since he was a child, how it had once been forgotten, buried under fire and ash, only to be unearthed by chance and rescued from its violent end to

stand once more as a testament to civilization. The offer was made even more appealing when he was given the opportunity to work on site, establishing a studio in the House of the Tragic Poet, one of the more well preserved buildings, elaborately decorated throughout with exquisite mosaics depicting scenes from Greek mythology. But best of all was being granted

a key to the city. As dusk settled over the ruins, long after everyone else had left, Friedrich would be free to wander the deserted homes and streets alone in the eerie silence. The quieter it was, the more fiercely he felt the ghosts fighting to emerge from the shadows. As he walked, he let his imagination drift. From a street corner,

an exuberant shopkeeper emerges measuring grain for his customers. Over there, a horse and cart trundles by, as robed dignitaries saunter behind, while the sound of children playing echoes through the streets, and if he listens carefully enough from a distance, the fleeting roar of a crowd packed into the city's amphitheater is carried on the wind, and sometimes the imagining of the sudden explosion, followed by a growing plume of ash, the darkening of the sky, and the billowing cloud of

boiling heat speeding down the mountainside as the screams grow louder and louder. Soon summer is approaching and Friederich's exhibition is coming to its end. As a final thank you for his work, he has offered the chance to fulfill a lifetime's ambition when the Pompeii Archaeological Commission invites him to take part in an excavation of a newly discovered property the following year. He gladly accepts the offer and returns to Stockholm soon after to begin putting together his

plans for his next visit. Little did he know, then, however, that he would not be returning to Pompeii any time soon, for something was about to occur that would change his life and understanding of it forever. In June nineteen fifty eight, Friedrich and his wife Monica traveled to their country house just south of Merlinboe, a small village located sixty kilometers southwest of the capital Stockholm. The property, which backed on to a placid and tranquil lake, was as idyllic a

country retreat as one could imagine. Aside from the main house, the property consisted of an old, dilapidated hut by the water's edge, as well as a guest house on the fringes of a nearby forest bordering the garden, itself an enchanting mess of wild flowers and apple blossom, it was the perfect place to capture the sound of singing birds, as Friedrich had long planned to do, but never quite had the time. This year, he determined to do it once and for all, making sure to bring his tape

recorder down from Stockholm. After spending the day by the lake, it was some time in the afternoon, with the local birds in full voice, that Friedrich retired to the house to collect the tape recorder, before making his way out to the forest cabin and up into its attic. Moments later, having rigged up a microphone, he slid open the window and pointed the microphone out of it, just as a gentle finch came to rest on the roof, flicking the

switch to record. Friederic sat back in his chair and listened to the bird sing as the tape slowly unspooled from one reel to the other. After a few minutes, with the bird having taken off, Friedrich stopped the recording and rewound the tape. He pressed play and waited eagerly to hear what he had captured, but something was wrong. Though he could just about make out the merry chirping of the finch, it was completely drowned out by a blaring burst of static, as if someone had been taking

a shower right next to the microphone. Friedrich made a quick check of all the connections and spun the tape forward to see if something was wrong with the tape itself, but all seemed fine. Repositioning the mic he tried again. After another few minutes, he rewound the tape, pressed play, and waited, but yet again, much to his annoyance, after a short period of quiet, the speakers blared out the

same static hiss of interference. Since he could still just about hear the sound of birds singing in the distance, clearly the record function was working, but as he was about to switch off the tape, something else burst through the noise. It sounded like a voice. As he moved closer and listened more carefully, he could hear it clearly now. It was a male voice speaking in Norwegian about the

sound of bird song at night. Though it was a bizarre occurrence, the tape player must merely have somehow picked up a Norwegian radio transmission, he reasoned, though it was certainly an extraordinary coincidence that it would be all about bird song, he thought, as he made his way back to the house that evening. For the next month, unable to make clean recordings, Friedrich turned his attention to another pet project he had been working on, researching the fate

of Russian Princess Anastasia. Though today it is widely accepted that the youngest daughter of Czar Nicholas the Second and Tzarina, Alexandra Fyodorovna, was murdered along with the rest of her immediate family in July nineteen eighteen, in the nineteen fifties, her whereabouts remained very much a mystery, But as Friedrich tried to concentrate on the task, he found his mind continually wandering back to the strange recordings he had made

weeks before. Though he tried a few times to recapture the peculiar broadcast, it appeared to have since come to an end. That was until one evening in mid July, with Monica having now returned to Stockholm. That night, Friedrich was once again sat alone in the outhouse attic, trying in vain to capture another radio transmission. Since he didn't have headphones, he kept his eyes glued to the recording

light for any sign that something was being received. But as the moon outside the window rose higher into the sky, with nothing to show for his efforts, Friedrich was beginning to get tired. Just as his eyelids were starting to close, the control light flashed red. That's strange, he thought, since all about him was completely still. After waiting for a few minutes, as the recording light continued to flash, Friedrich stopped the recording before rewinding the tape and pressing play.

After a brief moment of light atmospheric sound, Friedrich was overjoyed to hear that familiar hissing raw once again, and as he strained to listen through the interference, once again came the familiar Norwegian voice tired but pleased with the knight's results, Friedrich went to bed, returning to listen to the tape the following morning, just as he thought, he had indeed captured the same voice as before, only this time something was different. It wasn't just the one voice.

It was multiple, speaking in a range of languages, including English, German, Swedish, Italian, and Polish, all crossing over each other, reciting strange and incomprehensible sentences. And then one other voice, a little clearer than the rest, burst through the static. Friedrich sat back in astonish. It couldn't be, he thought. He stopped the tape and looked around the empty room. Satisfied he was alone, he spun back the tape and played it again. Friedrich said,

the voice your being observed. Friedrich played the tape back again and again. It was clear somebody was trying to communicate with him. Later, after hearing a second mention of his name, came a bizarre, cryptic request, Friedrich, when you translate and interpret into German during the day, try to solve the truth every evening with the ship in the dark. Worried he might be losing his mind, Friedrich promptly played the tapes to Monica, as it was for anyon one

who would later hear them. It was hard to discern much of anything through the violent roar of the static, but slowly, as her ears began to adjust to the different frequencies buried within it, Monika too heard the voices. It was a strange predicament coming across this apparent phenomena so unexpectedly. Friedrich had not been looking for this, nor

even spent any time considering it. He also had much work to do, not only preparing for the excavation in Pompeii the following spring, but keeping up with his commissions in Sweden too, But everything seemed suddenly to pale into comparison with what was occurring in that attic room on his tape recorder. Another set of recordings made soon after revealed yet more voices, but distinguishing between them all was

near impossible listening to them being played back on the machine. Eventually, Friedrich bought a pair of headphones to better interpret just what exactly was going on. Now he was able to hear the sounds being captured as they were being recorded. It wasn't long after that he realized slowing the recordings down made it much easier to pick out the voices, but despite having accrued a number of similar recordings, he

was no closer to figuring out exactly what they were. Naturally, his first assumption, and surely the only reasonable one, was that he was continuing to pick up a number of converging radio signals, signals that are constantly traveling through the air around us. Those mentions of his name just coincidence and a form of confirmation by us, he thought. Either way,

Ascertaining their provenance became his top priority. A few weeks later, having returned to Merlinbau, this time with his poodle Corino for company, Friedrich returned again to his attic room, plugged in the headphones, and switched the tape player to record.

No sooner had he put the headphones on, the peaceful atmosphere of the Merlin Beau country air was suddenly obliterated in a blare of static, and before long he could hear the voices coming through again, mixed also this time with a variety of other strange sounds and music too. After listening for a few minutes, Friedrich heard the phone

ringing downstairs. Leaving the tape to record, he headed down to answer it, escorted by his ever faithful Carino, who followed him closely behind It was Monica on the line, just wanting to know how the day's recordings were going. With Carino sitting patiently next to him. Friedrich was just telling Monica about what he had heard so far when his dog abruptly rose to his feet and scampered out

of the room. As he continued talking on the phone, Friedrich heard what he took to be the dog in the attic, jumping up around his chair before finally settling down in it. Returning to the top floor a few minutes later, sure enough, Friedrich found Carino sitting on the chair, wagging his tail in excitement. Friedrich picked him up and placed him on the spare bed before returning again to

the tape player. After a few more minutes recording, he decided to stop and listen back to what he had captured. Having rewound the tape to just before the phone call, he hit play, sat back and listened once again. Came the heavy burst of static, and just audible, deep in the cacophony, he can just make out the sound of a telephone ringing. Next he hears himself removing the headphones and pacing out of the room, with Carino's poor steps following close behind. Strangely, as soon as he has left

the room, the hissing stops. In the ensuing silence, Friedrich strains to hear the phone conversation with Monica, but it is inaudible, so with nothing else occurring, he skips the tape forward a few minutes. Soon the sound of his approaching steps can be heard as he returns to the room before opening the door and picking Carino up from the chair. At the sound of him putting his headphones back on, curiously, the loud static bursts immediately come back in.

Unable to decipher the subsequent set of noise exploding within the interference, Friedrich decides to play the tape back again to confirm with the static had indeed only occurred when he was sat at the tape player. He returns the tape back to the moment he left the room and lets it play out. What he hears next changes everything.

At first, he hears only the faint sound of his voice on the phone downstairs, when suddenly a peculiar, high pitched noise cuts in, followed by a male voice quietly humming the opening refrain of the song VLAA, and then a different sound, Corno's approaching poor steps as he makes his way up the stairs, and then the sound at the door as he nudges it open. Just as the dog enters the room. Friedrich is stunned when he hears a clear Italian accented voice. Ah, Carino, do you hear me?

It asks, Carino, do you know me? And in the background he hears Corino joyously spinning about on the chair, wagging his tail. Later in the autumn, Monica's mother comes to stay at the house in Merlinbau, having left a tape recording during the afternoon. When Friedrich listens to it later that evening, he makes yet another astonishing discovery. At one point he is able to hear Monica talking to her mother downstairs, when suddenly the volume of the tape

inexplicably drops drastically. Friedrich turns the volume up as loud as it will go, and with Monica's voice just audible in the background, another voice suddenly breaks in, a male speaking in German. At Monica's It's cozy, it says, and then another voice chimes in again in German. I can see her, I hear her directly, it says. A moment later the recording ends. Friedrich leans back in his chair

in a state of utter disbelief. As the weeks pass, Friedrich continues to record and pick up the numerous disembodied voices, but grows frustrated by the lack of coherence and begins to wonder what is the point of it all. Worried also that he might somehow be the butt of an elaborate joke, he decides to bring an end to the experiments, But soon something else begins to occur that terrifies him. Although he is no longer listened to the tapes, he

is still hearing the voices. One afternoon, while resting in his study, as rain pours down outside, he is certain he can hear a voice in the patter of the raindrops. Then later he hears it again in the rustle of the burning fire. The voices seem to be following him everywhere. Concerned he is showing early signs of some form of schizophrenia, he reassures himself that he is otherwise healthy, not suffering any anxiety, and sleeping perfectly well. One afternoon, he is

certain he hears a voice calling out to him. Listen to me, it says, take part in the work. Having been convinced to return to his sonic research, Friedrich invites a number of friends and scientists to join him in his listening sessions. Though they are skeptical at first, they too start to notice the peculiar messages buried in the recordings, and though they are reluctant to speculate on what they are,

all agree that they are highly unusual. Frequently, most of the voices are preceded by a female voice who seems to be instructing Friedrich on how best to hear the assumed communications. Eventually, he discovers that using a radio in close proximity to the recorder intensifies the messages, and that tuning to certain frequencies at specific times will work best.

In January nineteen sixty, Friedrich receives the upsetting news that Boris Sakarov, an old friend from his childhood days in Odessa, had been killed in a car crash back in October of the previous year. Shortly after, Friedrich learn that Sakarov had recently become a renowned yoga teacher who also specialized in the instruction of breathing exercises. Moments later, Friedrich raised up to his study and pulled a tape from the shelf. Hurriedly,

he fixed it into place and pressed play. The recording was one of a number he had made over the Christmas period and had been confusing him ever since. He understood it now that sound he had heard when sitting alone in his room a few weeks ago had been a deep exhalation of breath. Hearing it again on the tape confirms his suspicions at the time. He had heard the sound both in the room and through the headphones. He spins the tape back a little further and lets

it play out. First, the violent cacophony of static blares out into the room, and then from out of the chaos come the words, as clear as day, your boris is at the equipment. Over eight years in total, Friedrich Jergensen will record one hundred and forty tapes containing between five to six thousand different recordings of what will later become known as electronic voice phenomena, being left in no doubt that what he had captured were the voices of

the dead. Further reported voices included those of his own mother, as well as a number of recently deceased figures of historical note, including in an odd twist, that of Adolf Hitler and Winston Churchill. As a man of no little intellectgans was more than aware of the many rational explanations that might account for what he had heard, with early

satellite communications and radio transmission being the most obvious. However, not only did many of his friends and a number of scientists keen to find an answer for the communications hear them too, but often he would capture voices speaking single sentences in multiple languages, which would seem to negate the radio broadcast theory. Some have also suggested that the multi lingual Jurgensen had somehow projected the voices onto the

tape himself. What seems never to have been in doubt was Friedrich's integrity or the authenticity of the raw recordings. He died at the age of eighty four in late nineteen eighty seven. Whatever we believe about Jergenson's peculiar findings, perhaps we can take at least one thing from his experiences. When all you can hear is the cacophony of chaos, it pays not to turn away from the noise, but to take the time to listen to what might be buried underneath. Perhaps you too will hear the sound of

voices just wanting to be heard. This episode was written by Richard mclin smith Unexplained as an AV Club Productions podcast created by Richard McClain Smith. All other elements of the podcast, including the music, are also produced by me Richard McClain smith Unexplained. The book and audiobook, with stories never before featured on the show, is now available to buy worldwide. You can purchase from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Waterstones,

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