Voices In The Factory

An account entitled "Unfamiliar Voices and Other Odd Things" submitted by Enlightened1959, has prompted me to submit this account as they have one area of similarity.

In the early 1980s I worked for the Carnation Milk Company in Aylmer, Ontario. The factory was built in around 1905, I believe. Some of the equipment inside, still in operation at the time, was the same age as the building. Being a stationary engineer in the boiler room we worked 24/7 even after production was done for the day and on weekends, at this time the person on shift would be the only person in the entire facility. The boiler room was cozy enough, especially on cold winter nights, but the rest of the factory could be a little spooky in the low light and the shadows cast by ancient machines.

I was a young man and the shift schedule was interfering with my social life. At times one or another of my friends would have mercy and visit me to keep me company for a while. Food was always welcome.

One evening a friend, Kim, (male) came at about 1:00 AM with a pizza. We took it to the lunch room in the main factory and started to eat. Although we were talking and eating, I kept hearing what I thought were the voices of two women having a conversation. I tried to ignore it as there should have been no one else in the building. I reasoned that it may be steam or air or some other mechanically derived sound. After many minutes, however, the sound did not stop. I mentioned the voices to Kim and he paused and said he could hear them as well and said it was definitely two women talking.

We decided to search for the two women that should not be there. We followed the voices to the milk receiving area but the voices then seemed to be coming from another part of the factory. We followed them there but then, just as oddly, the voices now seemed to be coming from the empty can storage area on the second floor. While both Kim and I agreed that the speech was English neither of us could make out a single word of it. This went on for about an hour and although the voices didn't stop, two young men could not leave a pizza uneaten for very long.

By the time Kim went home, an hour or so later, the voices had stopped. I went back to the boiler room, a little nervous but spent the night in relative calm.

Four weeks later I was again on night shift. This time my friend Scott decided to make the drive out to Aylmer to see me. We ordered a pizza (yes again) and took it to the lunch room as I did four weeks prior. I had not mentioned the voices to Scott.

We sat eating when I heard a conversation begin, this time by two men. I just let it go as I was not going to go through the wild goose chase again (besides the whole thing was a little creepy). I did not mention what I was hearing to Scott. The voices kept going but I did not want to acknowledge them. After a few minutes Scott paused and said, "Do you hear two men talking?" I remember throwing down my slice of pizza in a mix of relief, fear, and disgust. I told him that I heard them and then related the previous voice thing of four weeks earlier.

Scott and I went through the same routine of following the voices through the building for about an hour. Just as before we could not catch up to them nor could we make out what they were saying but we agreed that the pattern was definitely English.

The pizza, however, was not forgotten and we returned to the lunch room to polish it off. Afterward Scott went home, the voices were stilled and I, once more, spent a creeped out night in the boiler room alone.

I never heard the voices again despite similar friend and pizza visits in subsequent months.

As always, under these odd circumstances, I am at a loss to understand the how and why of it. I am not sure why the disembodied voices were there nor do I understand why we were led around the facility by them. It seems so purposeless.

Carnation Milk closed their Aylmer operation down at least twenty years ago and the factory was torn down a few years after that.