DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — When Ellie, a British-Iranian living in the United Kingdom, tried to call her mother in Tehran, a robotic female voice answered instead.
“Alo? Alo?” the voice said, then asked in English: “Who is calling?” A few seconds passed.
“I can’t heard you,” the voice continued, its English imperfect. “Who you want to speak with? I’m Alyssia. Do you remember me? I think I don’t know who are you.”
Ellie, 44, is one of nine Iranians living abroad — including in the U.K and U.S. — who said they have gotten strange, robotic voices when they attempted to call their loved ones in Iran since Israel launched airstrikes on the country a week ago.
They told their stories to The Associated Press on the condition they remain anonymous or that only their first names or initials be used out of fear of endangering their families.
Five experts with whom the AP shared recordings said it could be low-tech artificial intelligence, a chatbot or a pre-recorded message to which calls from abroad were diverted.
It remains unclear who is behind the operation, though four of the experts believed it was likely to be the Iranian government while the fifth saw Israel as more likely.
Only the second most terrifying story I’ve read today
Nah… take the Iranian government, then take the Israel government… and throw them both into the Thunderdome!
Pay-per-view that shit! (And use the proceeds to help innocent rebuild their lives)
It’s a war, not a game. One of the problems we have is people considering this conflict involving a lot of human suffering like it’s a sport and taking sides and generally acting like complete psychopaths around it. The anti-Israel crowd seem to want Palestians to suffer more so they can continue to have more propaganda to prove Israelis are evil.
I want the Israeli people being held hostage by Hamas to be released and the war there to be ended as soon as possible to stop the suffering of Palestinians caught in the middle of a war and to stop the suffering of those hostages. I want Iran to give up it’s nuclear program and stop supporting terrorism across the Middle East so that war will end so Iranians and Israelis won’t be killed or maimed by exchanges of missiles and air strikes.
It is possible to have empathy for Israelis, Palestinians, and Iranians you know. Though if you do the psychos on all sides who think of this like it’s a game will all hate you.
But fuck’ em, they’re psychopaths.