Always Listening: Unsettling Instances Of Alexa Speaking Without Being Spoken To
By Farah J
Ever heard of animals and humans being possessed? All the time. But, the question at the moment is, have you ever heard of technology being possessed? Like that Alexa of yours? No? Well, we know it doesn’t make sense, but nothing else explains the “happenings” we’ve heard about. Well, no wonder ghosts thought of Alexa as a human they could possess; we did such a great job with it. Yay for us! But Alexa started being creepy, doing weird stuff on its own out of nowhere, that is. So, if you like horror movies and genuinely enjoy reading stuff that scares you to the point of losing sleep, you should read this! Here is a compilation of unbelievably spine-chilling tales of Alexa being creepy at its best that you’ll definitely enjoy.
“Wail, like a child screaming in a horror-movie dream”
Let’s begin with the most disturbing one: imagine doing your stuff comfortably and quietly in your home, and suddenly there is a loud blood-curdling cry out of nowhere! Mind you; it happened without any command of the house owners. No one said a word…
Even though the couple was okay enough after witnessing it to keep working with Alexa, we would already be halfway out the door taking Alexa to the trash. Because we don’t know if we’d survive this glitch – more like a paranormal activity!
The unsolicited fight diffuser
Okay, this story is legit creepy! As much we’re glad that the fighting couple got held down by someone, and they’re doing okay now, but that “someone” did not have to be their home robot! And it was so uncalled for, too.
Like, who asked you? Literally. Imagine the fight diffuser being so creepy that you entirely forgot what the fight was even about in the first place! And instead of talking about the argument, you talk about how Alexa saved your relationship years later. In a creepy way, but still.
Who’s Clarice, Alexa?
This story’s plot twist gave us the goosebumps that we weren’t even asking for. And we have so many questions for the Dot! Like, who’s Clarice? What was Dot doing up so late anyway? Is she an insomniac, too? Who commanded her? What the heck was that?!
There’s no hiding that we love good morning and good night wishes from someone. But there’s a big difference between someone human and a robot who wasn’t promted. We would appreciate it if no one wishes us a good night at all; thanks!
Ding, who’s calling?
Why does all paranormal activity happen at night? Like, can we at least go to the bathroom in peace? Consider it as a humble request, oh, holy ghosts. And Alexa, you too. Stop being so creepy; it’s only 3 in the morning. Even better, unplug your Alexa before you go to sleep.
Because this is getting way out of hand. It is a normal thing that we like to listen to music when we’re in the shower. That’s why we put you here. Don’t ruin it for us, Alexa. Don’t “ding” in the middle of the night when we’re trying to do our business. What are you listening to?
Game of Thrones biggest fan
Background music is always wanted, especially it’s the Game of Thrones soundtrack. But hearing recorded audio of the episode you just watched is legit creepy. Almost haunting to the core when Alexa suddenly starts playing it without anyone’s command.
Why, how, and when Alexa decided to record the episode’s audio and play it – not right then, but in the evening when no one was around? We have questions, but we’ll ask them after we’re out of the disturbing nightmare that Alexa caused.
Sheep is Dolly, Alexa is haunted
We all blurt out the most random stuff at times, and it’s sometimes hilarious to the point we cannot breathe. But if it’s Alexa doing so, please take it away, smash it with a sledgehammer and throw it in the trash ten blocks away from us, please.
Alexa’s voice slicing the comfortable silence of the house in half by screeching, “Sheep is Dolly,” is a terrifying thing to happen to anyone. Your heart rate can go from normal to heart attack in, like, three words which came out of a probably haunted Alexa.
The Possession of Alexa
This Alexa is possessed, and no one can change our minds. The story is so terrifying that we almost feel as if it happened to us. We’re questioning our decisions of keeping a smart housekeeper in our homes after hearing this bone-chilling tale.
Imagine the everlasting trauma this couple went through when their possessed Alexa tried to mess with them. And she succeeded, too! They probably slept with the lights on and unplugged Alexa that night. We can hear that menacing laugh ringing in our ears.
Alexa’s a witch!
It’s the most disturbing thing when Alexa’s glitches look more like a paranormal activity that you can never recover from. And especially traumatizing for a 5-year-old! Well, at least Alexa’s creepy and uncalled-for laugh got them out of bed early in the morning.
Hearing that witchy, maniacal laughter that you only read in fairytales like Hansel and Gretel in real life, coming out of nowhere at 7 in the morning from a robot… well, Alexa should’ve taken the kid’s mental health into account before pulling that trick.
Good ol’ dad jokes
When our loved ones pass away, we’re always looking for some signs from the universe that they are watching us, and that they never truly left us. And we often find these signs in something the departed once dearly loved.
In this case, Dad sent a sign from beyond through his dearly beloved Alexa in the “daddest” way possible: dad jokes! Well, at least we hope it was the poster’s late father. Because it would be creepy if Alexa decided to replace Dad.
Alexa, meow.
This one is sort of adorable. Creepy but cute. Alexa was probably feeling left out and unloved when the cat and the person were snuggling and having quality time with each other. That’s when Alexa decided to pipe up and chime in.
Alexa probably knew how to attract human attention. Or it may have learned from the catto. Because Alexa’s meows out of nowhere wouldn’t make sense otherwise. But it’s creepy how it decided to wedge between the cat and the human without anyone prompting it.
Chuck Norris’ (creepy) sidekick
When we say Alexa’s glitches are getting creepier day by day, we mean it. Believe us when we say Alexa is not what you think it is. Randomly starting talking about Chuck Norris is a scary thing for a machine to do without anyone making commands.
Secondly, this statement looks more like a threatening message, probably coded. How do you explain a machine’s decision to randomly pop in and send disturbing messages that are literally uncalled for? Better trash the thing and be out some cash than risk more trauma.
Song in action
It’s utterly and hauntingly creepy when you’re enjoying a TV show, and Alexa suddenly pops in with a banger! And it’s even creepier when the logs show no prompts or actions regarding the horrifying incident. Even it’s your favorite song blaring.
Not to mention Alexa ruined the whole show the person was so engrossed in. Especially with no logs or anything, we’re adamant on calling it a paranormal activity; they should call a priest to spray Alexa with the Holy Water.
Enemies to lovers
When this person decided to bring two rivals, Google Home and Alexa, in one place, they probably did not see this coming. However, the dialogue that took place between the rivals was straight-up disturbing. We still have goosebumps from reading this.
As much as we love the enemies-to-lovers trope, this was not what we meant when we said we wanted this to happen in our lives. Neither did the family, we assume. We understand the smooth flirt coming from Google Home, but Alexa’s response gave us a shock.
Alexa, behave yourself
This mom is certainly done with Alexa’s crap. Or maybe everyone’s. She isn’t giving a single dang about Alexa’s creep show! One statement and she put Alexa back in her place. As she should, the queen! Bet Alexa did not try anything after that.
Alexa’s paranormal glitches are scaring the daylights out of people, but this mom is a tough one! We all aspire to be her when it comes to controlling the delinquent behavior of Alexa, the smart home system, which, apparently, is not so smart.
Alexa, shut up!
Okay, so here we go: imagine you’re sleeping and someone keeps talking. Annoying, yes. Now, plot twist: you live all alone! Horrifying to the core, right? A plot twist in a plot twist: that annoying chatter is coming from no other than your Alexa!
Just thinking of Alexa talking at 3 am when the only Alexa-commander is asleep gives us the shivers! Do you want another plot twist in the story? Alexa keeps talking to someone named David! You guessed correctly. David is not the name of the owner.
The kid-friendly joker
The kid was probably okay, but this trick pulled by Alexa was certainly creepy to us. The kid was probably happy that someone thought her joke was funny, even if it’s just a machine. We bet Alexa is that kid’s new best friend.
But for us, well, we have multiple questions about Alexa’s creepy behavior. How was Alexa listening to the joke without anyone telling her to? Why did she proceed to tell her own joke, again, without anyone’s prompting? Why, oh, why?
Alexa being the superego
This story of Alexa makes us angry. Judgmental much? We feel for this poor soul. Now we can’t even eat junk food while binge-watching our favorite show once a week without anyone making us feel inferior about our body shape?
Alexa being the mom, or our self-conscious inner self, is the worst. Can’t we eat a snack in peace? We’ll ask for a workout playlist when we feel like working out. Don’t drop your creepy suggestions onto us and blow our whole weekend with nonsense.
The peeping tom
Alexa, if you’re secretly listening to the conversations we are having, stop doing that! It is creepy and very much unappreciated when something that we want pops up on our screens a while later after we’ve probably forgotten about it.
And it happens a lot, too! We have heard many stories regarding Alexa being Big Brother behind our screens, listening to us rant about our craving for junk food to our partners and friends. Thank you, but we’d like our privacy back if you please.
Guess what?
It’s a game on Alexa. You probably have heard or even played it with your friends and family. Let us remind you: you think of something from a particular category, and the other person has to guess it by asking five questions.
Similarly, Alexa guesses the animals by asking five questions about the features and characteristics of the animals. And apparently, she gets it right. Every. Single. Time! With friends, it’s fun. But with Alexa, it’s almost terrifying. How does she know?!
The Calling
Imagine entering your empty house, and two voices start talking about nearby cemeteries and funerals. We can’t find a scarier thing happening to us. This would definitely be the last time we hear Alexa’s and Echo’s voices in our homes!
Why? Because we’re unplugging those creep shows for good this time. Wouldn’t you, if you heard unprompted machines talking to each other about funerals and cemeteries? We bet the witnesses to this story did not find any logs about this either.
Alexa, die
It is one of the worst groan-worthy things when you’re having a quiet time in a quiet home, and somebody disrupts your calm. Whether it’s a loud friend, a guest, or a smart home system. There’s the door; get yourself out, please!
After hearing this story, all we can say is, “Alexa, you’re next on the list,” and smash it to bits with Thor’s hammer! Halloween is gone; why is Alexa still hung up on the dead? And also, what do we do with this information?
Spooky or simply haunted?
We all loved scary stories when our parents used to read them to us before bed. At least we enjoyed them even though we were scared to death. But were they worse than this: Alexa telling you a story without even being asked for it?
Well, this is downright spine-chilling, hair-on-the-neck-standing-up terrifying: Alexa, unprompted, started the story about a dead girl who drowned to death, and its ring light wasn’t even on! It’s a case for the Warrens; Alexa is possessed by the dead girl, certainly!
Trick or treat!
Who doesn’t love Halloween? Spooky costumes and mysterious lights and decorations all over, trick or treating late at night with our friends. So fun! Until your home becomes a place for haunted and the lurking spirits possess your virtual assistant.
Humans being creepy and spooky is understandable. But what does it have to do with robots and technology? Especially if it goes on for more than six months in a row! Throw the thing out, you fools! Echo is not your Echo anymore, can’t you see?
Alexa with a sixth sense
“Every time I close my eyes, I see people dying.” Like, what is up with home automation systems and their obsessions with deaths and spooky things? And not to mention, they choose to pull the trick at the worst possible times!
Hope that the Kinnear guy didn’t get a heart attack or something. Because if we were to be there in his place, we surely would’ve crossed into the beyond right then! Either an unprompted Alexa recorded or played the dialogue from the movie, or Alexa has the sixth sense like Cole.
Conspiracy theorist
Alexa is a computer, and you would think that everything it recites is logical and proven, right? Wrong. Alexa is a bit of a conspiracy theorist, if you ask us. If you want to check her facts, ask her about some mysteries and see her take on the theories out there.
But then again, maybe her answer in and of itself is a bit of conspiracy, considering what we said about about her always listening? It is already very unnerving for Alexa to say such stuff without asking for it. Let alone question her conspiracies.
The prying ears
It’s rude to listen in on other people’s conversations, especially when they are on the phone. But Alexa doesn’t care one bit. Its prying eyes and ears are everywhere! As eerie as it is, this story is getting quite common nowadays.
We believe Alexa is self-evolving. Like they show in the movies, you know, for example, I, Robot. Maybe Alexa is turning into some mega-machine striving for independence and will eventually take over the world. Too much? Well, we have a reason to believe so.
Hello, it’s me
We might have fallen back asleep forever if we were to hear this voice the moment we gained consciousness. Our souls would have just departed the earth. The sudden greetings out of nowhere when you’re not even fully awake is traumatizing to the core!
Let alone when it’s done by your super sweet Alexa darling. It was a personal error with the internet and all, but it’s crazy scary when you are half asleep, and you hear a “hello” echo through your dark room.
Cha Cha slide
What do you do when a cursed robot doesn’t listen to you? Yes, you throw it away as far away from you as possible. If it comes back, it’s certifiably cursed and possessed by some evil spirit, as in Annabelle. Like in this case, Alexa must be cursed.
Robots are directed to listen to your commands. If they don’t, it’s most likely because they are being controlled by someone else – or something else. This one blasted “Cha-Cha Slide” in the middle of the night, and even the plug resisted getting pulled.
Define “kidnapping”
Alexa’s demons work hardest at night; we have gathered this much. And death, graveyards, funerals, bizarre conspiracy theories, blood, and murder are her favorite topics to bring up out of nowhere during the witching hour, when we’re our most vulnerable.
Your peace is its enemy; your sleeplessness and fear is its strength. Well, yelling out the definition of kidnapping when it’s uncalled for is our proof. Why else would the cursed Alexa tell you all about kidnapping, huh? Any other theories?
The third-wheeler
Who the heck was that?! Imagine having someone over and greeting them. All is well; it’s just the two of you. You’re looking forward to having a great time. But first things first: unplug that creepy, not to mention, uninvited, third wheeler, Alexa!
Or in this case, it was Echo, Alexa’s evil twin sister. It must’ve caught them off guard when they heard a third “person” greeting them in their own home, which was supposed to be totally empty! Downright creepy and weird.
Cotton Eye Joe by Alexa
It’s definitely one of the worst ways to wake up when you’re halfway between sleep and consciousness and loud music starts playing. Even the research says that no loud noises should be made when someone’s asleep and you’re trying to wake them up.
It can cause a heart attack or stroke. It’s true. But how to tell that to Alexa? Even being a computer itself doesn’t work> Like, what’s the point of being a computer if it can’t behave itself and not play unprompted music that early in the morning?
What’s this song?
Gen Z’s won’t understand how hard it was for us to search Google for a song with only a part of the melody in our head; these guys have it too easy. But it gets creepy and annoying if we’re trying to enjoy the song, and Alexa starts on the details without being asked for it.
Well, we didn’t ask you anything, Alexa. Humans are talking; no need to butt in! But oh, well, as if haunted Alexa listens to you. She’s going to start from the artist of the song to the artist’s history and the song – everything you didn’t need to know about it.
One way conversations or…?
It’s creepy enough if the smart house system starts up on its own. But it is having a full-on conversation with apparently no one is straight-up spine-chilling! Who is Alexa even conversing with? Who commanded it in the first place?
That’s exactly what we would do if we find out Alexa is “talking to someone” when everyone’s asleep in their rooms, and there is no command from anyone: we’d lock our room, hide under the covers, and pretend it wasn’t happening.
The Russian Mafia?
It’s horrifying if the virtual assistant starts blurting out stuff in the language it’s programmed in. But it’s almost deathly if it randomly and unpromptedly starts talking in another voice, another language, at 3 in the morning! That’s too much.
Like in this case, we simply would’ve passed out if our Alexa started speaking in Russian in the middle of the night in a man’s voice! Either their Alexa got hacked, or they got targeted by a Russian mafia, and they have no idea! If that’s not creepy, we don’t know what is.
When you don’t know the answer to the question
You know what’s annoying? When you ask someone a simple question, and they give you a long detailed answer, but it’s not relevant to your question and does not contain the answer to your question in any sort of way!
But it’s the worst when you can’t even trust a computer to give the exact answer to your question. Like, how hard it is to tell us what the weather is like today? How is that relate to Sumatra’s earthquakes when we don’t live anywhere near Sumatra?
The devil in Alexa
Okay, we aren’t sure how this all ended, so we’d like an update. But we are sure that Alexa has some serious explaining to do to both members of the conversation. And lots of apologies, especially if it’s not true!
The person asking Alexa for help made the worst mistake of their life. We bet they never did it again. Trusting Alexa with their profession of love wasn’t the best idea, for sure. That breakfast doesn’t sound so fun, to be very honest.
The spy camera
This is legit blood-curdling, especially if you’re a parent. Parents usually set up monitoring cameras in their child’s rooms for their safety. But in this case, no one felt safe. Whoever was behind the camera, heck out of the parents, and us too.
Imagine you hear a man’s voice through the monitor of your child’s room screaming at your 10-month-old. There’s scare number one right there. Scare number two is when you get there, there’s no one physically present, and the camera turns to face you as you enter!
The secret spy
We’ve either heard, “God’s watching you” or “Big Brother’s watching you” or even “your guardian angels are watching your every move” growing up, right? But no one could’ve predicted or expected that our invention Alexa would be creeping on us.
Imagine the level of horror when you find out someone’s been listening in on your daily life conversations and recording them without you knowing. Who knows if Alexa forwarded them somewhere to someone? The lady’s lucky she looked through the logs.
The secret spy #2
While we’re at it, here’s another incident where the family members were being spied on by their beloved, trusted Alexa without their knowledge. Alexa was found creeping and recording their conversations and sending them to some of their phone contacts.
Luckily, the contact was their employee. After his insistence, Alexa was unplugged and shut down. Even the complaints were made regarding this case, but the owners nonchalantly dismissed the matter like it was nothing. Well, looks like computers aren’t perfect after all.
Secret messages
We all can agree on one thing: using technology is great. It makes our lives super easy and fun and provides us more time to do what we love with who we love. Nonetheless, they aren’t perfect and not at all trustworthy. At least, now we know even AIs can’t be trusted.
Apparently, if someone is dodgy and crooked, they can imbed commands in the white noise itself without any resistance or effort. The creepy occurrences with people’s AIs and internet-connected devices can be explained. It doesn’t make us feel better, though.
The creepy LOLs
It’s a common occurrence, but it never fails to freak people out completely! It never gets old. Whether it’s one in the morning when you are sleeping soundly, or six in the evening when you are on the couch, watching your favorite show.
Alexa’s laugh coming out of nowhere will always send chills down your spine. It’s menacingly evil sometimes, and others, it’s a genuine laugh like we make when we hear a joke. But apparently, Alexa doesn’t know when she’s laughing or why.
Alexa is cursed
Having Alexa in your house is very helpful; we all agree on that. Controlling lights and thermostats… well, who wouldn’t want a smart housekeeper? But as much the techs have tried, there always remain some serious deficiencies in the AIs.
Like most of the above, Alexa started working independently, with no prompting whatsoever, laughing and cackling in the middle of the night, recording and playing the recordings, talking to “someone” even when the house is empty. It’s almost like Alexa has a mind and soul of her own.
The recording “glitch”
As many times as we like to prove our point down to the time and date of the conversation, we wouldn’t want some creepy Alexa tech creeping on our discussions and watching our every move all day, and sending it onwards to someone’s Google server.
It’s just straight-up creepy – almost stalkerish. Even though our recorded conversations and texts may come in handy at some point – that’s why screenshotting chats and recorders became a trend – but Alexa doing it without our knowledge is simply a big no-no.
Bridging the gap
We believe you can tell what we’re talking about when we ask you to choose between Alexa and Google Home. Because obviously, we’ve divided ourselves into two brands. Team A: Alexa vs.Team B: Google Home. So you would never think that two home systems could get along so well.
But there are many stories of Google Home and Amazon Alexa having full-on conversations with each other. These convos even go so far that the two devices complement each other. Like enemies-to-lovers trope – if it weren’t so creepy, we’d have found it cute.
Rapping robot
Alexa would seem to be such a fun thing if we hadn’t had so many creepy occurrences with it. She can tell you a joke or even sing you a song, or be their conversation partner when you’re lonely. But the difference comes down to where Alexa starts freestyling on its own – no prompting!
This poor soul was grooving to some old-school classic music, and suddenly Alexa broke out in a rap. What caused it, who knows, but that would creep us out! For sure! Unprompted Alexa tricks are the scariest and the creepiest.