Sea Shells Picking Up 5G Signals Instead of Ocean Sounds

Anyone who has ever visited the beach has held a sea shell to their ear so they can hear the ocean. No matter how far away a person is from the beach, they can put the shell to an ear and hear sounds reminiscent of waves and sea breezes. This tradition has existed for countless generations, but something has changed recently. Some people are reporting that when they put a shell to their ear, they are picking up phone conversations.

Lifeguards on Point Pleasant and Bay Head beaches reported that people were coming up to them and saying there was something wrong with the shells. The lifeguards verified the problem and collected some of the shells to bring to their managers. That's when Dr. Tia Mowbuhl of Seton Hall University's Audiology Department was contacted.

"When people hear the ocean in shells, it's actually an auditory illusion," said Dr. Mowbuhl. "The surrounding noises resonate in the shell creating the familiar ocean sound. What people have been experiencing at the Jersey shore is something completely new. You're not supposed to hear voices coming from a shell."

Dr. Mowbuhl began studying the shells that were picking up voices. In her lab, she attempted to isolate the source of the signal that the shells were picking up. "We had little success at first," she said. "Then, we got lucky."

As she was testing the shells, Dr. Mowbuhl suddenly heard a familiar voice. It was a colleague from the music department having a phone conversation. Dr. Mowbuhl immediately tracked down the phone that was in use. It turned out that it was a new Samsung phone using 5G.

"That was the break we needed," she said. "We immediately started testing 5G devices in proximity to the shells and they almost always caused parts of the conversations to be audible. We also found that if we blocked the 5G signals, the voices stopped coming from the shells."

Dr. Mowbuhl contacted the FCC. They discovered that a simple adjustment to the signal would fix the problem. "I confess I was a little disappointed when the shells stopped talking," said Dr. Mowbuhl. "On the other hand, Verizon has given us a huge grant to figure out how exactly the shell-phone was able to work."

Dr. Tia Mowbuhl asks that if you come across any other talking shells, you contact her at the university immediately.