It’s that time of year again, the nights are getting darker, the pumpkins are coming out, and strange events start to occur. While most of us think of monsters and ghost story’s at Halloween, there are plenty of spooky stories and unknown mysteries hiding in the world of tech too. At Edmondson’s, we love a good mystery, especially when it involves technology, so for Halloween, we thought we’d find a few eerie, fascinating and unexplainable tales from the world of IT to send a chill down your spine.

The Haunted Printer

Ever had a computer start acting strangely for no reason? Files vanishing? Emails sending themselves? Random noises at night? Sometimes these might just be harmless little glitches, but there’s also a long history of “haunted hardware” tails from IT departments around the world.

One of the most famous of these tails comes from the 1990s; Printers in universities and computer labs around the world were reportedly spitting out pages and pages filled with seemingly random symbols and patterns whenever the building’s lights were turned off. The culprit? It turned out to be a mismatch in software and printing standards, with a old power supply causing cross-interference, but that didn’t stop staff from avoiding the print room after dark.

The Mystery of the Melting CDs

Back in the early 2000s, people started reporting that their CDs were mysteriously melting on their shelves, seemingly for no reason at all. Were these CD racks cursed? No, not quite. A chemical reaction between the CD coating and the plastic cases they were stored in was causing some makes of CD to warp and distort in direct sunlight. Still, that’s one thing your old CDs have in common with Dracula.

The Voyagers Mysterious Whispers

In 1977, NASA launched two Voyager probes to explore the outer planets of our solar system and beyond. Both of them were sent carrying a golden record that contained sounds and images from Earth, designed to tell any aliens who might find them about earth and who we are.

The spooky part? Both Voyagers are still travelling through space, with their signals growing weaker and weaker every year, but every now and then they send back strange, unaccountable bursts data that even NASA engineers can’t explain. What’s causing these eery messages and what do they mean? We don’t know. Space may be vast and silent, but Voyager still whispers back to us every now and then.

The Website Graveyard

The internet is filled with websites, with most estimating there’s over a billion out there; However, a huge number of those sites have been long long forgotten. Some are digital ghost towns, still floating in cyberspace, untouched for decades. If you look out there for long enough, you might even stumble across an old site from the 1990s that looks exactly the way it did all those years ago, complete with popups, flashing GIFs and broken links. It’s a strange reminder that the internet never really forgets. Those outdated pages are like time capsules, marking the early days of the web, a digital graveyard full of history.

The Self-Destructing Satellites

Not all space tech is as calm as Voyager. Some satellites are designed with a self-destruct feature to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands. When triggered, they can break themselves into hundreds of pieces. While it’s a clever bit of engineering, the thought of satellites silently floating overhead, waiting for a secret command to destroy themselves, feels like its straight out of a sci-fi thriller.

The Internets Physical Presence

You probably wouldn’t expect the internet to have any physical weight to it, however scientists estimate that all the electrons moving through the World Wide Web at any one-time weigh about 50 grams, the same as a single strawberry. It’s not quite a ghostly presence, but knowing all your files, emails and photos have a physical mass of electrons, zipping around the world, might make you see your storage space a bit differently.

The Satellite That Fell From the Sky

In 1999, NASA lost a £125 million Mars orbiter because one team used metric measurements and the other used imperial. The tiny error caused the spacecraft to enter Mars’ atmosphere at the wrong angle, destroying it instantly. A simple mix-up between inches and centimetres might not sound scary, but it’s a powerful reminder that even the smallest digital miscommunication can lead to cosmic consequences.

The Computers Free Will

In 2013, Google engineers discovered that one of their neural networks had taught itself to recognise cats in YouTube videos without any help or instructions. No one had programmed it to do so, it just decided cats were worth its attention. While it might seem amusing, it’s also a little unsettling to think machines can start doing and teaching themselves whatever they like, without being told so. Artificial intelligence is powerful, but it’s always worth remembering that a little human oversight goes a long way.

Keeping the Spooks Away

While these stories might sound a little creepy, they’re also a good reminder that technology, like any powerful tool, needs the right care and attention. At Edmondson’s, we make sure your IT systems stay secure, fast, and reliable, so that there’s no surprises lurking in the shadows. Whether it’s protecting your business from digital “ghosts” like malware, or ensuring your data is safely backed up, we’re here to keep your systems running smoothly, day and night.

So this Halloween, while you’re carving pumpkins or watching scary films, spare a thought for the strange and wonderful world of technology. It’s full of mysteries, but with the right team on your side, there’s nothing to be afraid of.