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It was a late night Sunday, April 13, 1975. Fort Lauderdale radio host Ray Smithers was conducting a hotline call-in show on the Bermuda Triangle. Triangle fever was at its hottest in 1975. Charles Berlitz’s book was a runaway best seller. Interest was intense. The phone lines were jammed. All lights on the phones were blinking, indicating listeners waiting on the other end. About 45 minutes into the show the producer, Alan Moore, went to answer more phones. He pushed the button and answered, “WFtL, you’re on the air.” The line was dead. There was no indication anyone was there. Moore went down the row of blinking buttons, pushing each one and answering “Hello, you’re on the air.” Each line was dead. Then, finally, he hit the 6th light and opened the next line.
“WFtL, hello, you’re on the air:”
A man’s voice spoke:
Caller: “There’s one of you on the program who’ll understand what I am going to say. In every living thing on this planet has an aura. It is its communication with the Millionth Council who governs this planet. The area that you are discussing now is the aura of this planet. It is the communicative channel through which the Millionth Council governs this planet.”
Smithers: “Which council, sir?”
Caller: The Millionth Council.
Smithers: “The Millionth?”
Caller: “Millionth . . . .Anyone going into the area when the communicative channels is open do not disappear, but they are in the timeless void. They’re all perfectly alive and well. It is the only area through which the council can communicate with this planet.”
Call cuts off.
The caller spoke in a deep voice. He spoke carefully, as if he was reading the lines.
The next morning, WFtL’s morning DJ show host mentioned on the air that they had a really successful Bermuda Triangle show last night. “The switchboard lit up,” according to Smithers. Many people called in and expressed how they had a negative physical or mental response to the “guy” who had called in.
So what was all this about? Was this a stunt? No one at the radio station has ever confessed.
Ray Smithers appeared on both In Search of (1976) and then reenacted the night again when Alan Landsburg combined some of his In Search of footage and made the 1978 documentary Secrets of the Bermuda Triangle.
The “Investigator” in that docudrama was Peter Tompkins, a noted believer in the psychic powers of ancient Egypt. The caller’s voice was so suggestive of Tompkins’  voice I thought he was merely reenacting it from the transcript. Apparently the voice played on the show is the actual caller’s voice.
Who is it?
Peter Tompkins is one guess. Another good one is Carlos Allende. There are a couple of quirks in the statements which suggest a certain dialect. “Channels is open” and “In every living thing on this planet has an aura.” Is it Carl M. Allen, the originator of the Philadelphia Experiment, trying yet another hoax? Or is it somebody else?
How did things work out at the right time so that all the other lines were dead and only the eerie caller’s line worked? If not a publicity stunt, it is hard to figure out.
A transcript of the recording was sent to Los Angeles to voice expert, John Hickman. From analysis of the stresses, all he could deduce was that the caller was not a hoaxer or crank, but that he really believed what he was saying.
The show, the caller, the concept, and the relevance all seem quite dated now and very 1970s. But it is yet another footnote in the legend of the Bermuda Triangle.
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