have anyone heard of "zioptis"? supposedly this phone number has been passed around since the 80's on old BBS systems. it has always rang a few times, then an old cassette-tape answering machine picks up. the messages always sound like they were recorded with bad 80's music, and were left in the sun to melt a bit. the people talking always said really weird shit, and would talk about "zioptis: dial-a-trip". research led me to a discussion about it here: http://j-b. livejournal.com/106293.html

and the website for the "zioptis foundation"(a haunted house review website) is found here: http://www.zioptis.com/

here's the strange thing... i've been calling nearly every day for the last 7 months. after the weird recorded message (which changed frequently) it always plays a warbled beep, like the tone which signals you to leave a message, and then the call ends. which led me to believe the line was solely used for voicemail, but today the line just rings repeatedly and ends after a few minutes.

here's the number: three one three two seven four 1111 (wouldn't let me post a phone number)

i'm under the impression now, that it's been a live telephone line all of this time. why would anyone create this, much less maintain it for a decade plus?

pic related. supposedly it was a business card.