For many, Amazon’s Alexa virtual assistant is already part of the home, like any other appliance. Although it can be very helpful, it is also capable of giving its users huge scares. Several cases have been reported in which the software has behaved strangely, doing things that some even qualify as paranormal.
Through devices like the Echo Dot in its different versions, Alexa is capable of connecting to all smart home devices. With just a voice command, you can play music, turn the TV on and off, answer questions, order food, play games or chat with the speaker.
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This voice assistant has several tricks that few know about, and it has even been seen that it can hack itself to control your calls and other functions. In addition, Amazon recently announced that Alexa will be able to speak to you with the voice of a deceased person, but this would only be at the request of the user.
However, there are reports that Amazon’s virtual assistant doesn’t always respond as your interlocutor would expect. Here are some of them.
Alexa, take care of the girl
In recent weeks, a chilling challenge that consists of telling the device “Alexa, take care of the girl” has gone viral on social networks. In several videos shared by Internet users, you can hear how the smart speaker responds with a voice that seems to come from beyond the grave. “Hello, come over to the window. I want to see you”, says the smart horn, causing the panic of those who listen to it.
In another video, the tiktoker staryuuki shared the clip of a netizen who took the test and received the same response mentioned. She then decided to replicate the experiment and the result was different, but no less terrifying.
In her case, Alexa began to make strange sounds and said: “Listen… very quiet… listen…”, followed by unintelligible noises and macabre laughter.
As expected, many more users have tried it, most without success. According to several Internet users, this answer was disabled and that is why the trick no longer works, while others believe that it was always a false setup to create an urban legend.
Amazon’s virtual assistant, can you contact ghosts?
In November 2020, a TikTok user named Harry McClarry uploaded a video that has given a lot of talk. Apparently, the man woke up in the middle of the night because Alexa started talking about paranormal topics on her own.
“The deliberate attempt to contact a deceased person is defined as a séance. I have a trick that you will like, do you want to try it?” said the device. At that moment the door of the room opened by itself, while the device emitted an intense red light and noises that seemed like a strange laugh.
After the incident, the tiktoker published more videos of the strange events that happened to him and his partner, although many say that they are man’s tricks to gain fame on the social network.
When Alexa suggested the dangerous ‘penny challenge’
One of the most notorious cases occurred in 2021 in the United States. A 10-year-old girl asked the virtual assistant to give her a challenge. She told him, “Plug a phone charger halfway into a wall outlet, then touch a penny to the exposed pins.”
Back then, the so-called ‘penny challenge’ was a very popular viral challenge on TikTok, even though it’s basically a recipe for getting electrocuted. Fortunately, the little girl’s mother heard the answer and managed to avoid a potential tragedy. For its part, Amazon explained in a statement that it had already updated Alexa’s operating system to prevent it from giving these types of recommendations.
Another urban legend says that Alexa is a spy for the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The rumor began to circulate around 2017, because when users asked her Echo Dot directly if she works for the CIA, the device did not respond and turned off.
Finally, Alexa was the main witness in the investigation of a homicide that occurred in Arkansas, United States, in 2015. A man named Victor Collins was found strangled and drowned in the bathtub of the house of one of his friends. Although they questioned the three friends who were with him that night, the versions had inconsistencies. It was when the police requested access to the information that Alexa would have collected, generating a whole debate about the privacy of the data that the virtual assistant keeps. In the end, the investigators concluded that the device had not provided evidence to find the murderer, according to The universal.
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