Callers hear the robots when they try to contact their Iranian relatives

Dubai, United Arab Emirates (AP) – UK living in the UK – When Iranian Ellie tries to call for her mother Tehrana voice from a robot woman responded instead.

“Aro? Aro?” he cried out, asking in English: “Who is calling?” A few seconds passed.

“I can't hear you,” the voice continued, the English language being incomplete. “Who do you want to talk to? I'm Aligsia. Do you remember me? I don't think I know who you are.”

Ellie, 44, is one of nine Iranians living abroad, including the UK and the US. Air strikes have begun in this country A week ago.

They told the Associated Press on the condition that they remain anonymous or that only their original name or initials would be used with fear of putting their families at risk.

Five experts to which the AP shared the recording said it could be low-tech artificial intelligence, chatbots, or pre-recorded messages with calls from overseas repurposed.

The four experts believed it was likely the Iranian government, but they believed they were looking at Israel, but it remains unclear who is behind the operation.

The message is deeply creepy and confused for Iranians in the diaspora who struggle to contact their families as offensive Israeli targeting Iranian nuclear nuclei and military sites. Pounds to Tehran and other cities. Iran is retaliating with hundreds of missiles and drones, and the government is Wide range of internet blackouts It says it's about protecting the country.

It prevents the average Iranians from getting information from the outside world, preventing their parents from being able to reach them.

“I don't know why they're doing this,” said Ellie, whose mother has diabetes and has low insulin and is trapped in the suburbs of Tehran. She wants her mother to evacuate the city, but she can't tell her that.

Requests for comment sent to the United Nations on Iran's mission were not immediately answered.

Some of the messages are strange

Most of the voices speak in English, but at least one spoke Persian. If the caller tries to talk to it, the voice continues with the message.

A 30-year-old New York woman who lives in New York after hearing the same message Ellie said, called it a “psychological warfare.”

“Calling mom and hoping to hear her and hear the AI ​​is one of the most frightening things I've ever experienced,” she said. “I can feel it in my body.”

And the message can be strange. One woman, who lives in the UK, desperately called her mother and got a voice offering praise instead.

“Thank you for taking the time,” she said in a recording she shared with the Associated Press. “Today, I would like to share some thoughts with you and some things that may resonate in our daily lives.

Not all Iranians meet the voices of robots. Some say that when they try to call their family, the phone just rings and it rings.

It's not clear who is behind this or what the goal is

Colin Crowell, former vice president of Twitter's global policy, said Iranian telephone companies appear to be bypassing calls to the default messaging system that doesn't allow calls to be completed.

Amir Rashidi, a US-based Iranian cybersecurity expert, agreed and although the recording seemed to be a government action to block hackers, there was no difficult evidence.

He said that during the first two days of the Israeli campaign, public voices and text messages were sent to Iranian calls, urging them to be prepared for “emergency conditions.” They sought to spread panic, similar to the massive calls government opponents had made to Iran during the war with Iraq in the 1980s.

The voice messages that try to calm people down are “the patterns of the Iranian government and how they handled emergency situations in the past,” said Rashidi, director of Texas-based Miaan, a group reporting digital rights in the Middle East.

Mobile phones and landlines are ultimately overseen by Iran's Ministry of Information and Communications Technology. However, the country's intelligence agency has long been believed to be monitoring the conversation.

“It'll be hard for other people to hack. Of course it could be Israeli. But I don't think they have an incentive to do this,” said Mehdi Yahyanejad, a tech entrepreneur and internet freedom activist.

Malwa Fatafa, Berlin-based policy and director of access to digital rights groups, suggested it could be “a form of psychological warfare by Israelis.” She said it fits past Israeli patterns of using a widespread, direct message to Lebanese and Palestinians against the Gaza campaign and Hezbollah.

She said the message appears to be aimed at “suffering” which has already made Iranians uneasy overseas.

When contacted to a request for comment, the Israeli forces declined and the Prime Minister's Office did not respond.

Try a new way to contact your relative

Ellie is one of the few lucky enough to find a way to contact relatives since the power outage. She knows someone who lives on the border of Iran's miscellaneous forests and has two mobile phones. One features a Turkish SIM card and an Iranian SIM card.

He calls Ellie's mother on an Iranian phone – people in the country can still call each other, so he pushes it against the Turkish phone where Ellie is on the line. The two can talk.

“The last time we spoke to her, we told her about the AI ​​voice answering all her calls,” Ellie said. “She was shocked. She said her phone wasn't hanging at all.”

Elon Musk said it has activated Iran's satellite internet provider Starlink. Authorities are urging the public to use their devices to attract neighbors as part of an ongoing spy hunt. Others have illegal satellite dishes and allow access to international news.

Messages make relatives feel helpless

A British woman, M. is about to reach her stepmother. He remains motionless and lives northeast of Tehran.

When she last spoke to Iranian families, they were pondering whether she should evacuate the city. A blackout was then imposed and they lost contact. Since then, she has heard through relatives that a woman was in the ICU with respiratory problems.

When she calls, she receives the same strange message as a British woman. It's a long mantra.

“Close your eyes and imagine yourself in a place that brings peace and happiness to you,” it says. “Maybe you're walking through the calm forest, listening to the sounds of leaves and birds, or you can hear the calming sounds of waves crashing into the sand on the shore.”

She said the only sensation that the message instills in her is “feeling helplessness.”

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El Deeb reported from Beirut