Dr. Michael Shermer's fiancée’s belongings were shipped to the United States from Germany, and among them was her grandfather’s 1978 transistor radio. She was very close with her grandfather, who died when she was 16. The radio had been silent for decades, and try as he might Shermer could not get it working again. It continued its silence in the back of a desk drawer in the couple’s bedroom.

 

Three months later (June 2014), they were married. After the ceremony, his wife asked to talk with him alone. She was feeling lonely, missing her family back in Germany and also wishing her grandfather could have been alive to give her away. The couple walked to the back of the house where they heard music playing, a love song.

 

They searched in vain for the source of the music, then his wife “shot me a look I haven’t seen since the supernatural thriller ‘The Exorcist’ startled audiences. ‘That can’t be what I think it is, can it?’ she said.” It was the transistor radio in the drawer. “My grandfather is here with us,” she said, tearfully. “I’m not alone.”

 

Shermer’s daughter had heard music coming from the radio just before the ceremony started, though the couple had been in the room only moments before without hearing any music. The radio continued to work through the wedding night. “Fittingly, it stopped working the next day and has remained silent ever since,” Shermer wrote.