Bizarre event August 2009 in Nevada

I'm sitting here getting ready for our next vacation to Las Vegas this spring and I realized that I never shared what happened to us on hwy 95 driving from Las Vegas to Winnemucca Nevada this past August 2009.

Around a hundred miles north of Las Vegas we noticed that our "Tom Tom" GPS started having difficulty finding where we were. Now this happens sometimes when we drive into an area where a new road has been built, and I haven't updated the GPS maps yet, but the strange thing about this was that the screen was skipping around and literally unable to settle down on any specific set of coordinates. My wife who was on her cell phone doing her "Facebook" thing, started having trouble getting a signal and logged off. When she did she looked at the clock time on her phone and it was exactly 2 hours ahead of local time. I got my cell phone out and realized that the time on my phone was exactly 2 hours ahead as well. This went on for about 20 minutes. Suddenly our GPS cleared and was able to find where we were. We both looked at our cell phones and they had corrected the time to show the local time as well.

Now here is the strange part. When calling my cell phone provider's technical assistance I was told that for some reason our cell phones had to be picking up a tower from Ohio in order to show a time that was 2 hours ahead of the local time...they said that was the only explanation for the discrepancy. Remember we were in Nevada. When I told the tech that our GPS was messed up during the same time our cell phones were messed up, she got real quiet. She giggled a little and asked me if I had seen anything weird flying above the car at all. We both laughed a little and she told me they would send someone out with a GPS along with their usual equipment to try and replicate what had happened to us.

I'm hoping that someone here on ATS will read this and let me know if something like this has happened to them as well. I have to admit that for a few minutes then I was a bit nervous. I can't wait to hear back from you all about this.


[edit on 19-1-2010 by Rockstrongo37]

I'm sorry, maybe it's late, but I'm confused.

Why would the cell phone company send out a tech with a GPS to diagnose a problem... for your cell phone -and- your GPS?

[edit on 19-1-2010 by Fiscal]

reply to post by Fiscal


They wanted to replicate what happened to me, remember my cell phone was acting strange as well....remember the 2 hour difference?

Very bizarre.
I wonder if the Air Force satellite communicating with Wright-Patterson AFB and Nellis AFB/Area 51 caused the mishap?

reply to post by Violater1


There was a lot of micro-wave and communication equipment scattered around.

I have had probs there with laptop, cell phone, and handheld scanner.
I thinks its from the naval weapon facility on the north west edge of area51
also around Mojave just west of 95 and Vegas toward Barstow.
They actually shut down my laptop, well stopped all data tranfers until I was further away.

Any digital equipment running during a test flight or research project puts out some kind of firewall type re-router that keeps all local info. routed to other areas so, as to keep it easily secret...I think.

Originally posted by Rockstrongo37
reply to post by Fiscal

 

They wanted to replicate what happened to me, remember my cell phone was acting strange as well....remember the 2 hour difference?

Yeah, I got that. Just not all too familiar with a company supporting other devices / technology other than their own in a diagnosis. In my, admittedly limited, experience with technical support lines, usually when I've talked about another device / software involved, that is shifted to the sidelines.

reply to post by Fiscal


They werent going to support my GPS, but to find out why I was hitting cell towers in Ohio...they were going to take a GPS along to see if the problem would happen to both units at the same time as well.