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Palo Alto Dispatch Center Flooded With Phantom Calls

PALO ALTO (KCBS / AP) - A Bay Area 911 dispatch center received 566 phantom emergency calls in five hours.

The siege of calls to the Palo Alto emergency communications center started January 13 at 8:30 p.m. when a dispatcher picked up the line to find no one on the other end. Twenty seconds later, another phantom call came in.

KCBS' Matt Bigler Reports:

There was a flurry of phantom calls over the next five hours with a total 566 calls received by the four dispatchers from an unsubscribed number.

Police technical services director Charles Cullen has no explanation for the high volume of calls, but he said it's probably technology run amok rather than a prankster.

(© 2011 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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