1-710-NCS-GETS: Hi, This Is Your Government Calling

Sometime yesterday afternoon, a colleague of mine, who's based in Baltimore, had an incoming call from a number he didn't recognize. Like many of us, Michael didn't pick up. The area code, 710, looked strange.

That's because it is. Of the roughly 270 U.S. area codes, 710 stands apart. The non-geo-specific preface is a dedicated line of the federal government. Created at the White House’s behest in 1983 to circumvent the so-called "Mother's Day phenomenon," 710 is an arm of the Government Emergency Telecommunications Service, which ensures that enhanced nodes of the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) are available to National Security/Emergency Preparedness (NS/EP) personnel "when normal calling methods are unsuccessful." As of 2006 it had been assigned only one working number – 1-710-NCS-GETS.

While it’s permanently at the ready, 710 can only be tapped via unique access codes if and when the PSTN is clogged from, say, that day-long deluge of calls home to mom, or any other routine congestion capable of tying up access to circuits. But just as often it’s natural disasters, freak black outs, cable cuts and software glitches that cripple Region X’s telecommunications enough that NS/EP folk will need to ride the 710 train, for which there are boatloads of criteria, from "military mobilization" to "critical weather services," "conduct of diplomacy" to "prevention and control of environmental hazards or damage."

It turns out, though, that civilians routinely receive weirdo 710-xxx-xxxx dials. (I’ve never received one, to my knowledge. If you have, hit the replies below or drop me a line.) But why? Does Michael have any suspicions as to why the Feds would be trying to get a hold of him?

Not really, he tells me. He says that occasionally he'll hear from people with government numbers, though he's never seen this particular area code. He isn’t alone. By and large, it seems people have no idea why anyone would be trying to reach out from a reserved government line. This from user Paranoid on 800notes, a directory of unknown callers: "I realize that it's a government area code, but the truth is, I have no reason to be contacted by the government."

Michael didn't answer, sure. (Would you?) But when people do, it's sometimes as if they've been duped by the cranking ghost of Reagan. Says user Amanda: "When I answered nobody was there."

ODDITY examines strange and esoteric phenomena and events from the remote, uncanny corners of technology, science and history.

Reach this writer at brian@motherboard.tv.