8 Creepiest Broadcasts Ever Caught On Tape

3. Au Clair De La Lune, 1860

It might sound like the ghost of a drowned child, but this remarkable recording is actually the earliest known recording of a human voice. Way back in 1860, ‰douard-Léon Scott de Martinville celebrated his fantastic name by having a little sing song into his newly-patented phonautograph. The phonautograph, however, was not designed to play its recording back.

It simply worked by recording a visual representation of sound by tracing lines onto a revolving cylinder and Scott probably never thought that his 10 second rendition of Au Clair de la Lune would ever be heard. However, on the rediscovery of the record scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory were able to recreate the sound they represented digitally, finally releasing Scott's little ditty from its papery prison a century and a half later.

Granted, it's pretty difficult to decipher the original audio, but you can always have a listen to this slightly cleaned up version to get a better idea of Scott's singing. For more whispers from the past, here is a recording of Alexander Graham Bell from 1885.