Can someone debunk this for me?

Question

no remote control

Answer 1

Unless she's troubled by the radio going on and off and asking you for advice about it where do you come into the picture?  Sounds as though the entire thing is a boundary issue.  What she believes about it is no concern of yours unless she's asked you to be involved.  

If she's a friend to you maybe you ought to be enough of a friend of hers to mind your own affairs.

Answer 2

Is it a radio with a remote control?  A lot of them have remote controls available. There could be something else which is giving off stray signals which happen to be on the same frequency.

Answer 3

I'm not really interested in debunking every little crazy story loonies tell. I DO understand that's kind of the deal (really, no c**p) that sane people in the business made with the loonies about 25 years ago:  sane people have to not simply laugh and call the loonies with stories liars and in exchange the loonie investigators/advocates have to couch their conclusions in scientific language. That's their deal, not mine.

But you don't seem involved in that industry building jiggery pokery, just a gal who wonders about something strange a friend claims is really true. So I'll do this one. My explanation may not match all the circumstances and should be rejected if it doesn't, but you should strongly consider the idea she is having you on as well.

Radio stations nowadays can, and some do, broadcast extra information when a song is playing that identifies the song/artist and sometimes more. Radios are nowadays built with the ability to take advantage of this. You can set them to seek continuously for a station playing a song by a chosen artist. They can sit quietly, on, but only becoming noticed when they find a song playing by that artist or they can be in active use and just switch when one becomes available. In the former case, they seem to be off, when in fact they are on, but only to search and to play anything found.

So her radio might not have a true off, once an artist is set. It might seem off, but is working on it for her in the background. Then, finding a song by the chosen artist, it fires up into play mode at which time she notices it.

If this is possible (not likely for a $5 box radio, but a decent chance for a $50 radio), she should check its manual for how to turn this feature off. Likely it would have been set by touching the wrong button or sequence of buttons while some song (by this artist) was playing. Just chance touching, not a plan on her part which is why she finds the behavior realllly bizarre.

There is an alternate explanation, but it wouldn't seem possible, except through extraordinary coincidence, for it to happen and bring up 2-3 or more different songs by one artist and no others. That explanation is that many devices are capable of taking remote control, but are sold without remotes (at a cheaper price than with). But they use one of the two main remote controller code techniques and some other remote control in the house is being used and happens to have a control sequence in common with the radio. The radio would "sleep" rather than be truly off (in order that a remote control can be sense to turn it on:  if it were truly off, completely off, a remote control could not turn it on — your TV for instance:  not truly off or the on button on the remote couldn't turn it on) and sense the other remote's code and act upon it as IT is programmed to. (By the way, with fresh batteries, remotes have amazing range. If you have to point the remote to work it, you need new batteries.) That would be a way to explain a radio turning on and off on "its own" but it would not explain the same artist each time. That part would be really unlikely and you might evaluate your friend's likelihood of taking the simple on/off on its own scenario and embellishing it slightly, the part about the same artist not being true. People do that.

Good luck with it though. Maybe it really is time-traveling aliens from a planet in a different dimension just having some sneaky fun at her expense. People say they do exactly that apparently in hopes that our governments will then lie to us about it thereby crushing our faith and trust in them leaving us open to conquest. Or whatever. They don't really agree on the why's, just the unhappy outcomes.

Answer 4

Apparently some spiritual entity is trying to communicate something to your friend thru the music of that artist.

Answer 5

Sounds fascinating.

Who is the artist? Do you think he/she could be plugging their records?

Does it still work if she keeps the radio in a bucket of water?

I'm amazed.

By the way what's 'paranormal'?