Ryan Van Velzer

The Republic | azcentral.com

Things are getting weird in Mammoth, Ariz.

The calls began rolling in about 2:30 p.m. Monday, said Violet B., a motel owner in Mammoth.

"I heard (the caller) say something about a disease, but when I started to ask questions, he just hung up," she said.

The phone hasn't stopped ringing since. She's gotten calls from New York and Virginia to North Dakota. Others called from California. More than 40 people have called her small hotel northeast of Tucson.

Some never said a word, others demanded to know what was happening in her town, she said.

But Violet didn't know a thing about it, until she got online. Google "Mammoth, Arizona" and you'll understand.

The first site that pops up says, "WTF is going on in Pinal County, Arizona??"

It links to Reddit, a content aggregation website with user-based forums that calls itself the "front page of the Internet."

More specifically, Google links to a subreddit known as /r/nosleep, where users write fictional and non-fictional horror stories, then play out the drama in the comments as if it the story actually happened.

If you read the sidebar on the right-hand side of the website, the forum clearly states: "Suspension of disbelief is key here. Act as though everything is true while you're here, even if it's not" and "Readers are to act as though everything is true and treat it as such in the comments."

But many have not heeded the warning and the result has been a modern-day "War of the Worlds" scenario, wherein many readers have taken the story as a fact and begun to call the small town of Mammoth — population 1,484 — to see if a virulent disease has spread through the town and martial law has been enacted.

Here's one excerpt from the post, written by Reddit user throwfarfarawayaz:

"… I woke up to my phone going off - I had 7 texts from friends of mine all reporting the same thing:

Entire families were being found beaten to death all over Mammoth. Blood, bruises, nails and teeth missing, hair ripped out - all of them. I heard reports of anywhere from 14 to 55 dead bodies, depending on who you were talking to."

Mammoth Police Chief Marty McIntosh received several calls Monday and another eight today, but said that there is nothing to worry about.

"It's all unfounded, the only thing we've taken in the last few days is loud music calls and barking dogs," he said.

The problem, he said, is that the phone calls are really tying up the emergency and non-emergency phone line.

"We are small town and I don't know, it's crazy, it's crazy that this is happening," he said.

Violet is also tired of the phone calls, she said.

"I'm just tired getting out of bed because it won't stop. I spent all night listening to the telephone ring," she said.

"It's not aliens today, it's Ebola. But the stupid part is none of these people have done their research."