Just had the weirdest Zoom experience today and I’m still a bit shaken

[ireney]

I was in a Zoom meeting with just my manager this morning — no one else was supposed to be there.

While I was talking, I suddenly started hearing a woman and a child chatting in the call. But here's the weird part: they weren’t part of the call.

My manager kept speaking, but it sounded like he was on mute — not because he was muted, but because his voice was being completely drowned out by the voices of the woman and the kid.

I tried saying hello to them, but they didn’t respond. It was like they couldn’t hear me at all — and I couldn’t talk over them either.

It honestly felt like two totally separate Zoom calls had merged together. I was confused and creeped out.

Eventually, I left the meeting and rejoined — and just like that, everything went back to normal. The woman and child were gone, and it was just me and my manager again.

After doing a little research, I found out this might have been caused by a Zoom glitch — like overlapping audio streams, a phantom feed from another meeting, or someone accidentally joining using a reused link.

Whatever it was, it felt like Zoom accidentally connected me to someone else’s living room. Super unsettling.

Has anything like this ever happened to anyone else?