I thought I was in the Twilight Zone. Good friends of ours were visiting for an evening of cocktails and dinner when it happened. The phone rang. My friend Bill asked if he could check the caller I.D. I was puzzled but said “sure.” But I was more puzzled when he answered the phone.

That was only the beginning. He didn’t say anything, he just listened for the next half minute, a look of concern on his face. When he hung up he said, “excuse me, but I have to call the police. Our home is being burglarized.”

Before I could say anything – and I was so flabbergasted I didn’t know what to say anyway – he dialed 911 and reported a break-in at his home address and added that “there are at least two people involved.” And he said that they are still on the scene. He told the police he and his wife would be there in 10 minutes and would meet with them outside his home, just in case the suspects were still inside.

As he and his wife, Marge, left, Bill said, “I’m sorry, I don’t have time to explain, but I will call you tomorrow and fill you in.” And they left. My wife and I sat there stunned. “What just happened?” she asked. “It sounded to me as though some burglars broke into Bill’s home and thoughtfully called him to tell him they were there.”

In effect, that is what happened, but of course not exactly. The burglars didn’t call, but they might as well have. Bill and Marge had installed a unique system that sensed the presence of intruders and initiated a phone call to the number he had installed in the system before leaving. And when the device called Bill, he heard two people talking about what they were doing in his home – via a hidden condenser microphone amplified to pick up the slightest of sounds.

When Bill called me the following day, he explained the entire story, including how the device, called Telespy, works. He said that with just that one phone call the evening before, the unit had paid for itself many times over. He told me that the police did arrive in time to apprehend the intruders and prevent anything from being taken.

Even the police were taken aback by how it all went down. They had not encountered the Telespy before and were most impressed with how it worked.

We had a lot of other questions for Bill and Marge, such as, does the device function as a regular phone under normal circumstances? The answer was “yes”. Does it have any monitoring fees? “No”. Can it cause any false alarms to be sent? “No”. Can it be used in conjunction with any existing security system in place? “Yes”. Can it be regulated to offset the motion caused by my dog? “Yes”. How much? “Only $75.95.”

That was good enough for us. Where dowe buy it, we asked. The answer: www.yoursecurityandsafety.com/telespy.htm