You click the remote from several feet way, expecting that familiar “bip beep!” and flash of lights. But when you get to your car, it remains locked — what gives? Business owners along a certain stretch of road in Yonkers, N.Y. are upset that a Bermuda Triangle type situation is rendering keyless remote entry systems powerless, and ultimately deterring customers from shopping there. Spoooooky!

Maybe it’s spooky or perhaps, as an expert hired to investigate the problem said, it could be chalked up to localized radio interference, which might be disrupting the signals sent from car remotes. He’s still trying to pinpoint where exactly the problem signal is coming from, reports the Associated Press.

“It’s not a common phenomenon,” said the a radio-frequency communications specialist. “I only get a handful of these quirky types of complaints every year.”

Local businesses appear to be the ones fielding queries from parkers: A nearby funeral home owner says he’s had constant complaints about people getting locked out of their cars, including his brother who had to get his car towed away.

And at first, said workers at a hardware store, drivers assumed it was the batteries acting up, and bought new ones at the spot. That didn’t work, so store employees would push vehicles down the street and out of range of the Bermuda Triangle in order to get the remotes to work.

The radio-frequency specialist says there’s likely a malfunctioning device in the area that’s overpowering all the other quick signal bursts from remotes with its constant strong signal. He says drivers who experience such a thing should bring their keyless remotes as closely to their cars’ antenna as they can, to minimize possible interference.

Meanwhile, the hardware store employees just want the problem to go away so their customers come back.

“We lose customers from this,”  said one clerk, when people “know they can’t come here unless they park blocks away and walk.”

Mysterious force blocks car remotes in Yonkers [Associated Press]

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