Who hasn’t experienced an ill-timed fit of giggles? Perhaps it hit you in the middle of giving an important presentation at work. Maybe it happened during what was supposed to be a silent prayer at church. Possibly a fit of laughter overcame you when Mrs. Smethels was interrogating the class to find out who was responsible for putting a whoopee cushion on her chair during parent/teacher conferences. EDITOR’S NOTE: We are just choosing a random, hypothetical example, by the way. This should not be construed as an admission of guilt. Besides, we’re pretty sure the statute of limitations has passed by now, so please back off, Mrs. Smethels!

Regardless of when the unexpected and inappropriate case of chuckles afflicted you, it’s a safe bet to say that you had fewer people witness it than when it happened to Charlotte Green.

Charlotte was at her job as a newsreader for BBC Radio Channel 4 in March 2008. She dutifully reported a story that was noteworthy and remarkable from a scientific and historical standpoint. The event was the first successful playback of the world’s earliest known voice recording.

In 1857, Parisian inventor Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville created a method of recording sounds on paper. The recordings, known as phonautograms, consisted of sheets of paper covered with a coating of soot. A vibrating stylus cut through the soot, tracing sound waves, much like Thomas Edison’s gramophone captured the sound waves on wax cylinders. The phonautogram predated Edison’s invention by 20 years.

The phonautograms merely recorded the sounds, however. No technology existed at the time that allowed the sound to be played back. That changed in 2008 when scientists were able to use a computer to convert the scratches on an 1860 phonautogram of someone singing “Au Clair de la Lune.”

After duly reporting this noteworthy achievement, Charlotte Green played the recording for her listening audience. As expected, it was anything but high-definition audio and is practically indecipherable. As it was played, one of Green’s colleagues made an off-air comment that it sounded like a bee buzzing in a bottle. The comment struck Green as funny. Unfortunately, the next story she had to report was anything but humorous.

She began to report the sad news that Academy Award-winning screenwriter Abby Mann had died. As she started the report, her voice was appropriately somber. That quickly changed, however, as the thought of that bee buzzing in a bottle invaded her thoughts. The result was an awkward, uncomfortable, and yet hilarious manifestation of a giggle fit that was heard by millions.

One of Green’s colleagues stepped in and took over as Green regained her composure. The BBC later apologized to Mann’s family.

Although the event may have been particularly hard for anyone who knew Abby Mann, the overwhelming response of listeners was positive. The BBC was inundated with calls, letters, and emails, asking that it be replayed.

Fortunately, technology has advanced considerably since the invention of the phonautogram. We can not only listen to the earliest recording of the human voice, but we can also hear Charlotte Green’s embarrassing reaction to it.

Listen to the earliest recording of the human voice and Charlotte Green’s embarrassing giggle fit as she reported it.

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