What does this mean?

Hey all,

I want to tell a short, but odd story about something that happened while listening to channel 19 while driving my personal vehicle home from work.

I kept hearing these clicks. Dead key clicks, but I didn't realize that's what they were. I thought at first they were some kind of interference. Then, I noticed it was happening in patterns. One, three, five, two, etc. No particular order. Thinking nothing would happen, I dead keyed one time. I got an immediate reply with a click. Then I did two... it did two. After about 15-20 seconds of this, a creepy voice comes over and says, "go down two". So I go to 17. I hear the clicks again. So I start answering with the same amount of key taps. Then the creepy sounding voice comes on and says "where you at?", and mumbles something I couldn't quite understand. Not because the signal sounded far off (I'm using a Galaxy DX 979 that's peaked and tuned with a Stryker long whip antenna on my trunk lid, so I'd imagine I'm not reaching very far.) I suspect the person was close, but talking quietly on purpose.

I was almost to my house, so I just shut the radio off. I thought it was odd, and the dude on the other end was talking like he was whispering or something.

What did I just encounter? I've been using radios pretty regularly since 1998, and I've never heard anything like this. Had the person not sounded the way he did, I likely would have answered. I figure if it was someone needing help, the request for help would have been the first thing said, or he would have used channel 9.

I was just curious if this is some sort of code or something that I've never heard of or if I stumbled into the "dark web" of citizens band radio...

Hope you're all well!

 

Ah. I was thinking that might be it. Just weird, because there are zero pickle parks or truck stops in my area. Closest ones are an hour away.

Probably just trying his luck hoping someone local would bite. Thanks for the input