Here's why you received those weird text messages yesterday (Update: statements)

Update, November 8, 2019 (02:00 AM ET): Sprint and Syniverse, a third-party vendor responsible for yesterday’s weird text phenomenon, have given official statements to Gizmodo. You can read them below:

Sprint: “A maintenance update occurred to part of the messaging platforms of multiple carriers in the U.S., including Sprint, which caused some customers to have older text messages sent to their devices.”

Syniverse: “During an internal maintenance cycle last night, 168,149 previously undelivered text messages were inadvertently sent to multiple mobile operators’ subscribers. We apologize to anyone who was impacted by this occurrence,” said William Hurley, Chief Marketing and Product Officer, Syniverse.

“While the issue has been resolved, we are in the process of reviewing our internal procedures to ensure this does not happen again, and actively working with our customers’ teams to answer any questions they have,” the spokesperson added.

Original Article, November 7, 2019 (01:55 PM IST): When you woke up this morning, did you see any strange texts from your friends? Conversely, did any of your friends ask you why you sent them a weird text of your own? No, you’re not going crazy: this appears to be a widespread issue today across the United States.

Even us here at Android Authority have seen the phenomenon. Lily Katz received messages from friends saying she sent them strange texts in the night, and my girlfriend awoke to a text from me that I definitely did not send last night. However, I did recognize the text.

The text I “sent” was from back in February, right around Valentine’s Day. I know this for certain because the text was giving her information about cookies we were baking for her to bring to work.

According to The Verge, this is exactly what happened. Texts that people sent back in February of this year never made it to their intended recipients. Instead, they sent out last night en masse for reasons that aren’t quite clear.

It does not appear that anyone is exempted from the problem, either. Anecdotal evidence online points to people seeing the strange texts on iPhones and Android devices as well as on all major wireless carriers.

Related: The 10 best SMS apps for Android

Unfortunately, not all of the text messages are as innocuous as mine about cookies. A few people have posted to social media saying they received messages from people who have since died, which must be an awful (and scary) way to start the day.

While it’s not totally clear how or why this is happening, it does appear that a third-party vendor that multiple wireless carriers use could be to blame. Both Sprint and T-Mobile have officially referenced a third-party partner as being the source of the issue but didn’t clarify further. AT&T and Verizon have not yet acknowledged the problem.

Did you send or receive any strange texts this morning? Let us know your story in the comments.