Authorities investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann have confirmed the existence of a previously overlooked audio recording made just days after the three-year-old vanished from her family’s holiday apartment in Praia da Luz.
The recording, described by officials as “deeply unsettling,” was discovered during a routine audit of emergency line tests from a nearby hotel — located less than 600 meters from the Ocean Club resort where Madeleine was last seen.
According to an insider familiar with the investigation, the hotel’s landline automatically connected to Portugal’s equivalent of the 911 emergency system during a systems test conducted late at night. When analysts reviewed the archival data this month, they reportedly heard the faint voice of a crying child in the background.
“It’s a very brief sound,” one forensic audio specialist said. “Roughly four to five seconds — a small voice saying what sounds like ‘mummy’ before the line disconnects.”
Authorities are now working to authenticate the audio, including whether it could have been an accidental open-line transmission from within the hotel or if the call originated elsewhere.
The discovery has reignited speculation that Madeleine may have been held nearby in the days immediately following her disappearance.
Sources close to the McCann family say the parents were “shaken” upon being told of the new lead but expressed hope that modern forensic techniques might extract further clues from the recording.
“If verified,” a retired British investigator familiar with the original 2007 inquiry said, “this could represent one of the most significant missed pieces of evidence in the early days of the case.”
Police from both Portugal and the UK are now working with digital forensics experts to trace the exact phone line origin and timestamp of the call — a process expected to take several weeks.
