iphone making FaceTime calls on its own = phantom touches

On Sep-2-2020, my iphone 8p tried to FaceTime with a Favorite in my Contacts, using her email address. It dialed her 3x in succession via video, then 2x in audio, then 1x in video.

I called Apple support the next day, and they told me this is known as "phantom touches". They assume that the phone is making a call as if someone were operating the display. They had me reinstall iOS on the iphone to make sure the software was clean. If the problem continues, then the next step is to replace the display (about $169).

Here's what happened at the time of the phantom calling incident: I was outside gardening and listening to a podcast on my Apple watch via my AirPods. My iphone 8p was sitting in a bucket. I could hear the phone ringing and ringing, but I thought the Favorite was calling me, and I couldn't understand why I couldn't answer the phone. The calls were not showing up on my watch. It took me 3 minutes to stop the podcast, remove the AirPods, and then get on the iphone and text the Favorite's mobile number to see why she was calling me. She said she hadn't been calling me, and the calls from the phantom touches did not ring on her iPhone. Then I called her mobile and we figured out what had happened. It was both a little frightening and bizarre.

BTW it's unfortunate that Apple makes you create a new post on a 3-month old post, otherwise I would have just added on to one of the recent posts.