Help! Pre amp turning on by itself.

Besides there being a ghost in the machine it could be your mains power dipping and then returning to full power. This happens to my preamp.

Remove the power cable or switch off the preamp using it's power switch.

Ghosties and ghoulies can't get around that.

We have a heated towel rack that is on a wall timer.  This is all hardwired and there is no remote.

Lately, occasionally, when I get up at say 3AM to take care of business, I'll find the towel rack on!

All I can figure is that late night line spikes/fluxuations are triggering it and perhaps an a/c filter cap that used to take care of this on the wall timer is going away.

So...,

Ghost in the machine. 

System is plugged into a Furman Elite conditioner surge suppressor. Don't get the numerous suggestions saying to turn it off, it IS off until it turns itself on ...

Does it turn itself on if you plug it in?   Meaning first time it receives power at it's AC in, does it turn on?   Like a TV does if left on a switched outlet ?

If so, you may be loosing power at the conditioner for a split second.  

All I can think of is a condition like that or extraneous light of a certain wavelength. 

You can test the remote to see if a button sticks by holding the IR  in front of a Samsung Tab camera or Samsung phone camera.  Most will show the IR as a purple light when in the camera mode.