The number stations
Here’s something totally new to me: It seems that with any readily available shortwave radio tuned to the right frequency, you can listen to a so-called “number station”, which broadcasts nothing more than strings of numbers intoned by computer.
These stations are reportedly run by various intelligence agencies, and their encoded broadcasts are meant for their agents in the field.
The Washington Post has the lowdown here:
On the hour, you might hear a girlish voice repeating strings of numbers monotonously in Spanish. “Nueve, uno, nueve, tres, cinco-cinco, cuatro, cinco, tres, dos . . .,” went one seemingly harmless message heard last month on a Grundig radio.
It was the Cuban Intelligence Directorate or Russian FSB broadcasting coded instructions from Havana to spies inside the United States.
Here’s the obligatory Wikipedia article, and a link to an archive of recordings from these stations. For some reason, they give me the chills when I listen to them.
Gary @ 31 Dec 2006 :: 1337, Good readin' :: No Comments »