Masks and social distancing 'could last years', US defence secretary on unannounced Afghan visit, The website helping to sell homes with a bloody past, The Indian factory making 6,000 syringes a minute. After this, the man or woman supposedly will die in a few form of freak coincidence. Like if you found an isolated number station sending signals and it was abandoned. The crackling eerie sounds of old radios and wireless sets are often associated with the World Wars and Cold War spies; but not many know that this espionage technology from the bygone era is still very much relevant and perhaps … The mysterious sound patterns and fact that their sources are a mystery is creepy. Many other stations have reacted to jamming in a similar, ghostly way. Computers almost always leave traces, whereas a paper and a pen are easy to destroy. Today, people think they still hear interruptions that sound just like the old number stations. Pinterest. Times have changed and technology has evolved, but there's evidence that this old-fashioned seeming method of communication might still be used. VideoHow dogs are helping Tasmanian devils find a mate, Why some Americans are choosy about vaccine, The Viking warrior discovery that shook the academic world. Some even mention that the aliens are talking to us using these number stations from the extra-terrestrial region. Numbers stations are anonymous, shortwave AM radio stations that broadcast messages at pre-set times, sometimes periodically and sometimes random, on specific frequencies. You can go on youtube and look for it, even if it’s a hoax, it just makes the same effect as the number stations recordings; creepy but fascinating. Experts are confident that numbers stations do still exist, even if there are fewer of them. The weaker the signal – and the stronger the QRM(2) – the better. "It was so weird I wanted to know more about them," he says. One of the weirdest aspects of the UVB-76 is that it survived the fall of communism in Russia without so much as a hitch. "Nobody has found a more convenient and expedient way of communicating with an agent," says Rupert Allason, an author specialising in espionage issues and writing under the pen name Nigel West. There was a drop in activity following the collapse of the Soviet Union, since many intelligence agencies using numbers stations were linked to the KGB, like the Stasi and the Romanian Securitate. A lot of people consider the number stations to be highly mysterious. 5-6-9-9-0.” Tune across the shortwave bands (above AM/MW), and chances are you will come across a “numbers station.” There’s no programming to speak of; just a mechanical-sounding voice (male or female) methodically announcing seemingly random groups of single digit numbers for minutes on end. Some people have even argued that the phenomenon was an elaborate prank. The original transmission stopped in 1997, but different variations persisted until 2007. Video, How dogs are helping Tasmanian devils find a mate, Huge Chinese 'fishing fleet' alarms Philippines, Diversity review under way at Buckingham Palace, Miami imposes curfew over spring break 'chaos', Fireball meteor behind 'sonic boom' noise, Young couple's house swept away near Sydney, The feminist firebrand who dared to write dangerously, Candidate in hospital with Covid on election day. A Great Way to Listen to Those Mysterious "Number Stations" Mark Strauss. "In the same way spy tricks such as pretending to feed ducks around a pond might still exist, numbers stations still exist too," says Al Bolton, a radio amateur. By. 18. Shortwave numbers stations might seem low-tech but they probably remain the best option for transmitting information to agents in the field, some espionage experts suggest. Even if the video has been identified as being a hoax, many people also had physical problems after having watched the video repeatedly. Among numbers station enthusiasts, The Swedish Rhapsody numbers station is one of the most well known and probably the creepiest to listen to. They carry encrypted messages in form of groups of numbers or letters, using either automated voice, Morse code, or a digital mode. From the 1970s until 2008, the Lincolnshire Poacher station was … There is a small community of aficionados who believe messages like this are a throwback to the era of Cold War espionage. What is it? Many players of the evil persuasion know that you can kill Three Dog and he will be replaced by the technician Margaret. Continue Reading Below. However, it is not true at all. Starting with a weird melody or the sound of several beeps, these transmissions might be followed by the unnerving sound of a strange woman’s voice counting in German or the creepy voice of a child reciting letters in English. Over the next few months, the producers of Here Be Monsters will be highlighting some of their favorite unusual, eerie and mysterious sounds. I remember one in particular were two very soothing adult voice sometimes male, sometimes female reading children stories, some times at random the story would be going along and they would say something like Flash November, Xray Tango, Whiskey, Alpha., then back to the story. © 2021 BBC. "The danger with a computer is that if you get caught, the data on it is still retrievable. The signal has been determined to be originating from two sources, one in the United States and one in England. That is immediately followed by a clip of an arch nemesis of Bugs Bunny’s, Yosemite Sam, announcing, ‘Varmint, I’m gonna blow you to smithereens!’ Radio geeks/conspiracy trackers/curious people pinned down the phrase from the 1949 Bugs Bunny cartoon, ‘Bunker Hill.’ Why it’s attached to a burst of compressed information (often used by intelligence community) is mysterious enough. The one-time pads enabled a form of code that would have been uncrackable to anyone listening in. One theory is that this is a message spy board, a digital online equivalent of a number station. “Too often, [numbers stations] are described as ‘spooky,’ ‘creepy,’ or ‘mysterious,’ and the discussion stops there.” I became enamored with DXing(1) shortwave on a wobbly Telefunken when I was six years old. That it is transmitted in on four frequencies — 3700, 4300, 6500 and 10,500 kHz — for a full two minutes without any missed time mark tends to make it all the more mysterious.”, The so-called “most mysterious” number station of all time is a radio signal that occupies 4625 kHz and has reportedly been broadcasting since the late 1970s. Many journalists and filmmakers make movies by adding some mystery to this. "It is easy. What is suddenly heard on a shortwave receiving station is a 10-minute message in Morse code. You just send the spies to a country and get them to buy a radio. What does “paranormal” mean? "When the Ceausescu regime collapsed, there was a cessation of broadcasts from Romania," the former GCHQ officer says. Facebook. If you tuned into just the right shortwave radio frequency in the 1970s, you might hear a creepy computerized voice reading out a string of numbers. But everything about them bears a strong resemblance to the type of information dissemination we see in number stations. At the apex of the Cold War, radio lovers across the globe started to notice bizarre broadcasts on the airwaves. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. But the scale of the stations - multiple frequencies in different languages - makes that explanation seem far-fetched. Many believe the number station is scary or mysterious. Most stations have set time schedules, or schedule patterns; however, other stations … Post by Frank Moran on 09/02/2019 - 00:58. Read about our approach to external linking. "Once you hear them, it has an effect on you," he says. This is the era of hyper-tech espionage, encrypted emails and mindboggling cryptography. And I love them. Today the station has an online following numbering in the tens of thousands, who know it affectionately as “the Buzzer”. "Their sole purpose is for intelligence agencies to communicate with their agents in denied areas - a territory where it is difficult to use a consensual form of communications," Allason says. Went back in right before it was over. that is harking back to the horror movie franchise the ring. UVB-76. In the 2010 raids on a Russian spy ring in the US, court papers alleged that they had used "coded radio transmissions and encrypted data", a hint that they might have received their orders via shortwave numbers stations. While the background chirps, whistles, and static tones might seem creepy, it’s really the occasional numbers or poems being read that are disseminating information to a target. Copyright 2021 The Ghost Diaries | About | Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions. The most diverse and important station is Galaxy News Radio. This is a number that doesn’t have a lot of solid information behind it. The Lincolnshire Poacher was so named because of two bars from an English folk song of that name being used as an "interval signal". The shortwave radio spectrum is a mysterious place. He put three years of his life aside in order to put together a coherent archive of these stations. Some of these were used as spy and espionage relay outlets others were used as mind control frequencies on certain parts of the world, lost transmissions from Atlantis, E.T. Twitter. This U.S. numbers station originated from the Laguna Indian Reservation near Albuquerque, NM. Feb 10, 2018 Nick Knight. These unexplained broadcasts are creepy and called NUMBER STATIONS. This is as near to an admission that we have been able to obtain," Fernandez says. Fernandez notes that any prankster would need to buy millions of pounds of radio transmitters. Some believe it is just avant-garde art; others say the transmissions are actually instructions for drug cartels; still others maintain the station was established for government agents to receive coded messages while out in the field. Unlike other aspects of the Cold War era, the numbers stations didn't leave a lasting impression on popular culture. Creepy. Linkedin. The earliest known recording of it is dated 1982; since then, it has broadcast a repeating buzzing noise. Despite all the clues, no government has ever officially admitted or denied using numbers stations, nor have intelligence agencies. "It is a dry subject until you listen to them," Fernandez says. The moment I played it, he came running to the garage where I was from the back of the house and was looking everywhere for the sound. 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