THE MYSTERY OF SHORTWAVE NUMBERS STATIONS
One of the strangest audio mysteries ever since World War two or even earlier when they probably started is what shortwave radio listeners (or “DXers”) call numbers stations. These are often powerful secret radio stations all around the world, broadcasting in many different languages, that still pop up from time to time, often on a regular basis, on the shortwave dial. They broadcast nothing more than a series of groups of numbers in oddly disembodied and sometimes synthesized voices.
Why numbers?
One of the most easy to understand types of code are number codes, such as 1 equals A, 2 equals B and so on. Of course you can make your code a lot more complicated than that! Or – if we both have the same book, we could send numbers to each other that reference certain pages and certain words in that book. Nobody could ever tell what we were saying unless of course they too had a copy of the book. In short you can make numbers equal any letters or words or actually anything at all if you agree to it ahead of time and know how to decode the message.
So why use shortwave radio?
Shortwave radio frequencies are mostly used by international broadcasters as well as amateur radio operators for transmitting to far away distant listeners. The physical characteristics of shortwave make it ideal for bouncing signals around the planet although the signal quality is sometimes rather poor. These days with the internet you might think there would be no interest in it but the shortwave dial is still full of fascinating radio from around the world including these mysterious numbers stations.
So why would anybody want to broadcast blocks of numbers?
Clearly, these are most probably coded messages only intended for certain listeners. Whoever is sending them certainly doesn’t want the rest of us to understand what they’re saying.
Does that sound even slightly sinister? Well, check under your bed and lock your door because the general consensus of opinion of those who have studied these stations for years is that they are indeed sending coded messages from various world governments to their secret agents out in the field around the world. Can you say CIA? MI5? CSIS?
But why would such rich, powerful secret agencies around the world use such a low tech way to communicate?
Think about it… anybody can listen to these broadcasts using a shortwave radio. A cheap little portable all-band radio that can fit in your pocket would do. There’s nothing suspicious about that if you were were a foreign agent captured in a foreign country. And as far as more sophisticated and contemporary digital methods of communications – such as cell phones, e mails and satellite phones – they all leave an electronic trail that can be traced. With numbers stations, no one can trace who is listening or even prove who’s behind them.
Of course, they could all be part of an elaborate hoax or some kind of performance art. And they could also be part of some form of disinformation designed by some governments to make other less-friendly governments think that there are foreign agents secretly operating in their countries when there aren’t. If it’s a hoax it sure is an elaborate one, repeated over and over again around the world almost since radio began. No one has ever taken credit for them, and no one has ever figured out exactly what they mean. (But speaking of performance art, they have recently inspired a number of artists to incorporate them in their own work. The Wilco CD “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” for example is purportedly named after some of these mysterious transmissions).
Interested in learning more? Just use your favourite search engine on line and look for “numbers stations” although I strongly recommend you begin with Simon Mason’s brilliant site, http://www.simonmason.karoo.net – just click the link “Shortwave Espionage” on his home page. Kudos to Simon! It’s a really excellent site with lots of links to further information and tons of audio clips so you don’t even need a shortwave radio.
But… trust me – it IS so much more fun to get a shortwave radio and to try to catch them live yourself. Maybe someone out there some day will be able to decode them and tell us what they really mean. But somehow, I doubt it.
73’s until next time!
Your comments, in numerical code or plain written English, are always welcome at theaudioaddict [AT] hotmail.com
