Ep 240: Numbers Stations

“All warfare is based on deception. There is no place where espionage is not used. Offer the enemy bait to lure him.”

— 6th c. BCE Chinese military general, strategist, philosopher, and writer, Sun Tzu

Description:

Since antiquity, espionage and deceit have always been crucial weapons of warfare. As technology and strategy have advanced over the centuries, methods for governments to deliver information and orders to their secret agents in the field have become more sophisticated. Yet, one form of cryptic communication implemented in the early 20th century has proven ever effective and relatively simple. With the advent of wireless telegraphy combined with a cipher technique called a "One-time Pad," intelligence agencies have been sending coded messages to their undercover operatives abroad since World War I. It wasn't until shortwave and HAM radio enthusiasts started noticing eerie and enigmatic broadcasts of spoken series of numbers or strange electronic sounds that these coded communiqués aroused widespread curiosity during the height of the Cold War. Although the use of public airwaves for clandestine messaging seems to have declined in recent years, listeners can still hear these top-secret instructions delivered to unknown spies, perhaps even your neighbor. One can only wonder how these spooky transmissions saved or cost lives or what world-changing actions they triggered. Join us as we delve into the mysterious world of spycraft and Numbers Stations.

Suspected source location for the Russian Numbers Station known as UVB-76, at 56.082798, 37.089624 GPS coordinates, as of 2015

The “log periodic antenna” atop the Yugoslav embassy in Washington, DC, thought to be used to communicate with their operatives

The following are photos taken by Forrest when he and Scott visited the exhibition “Spy: The Secret World of Espionage” at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum, on January 25, 2014

A mysterious unmarked communications van spotted by Forrest on the 110 Freeway in downtown LA, 1-17-2014

 

Location:

The UK Royal Air Force Base Akrotiri on the island country of Cyprus, where the MI6 “Lincolnshire Poacher” Numbers Station is believed to have broadcast from in the 1960s & 70s, after first originating at Bletchley Park.

Reference Links:

• Numbers station on Wikipedia

• Shortwave radio

• History of radio

• One-time pad

• The Conet Project

• PDF: “The Conet Project – Recordings of Shortwave Numbers Stations” booklet

• UK-based online group Enigma 2000 – signalshed.com

• Numbers Stations and their schedules, from priyom.org

• Simon Mason’s archived website on Shortwave Espionage

• “SECRET SIGNALS - THE EURONUMBERS MYSTERY” by Simon Mason, from his archived website

• Numbers Stations Research and Information Center, numbers-stations.com

• “The Weekly Number Stations Recording Thread” on reddit.com

• www.shortwavenumbers.com – likely to be shutdown

• National Telecommunications and Information Administration Office of Spectrum Management of the United States Department of Commerce

• Ionospheric heater

• The ancient cipher system scytale

• “The First Numbers Stations and Listener” on numbers-stations.com

• Archduke Anton of Austria

• A “Contact” in amateur radio

• “Marconi Centre Poldhu - Commemorating centenary Outbreak of World War One” from the myozone YouTube channel

• “The spooky world of the 'numbers stations'“ from BBC.com

• SIGSALY – secure speech system used in WWII

• Enigma WWII cipher machine

• The “Lincolnshire Poacher” Numbers Station

• “The Lincolnshire Poacher” audio broadcast, from The Conet Archive YouTube channel

• “Cherry Ripe” numbers station

• Entry for “The Cherry Picker” aka the “Cherry Ripe” Numbers Station on RadioHobbyist.org

• The UK’s Secret Intelligence Service, MI6

• Bletchley Park

• UK RAF Akrotiri on Cyprus

• “Number Stations Revealed - Part 1 of 6: The Spanish Voice Behind The "Atencion" Numbers Station” from Peter Staal’s YouTube channel, showing the vocoder machine creating the Spanish voice for the “¡Atención!” Numbers Station

• Peter Staal’s YouTube channel

• “1_02: Counting CIA” Numbers Station from The Conet Archive YouTube channel

• Fall of the Berlin Wall

• Former East Germany’s State Security Service – Stasi

• Cold War era spy for Communist Czechoslovakia, Václav Jelínek

• “VARA HF MODEM, Start to Finish file transfer at 7K bps” from the Graham Brown YouTube channel

• The “Cuban Five” or “Miami Five” Cuban spy ring case

• “North Korea sends chilling coded radio messages to South Korea amid fears of WW3” from the Express

• “North Korea numbers station V15” on the Signal Phantom YouTube channel

• “The XPB Message” from August 15, 2022, on YouTube

• “UVB-76 – The Buzzer” Russian Numbers Station

• “UVB-76/The Buzzer (4625Khz) LIVE” from the SWL Channel on YouTube

• The “Squeaky Wheel” Numbers Station

• "The Pip” Numbers Station

• Former East German STASI espionage story from the Warner Blog, Chapter 6

• The WWV shortwave “time signal” radio station out of Ft. Collins, CO

• “Betty’s Notebook” – of reported transmissions from Amelia Earhart post-ditching, from the TIGHAR Earhart Project

• “How do submarines communicate with the outside world?” from the Naval Post

• “BBC World Service Revives Shortwave to Russia, Ukraine” from RadioWorld.com

• “The new cryptographers” from the Virginia Tech Engineer – article on solving the Zodiac Killer’s Cipher 340

• “The Numbers Station” motion picture

• “INSIDE THE REAGAN LIBRARY - SPY: THE SECRET WORLD OF ESPIONAGE

  DECEMBER 2, 2013”

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CREDITS:

Episode 240: Numbers Stations. Produced by Scott Philbrook & Forrest Burgess; Audio Editing by Sarah Vorhees Wendel of VW Sound. Sound Design by Ryan McCullough; Tess Pfeifle, Producer, and Lead Researcher; Research Support from the astonishing League of Astonishing Researchers, a.k.a. The Astonishing Research Corps, or "A.R.C." for short. Copyright 2022 Astonishing Legends Productions, LLC. All Rights Reserved.