Back in the 90s and pre-internet, I knew nothing about numbers stations. One time I borrowed my dad’s hefty portable radio, which he used for listening to Vin Scully doing the play-by-play of Dodgers games, but it was the off-season, so I took it for a few months.

Back then I lived in a cabin right on the edge of my town, and I’m a night owl, so I was utterly alone one night at around 2am, when I came across one of these numbers stations right in the act of doing its’ thing with a robotic female voice, just for a few minutes before regressing to static noise.

The whole experience spooked me, it stayed with me. On subsequent nights I scanned the dial again and again, to see if I could stumble across this thing again, but I never did catch it live again. It was years later that I found The Conet Project website and finally knew what the hell that transmission was about, sort of.

At this point I’m so desperate for a woman to want to spend time with me I’d take it

/s but not really

Jeez, you don’t need the gun. I would have come willingly if you’d mentioned the numbers stations. Watching some boring Netflix movie kinda sounded lame anyway. Here’s an edible, where are your headphones?

Achtung

Achtung

I used to spend tons of time when I was a kid playing around with my dad’s shortwave radio.

I never heard a number’s station, but I did once come across a station playing a monophonic synth version of Waltzing Matilda over and over again. The atmosphere must have been super reflective that night if I was picking up Australia from the Midwestern U.S., so I don’t think whatever it was came from Australia. But I’ve never been able to explain it.

randomly starts playing bad apple

Relatable

Oblique — Oblique…

I remember back when I found the Conet project CD boxset uploaded on the internet when I was into number stations.

It is a collection of number station recordings, released to try and get attention and focus people’s efforts to find and decode these signals.

A subtype of number stations are polytone stations, they broadcast tones that a computer can interpret into the message, so when you hear it, it is just what sounds like random tones played randomly at high speed.

The full recording also has a few more sections, there is often an identification string, like a peice of music to help agents tune in to the source, then there is a sync broadcast to have the computer figure out the timings, I have heard this as a rapid stacato tone signal.

Anyway, one of the most terrifying experiences I have had with media was when I was at a LAN party, I was playing OpenTTD with my friends in coop, while listening to the Conet project.

I get to a track that just starts with a slow droning rythm, I zone out from the sound and it is kinda nice with a slow, allmost meditative tempo in my headphones.

This goes on for minutes as I relax, then suddenly, the sound speeds up and a different stacato rythm starts.

And before I could react, my ears are filled with weird random beeps at a high speed.

I just ripped my headphones off my head as it sort of felt as if my brain was being reprogrammed, the long slow drone part felt as if it was made to soften my brain up, for the fast beeps to affect me.

I lost interest in numbers stations and am much more interested in trying to figure out who was responsible for the Max Headroom hijacking of 2 TV stations in Chicago that occurred in the late 80’s.

This shit again. Those numbers are nothing to worry about at all, they’re just meant for the Russian sleepers sitting in their apartments next to NATO military facilities, telling them to continue not setting off their hydrogen bombs. I don’t know why people worry about this.

It’s measurements.

If the numbers repeat in a pattern, it’s fine as long as the pattern isn’t broken.

If the numbers don’t repeat in a pattern, it’s fine as long as it doesn’t become a pattern.

If the pattern or lack of it changes, start worrying. It will be fine as long as it resumes regular operation. Else, things have changed.

If the numbers are replaced with words, something of importance was discovered. It will be fine as long as the words don’t mention you directly.

If the words weave a tale or address you/somebody else, you need to wake up. It is time to wake up.

If you can’t wake up, I’m sorry, you’ve missed your number or sequence. Try again on a different frequency.

…

It’s usually that kind of thing that attracts the curious.

As a qualified amateur operator, I approve this course of action.

An odd combination of mysterious, ominous, and boring as fuck.

TIL about The Conet Project. Just in time for spooky season!