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Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how

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Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.

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Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with

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Speaker 1: How Stuff Works and I heart radio and allow of

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Speaker 1: all things tech. And today it's time for another classic episode.

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Speaker 1: This episode originally aired on April two thousand twelve, and

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Speaker 1: it's called Tech Stuff Counts Some Number Stations. This was

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Speaker 1: one of those fun, creepy topics that Chris and I

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Speaker 1: tackled in the early days of tech Stuff, one that

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Speaker 1: I found absolutely fascinating and more than a little unnerving.

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Speaker 1: I hope you guys enjoy. So the topic we're covering

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Speaker 1: is numbers stations, which actually comes to us courtesy of

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Speaker 1: some feedback we received on Facebook, which I fortunately, due

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Speaker 1: to my computer being silly right now, I cannot pull up. However,

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Speaker 1: this is Facebook feedback asking us to cover numbers stations.

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Speaker 1: And you may wonder, oh, my, Drew Geese, what a

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Speaker 1: number stations is? Things being so scory and people being

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Speaker 1: quick to forget. That's that's like a double reference right there,

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Speaker 1: since I throw in some clockwork orange. So here's what

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Speaker 1: a number station is. It is a radio station. Using

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Speaker 1: shortwave radio that blasts out a transmission, usually at a

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Speaker 1: very regular interval, that normally has some sort of tone

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Speaker 1: or even music to it, followed by a series of

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Speaker 1: numbers spoken in sort of a semi monotone voice, sometimes

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Speaker 1: an automated voice, in fact, very often an automated voice.

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Speaker 1: And it's just a seemingly random string of numbers that

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Speaker 1: have no particular context or meaning to them, and it

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Speaker 1: has created quite a kind of a well a hobbyist

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Speaker 1: dream come true really for people who like mysteries, because

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Speaker 1: there's no official explanation as to what these stations are

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Speaker 1: and why why these numbers are being broadcast. Here's what

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Speaker 1: we know. No, I'm kidding. Now, let's go to what

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Speaker 1: we can speculate on. Um. We do know that official

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Speaker 1: governments have there. There's no official government that has spoken

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Speaker 1: up and said, oh, yeah, we did that. Yeah. The

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Speaker 1: closest was a Czechoslovakian official who acknowledge receipt of a

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Speaker 1: message about numbers stations, but did not It did not

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Speaker 1: go so far as to actually say what the number

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Speaker 1: station was, what it was for. It essentially was just

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Speaker 1: that I got your message. That was pretty much it.

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Speaker 1: The check is in the mail. There you go. But gosh,

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Speaker 1: I can't believe you're waiting an entire time for me

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Speaker 1: to shut up, So you can use that. Uh, however, uh,

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Speaker 1: there are fewer now than their word during the Cold War. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and they started the height of they started appearing during

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Speaker 1: the World wars. So world War One, Yeah, not not.

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Speaker 1: You know, this is the early part of the earlier

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Speaker 1: part of the twentieth century. Yeah, first, first couple of

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Speaker 1: decades of the twentieth century, that's when they start popping up.

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Speaker 1: So let's talk a little bit about about why a

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Speaker 1: number station is even possible before we get into what

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Speaker 1: they were and what they sound like and all that

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Speaker 1: kind of stuff. So first, they are short wave radio,

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Speaker 1: which we have talked about on a previous podcast many

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Speaker 1: many years ago. Yeah, we'll do a quick we'll do

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Speaker 1: a quick refresher course. So technically, a short wave is

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Speaker 1: a is a radio wave with a wavelength shorter than

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Speaker 1: two hundred meters twos wavelength would have a frequency of

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Speaker 1: around hurts uh, and it's typically these these radio waves

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Speaker 1: are used to broadcast voice and music, but also for

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Speaker 1: long distance communication. The reason that you can have long

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Speaker 1: distance communication is that these wavelengths are at sort of

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Speaker 1: a sweet spot when it comes to the way the

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Speaker 1: Earth works. So the Earth has the ionosphere, you know,

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Speaker 1: that surrounds it, binds it, and penetrates it. For no

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Speaker 1: ionosphere just surrounds the Earth. And if you were to

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Speaker 1: aim a short wave radio frequency at the ionosphere, uh,

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Speaker 1: the ionosphere would refract that frequency and it would beam

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Speaker 1: back down to Earth. So by bouncing it effectively off

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Speaker 1: the ionosphere, you can send a radio signal much further

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Speaker 1: than you could if it were to just broadcast out

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Speaker 1: and radiate out from a tower. Yes, So with this

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Speaker 1: in mind, with this long distance communication ability, it has

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Speaker 1: opened up opportunities for lots of different applications. And you know,

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Speaker 1: you'll hear about amateur radio enthusiasts who will just they'll

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Speaker 1: they'll use their their radios to dial in and listen

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Speaker 1: to the various broadcasts that go out there. And that's

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Speaker 1: really how number stations were discovered. It was mainly hobbyists

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Speaker 1: who as they were scanning the different bands and listening

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Speaker 1: to what was out there, they were coming across these

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Speaker 1: very odd sort of transmissions. And um, before I get

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Speaker 1: too far, I should say the the whole refraction by

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Speaker 1: the ionosphere. There's a specific name for that kind of

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Speaker 1: transmission that I love. I love this term skywave propagation.

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Speaker 1: It's a cool term. Right. So, yeah, you've got these

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Speaker 1: hobbists who are listening in and they would come across

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Speaker 1: a very unusual and frankly pretty creepy kind of transmission

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Speaker 1: in some cases. And uh, I think we even have

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Speaker 1: an example that we can listen to. So let's let's

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Speaker 1: take a quick listen to what a typical number station

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Speaker 1: might sound like if you were to tune in on

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Speaker 1: a shortwave radio kind of gets you right here done.

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Speaker 1: If by the by right here you mean now I'm

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Speaker 1: looking over my shoulder and waiting for someone to break

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Speaker 1: into the room. Yeah, that's pretty much what I'm thinking.

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Speaker 1: There is something particularly creepy about hearing kind of a

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Speaker 1: almost and almost like a harmonic. It sounds like there's

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Speaker 1: been some harmonic supplied in some cases, like it's an

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Speaker 1: automated voice or whatever, but hearing something like that monotone

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Speaker 1: just delivering number after number, and then they really repetitious

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Speaker 1: music that was used to introduce these So what could

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Speaker 1: these be? And there's been a lot of people who

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Speaker 1: have suggested what number stations might be all about, Um,

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Speaker 1: you know, the everything from it could just be uh

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Speaker 1: stuff for people who are surveying areas for for cartography

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Speaker 1: and that kind of thing, but that doesn't seem likely.

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Speaker 1: Of No one is taking credit for it, not at all.

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Speaker 1: So that's our cartography channel that has led to uh

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Speaker 1: to some not so much conspiracy theories. It really does

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Speaker 1: boil down to, well, if you're just broadcasting numbers with

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Speaker 1: no other context, why could you possibly be doing that for?

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Speaker 1: And one of the explanations is that it's a a

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Speaker 1: way to communicate two spies to undercover operatives who might

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Speaker 1: be uh invested in some foreign country, perhaps one that

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Speaker 1: is unfriendly to the the the country of origin and

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Speaker 1: so there. And when we say there's number stations, there

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Speaker 1: are number of stations all over the world, and they're

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Speaker 1: broadcasting pretty much all the languages that you might expect.

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Speaker 1: They would be in the major languages of the world.

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Speaker 1: So it's not just that, you know, it's not just

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Speaker 1: one country that's doing this. There there's multiple countries that

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Speaker 1: are doing it. And UH so this speculation is that

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Speaker 1: this is these are messages they're sent to government spies.

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Speaker 1: UH and these. You know, the governments aren't admitting to

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Speaker 1: it for for pretty understandable reasons. I would say, well,

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Speaker 1: if you or any of your team has captured, the

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Speaker 1: government will disavow any knowledge of this operations, message will

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Speaker 1: self destructed. Fifteen seconds. Don't count us out yet. We

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Speaker 1: still have a bit more to say about counting stations.

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Speaker 1: But first let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor.

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Speaker 1: The So these messages, the numbers those, that's a code,

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Speaker 1: it's an it's encoded message. Form of cryptography that is

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Speaker 1: called the the the one pad note yeah, or or

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Speaker 1: one time pad yeah. Um yeah. I'm interested in cryptography,

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Speaker 1: uh and have been reading about it for many years.

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Speaker 1: And this is not exactly a new thing. It doesn't

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Speaker 1: even require the use of a computer. I mean, we

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Speaker 1: talked about cryptography on many podcasts at different levels. Um

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Speaker 1: and we even got into quantum cryptography, which is supposedly unbreakable,

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Speaker 1: although I've seen reports recently that it may not necessarily

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Speaker 1: be unbreakable. Well, one time pads are technically unbreakable if

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Speaker 1: you follow the right procedure right because basically, um and

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Speaker 1: they were called pads because at one time they were

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Speaker 1: and probably still are a pad. So this pad is

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Speaker 1: generated like a pad of paper. You uh write down

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Speaker 1: your message and encode it on this paper using the

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Speaker 1: tool um. And it's a one time thing. And there's

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Speaker 1: a part of the key is embedded in the message,

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Speaker 1: so that tells the recipient use page. Well, let's just

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Speaker 1: go for a reference here, use page sixteen of your pad.

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Speaker 1: And that way, uh, you know, you write down the

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Speaker 1: message in the pad that you can decode it on

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Speaker 1: that page and and that then becomes useless. You can't

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Speaker 1: use it again. Yeah, you then destroy that page. So

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Speaker 1: here's here's how here's how it works. Let's say that

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Speaker 1: I want to send a message to Chris, and I

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Speaker 1: want to use this this one time pad method. All right,

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Speaker 1: So we would each have a pad that would have

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Speaker 1: a string of random letters across each line, all right,

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Speaker 1: And let's say we group them in in groups of five,

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Speaker 1: because that's pretty common of four or five. So we'll

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Speaker 1: say we have groups of five letters. And these letters

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Speaker 1: are truly random in that we've had some sort of

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Speaker 1: well as close to truly random as we can get.

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Speaker 1: We've had some sort of random number generator that has

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Speaker 1: picked random letters, and it's just that we each have

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Speaker 1: a copy of that output. So Chris's string of random

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Speaker 1: letters is the same as my string of random letters.

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Speaker 1: And then I write down my message in normal text,

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Speaker 1: and I write my normal letters above the letters of

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Speaker 1: the that's that's in the key. Then I convert my

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Speaker 1: letters into numbers. So let's say that an A equals zero,

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Speaker 1: and a B equals one, and a C equals Three's

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Speaker 1: not going to take them very long to pick this

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Speaker 1: one apart. No, it's going to take them a long

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Speaker 1: time because here's the here's the that's just that. All

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Speaker 1: that is is just uh, it's just a simple substitution cipher. Right,

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Speaker 1: But here's the tricky part. So then I take my key,

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Speaker 1: all right, and I convert all of those letters to numbers.

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Speaker 1: That's when it gets harder. And then I add the

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Speaker 1: two numbers together, all right, So I add the I

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Speaker 1: add the number from my first letter. So let's say

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Speaker 1: that my first letter is H. Because I I write,

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Speaker 1: hey there, Chris, I take the number from H. Yeah really,

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Speaker 1: why not? All right? You know, hey there, Chris, there's

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Speaker 1: a rusky on your tail. That's that's my message. So

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Speaker 1: H is because I'm going back to the Cold War

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Speaker 1: so so H, we would convert H to a number,

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Speaker 1: and then we look at the first letter in the key.

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Speaker 1: Let's say that the first letter in the key is

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Speaker 1: an M. Well, that M is going to have its

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Speaker 1: own number of value. We add the H and the

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Speaker 1: M values together and then we convert that into a

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Speaker 1: new letter. So, if it's anything up to if we

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Speaker 1: if A is zero, if it's anything up to twenty five,

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Speaker 1: then that's the letter that we would pick. If it's

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Speaker 1: over twenty five, then we just use number twenty six

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Speaker 1: counts as zero. Again, so the number twenty six would

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Speaker 1: be an A, twenty seven would be a B, twenty

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Speaker 1: eight would be a C. So we go up there

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Speaker 1: and we we put in whatever the substitute letter will be. Well,

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Speaker 1: the only way to know what the original letter is

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Speaker 1: is if you have that one time pad in front

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Speaker 1: of you where you take the value of the letter

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Speaker 1: that is uh, the represented letter, the ciphered letter. You

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Speaker 1: subtract the value of the key from the ciphered letter,

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Speaker 1: and that gives you the value of the original letter,

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Speaker 1: and then you can convert that into the original letter.

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Speaker 1: So the process of coding and decoding is pretty painstaking

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Speaker 1: because you know you have to you have to convert

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Speaker 1: all the letters to values, add and then make new letters.

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Speaker 1: But the nice thing is is that because as long

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Speaker 1: as you keep that that string of letters that acts

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Speaker 1: as your key truly random, and that you don't repeat letters,

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Speaker 1: so that you don't or you don't repeat strings, like

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Speaker 1: you don't go to the end of a page and

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Speaker 1: then start at the top again. As long as you

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Speaker 1: avoid that, it is impossible to crack that without without

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Speaker 1: getting possession of one of those pads. So that's where

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Speaker 1: we talk about. If you follow this correctly, it is unbreakable.

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Speaker 1: The correctly. By correctly we mean you you have truly

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Speaker 1: random string for your key, you do not repeat the key,

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Speaker 1: and you do not let the key fall into the

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Speaker 1: wrong hands. As long as that happens, it is unbreakable.

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Speaker 1: So it's kind of like when we talked about the

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Speaker 1: the the various ways of ciphering. You know, there always

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Speaker 1: seems to be some way to crack the code. In

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Speaker 1: this case, unless you have physical possession of the pad

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Speaker 1: or if someone uses a key that repeats, it's just

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Speaker 1: not practical. So that's that's the basis for the secret messages.

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Speaker 1: Um what those secret messages are. We can't say, because again,

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Speaker 1: unless someone gets hold of one of those pads, then

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Speaker 1: it is it's just meaningless numbers. I mean, you could

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Speaker 1: convert those two letters, but all that's going to do

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Speaker 1: is give you the product of those those two like

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Speaker 1: the original message and the key. Without having the key,

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Speaker 1: you can't figure out what the original messages. We've got

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Speaker 1: a little bit more to count on, but before we

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Speaker 1: get there, we're gonna take another quick break to thank

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Speaker 1: our sponsor. Now, UM, it is likely to that the well,

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Speaker 1: we talked about that in the Enigma machine, how the

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Speaker 1: German codes during World War Two were broken down into

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Speaker 1: those UM five letter combinations UM as an added layer

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Speaker 1: of security. These these combinations stand in for other words too,

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Speaker 1: So it is possible that you know, even if you

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Speaker 1: did break the code, you would also have to have

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Speaker 1: the book that explains what these these letter combinations mean.

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Speaker 1: But UM still would never Well, that's what I'm saying

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Speaker 1: if if you for some reason, if you maybe right,

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Speaker 1: or if they use a repeating key, because if they

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Speaker 1: use a repeating key, then it would take a lot

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Speaker 1: of animal you would have to analyze the heck out

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Speaker 1: of the message. But you could potentially start detecting patterns. Well,

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Speaker 1: that's what broke the enigma exactly, because they were they

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Speaker 1: got lazy, lazy, and they started using repeating keys as

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Speaker 1: opposed to using a key that just doesn't repeat, which

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Speaker 1: would have been impossible to crack. So it's just an

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Speaker 1: added layer of uh security. That's that just makes it

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Speaker 1: much more difficult. So they do these repetitions over and

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Speaker 1: over again. Um and it's uh. The thing is, the

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Speaker 1: the tone and the style of the broadcasts is really

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Speaker 1: really creepy, especially when you add that spy layer in

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Speaker 1: your head to it. You start going, this message is

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Speaker 1: not intended for me, and and somebody could be doing something.

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Speaker 1: You know, I could be listening, well, this is what

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Speaker 1: I think, you know, I'm you know, listening to it.

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Speaker 1: Going I could be listening to a message that tells

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Speaker 1: somebody to kill somebody else, right, this could be a

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Speaker 1: message saying to like And then think about this. You

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Speaker 1: hear those messages and then maybe a week later, you

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Speaker 1: hear about some massive political event that takes place in

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Speaker 1: the country, and you think, is there any connection to

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Speaker 1: what I heard? And what just happened is what I

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Speaker 1: heard was that was that ah essentially a prediction for

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Speaker 1: what actually unfolded, and yeah, it's it's kind of I mean,

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Speaker 1: it is definitely creepy. And there are a lot of

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Speaker 1: really cool names for these various broadcasts, some of which

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Speaker 1: are named after the music that they use. Yeah, and again, um,

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Speaker 1: in some cases you could kind of some of them,

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Speaker 1: the station's sort of semi identify themselves, and others I

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Speaker 1: think are given sort of like the stars, you know,

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Speaker 1: or viruses. They're given the names of their discoverers want

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Speaker 1: to name them. Yeah, so there's um, there's One of

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Speaker 1: the famous ones is the Lincolnshire Poacher. Yeah, which was

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Speaker 1: was featured not too long ago as of the recording

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Speaker 1: of this podcast. On another podcast called The Skeptics Guide

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Speaker 1: to the Universe, they have a little feature where it's

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Speaker 1: called Who's that Noisy? And they which which is named

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Speaker 1: after one of the one of the hosts has a

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Speaker 1: daughter who would say who's that noisy? As in what's

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Speaker 1: making that noise? Right? So anyway, Who's that Noisy is

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Speaker 1: the name of the segment where they'll play a sound

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Speaker 1: file and it's the listeners job to try and figure

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Speaker 1: out what that sound file is, and they play the

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Speaker 1: little musical, Uh, prelude that would happen before the numbers

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Speaker 1: broadcast on the number station Lincolnshire poacher do do do

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Speaker 1: Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do do do

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Speaker 1: doo And it's really creepy when you hear it over

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Speaker 1: and over again. Um And anyway, that particular broadcast has

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Speaker 1: been linked to Cyprus, to the Royal Air Force based

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Speaker 1: on Cyprus, and is believed, though there's no proof because

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Speaker 1: there's no one actually coming out and saying this is true,

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Speaker 1: that it was operated by the British Secret Intelligence Service

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Speaker 1: out of Cyprus. Now that particular station is no longer active.

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Speaker 1: I think it stopped broadcasting in neither two or two

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Speaker 1: thousand nine. But there are a few others that also

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Speaker 1: were pretty famous. Cherry Ripe, there's a song Cherry Ripe,

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Speaker 1: another British folk song which was a station somewhere in

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Speaker 1: Australia or Australia if you prefer. There's Swedish Rhapsody, which

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Speaker 1: is possibly the freepious thing I have ever heard in

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Speaker 1: my life, which is a there's a glockenspield that's playing

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Speaker 1: and a ace. The voice is clearly that of a

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Speaker 1: female child reading out numbers in Germany and you just

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Speaker 1: hear this Glockenspield play and then this little girl reading

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Speaker 1: out numbers in German, and it is you can't help

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Speaker 1: but feel a deep sense of foreboding. But then there's

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Speaker 1: also other ones called like the Mad Violinist and the

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Speaker 1: Boardman because apparently it's just for two seven eight that

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Speaker 1: that's kind of how I would be, Like like day one,

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Speaker 1: I'd be all creepy, and day two I'd be you know,

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Speaker 1: less creepy, and day three I just be like three six,

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Speaker 1: What am I gonna have for dinner tonight? For I

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Speaker 1: gotta pick up the dry leading to read the message

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Speaker 1: you're not getting anything for dinner. Um, yeah, there are

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Speaker 1: there are a number of places number UM where you

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Speaker 1: can if you don't happen to have a short wave radio,

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Speaker 1: where you can pick up on these. Um the Internet

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Speaker 1: archive of course, which collects all sorts of strange and

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Speaker 1: esoteric things. UM. There are many many recordings that you

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Speaker 1: can listen to on there. And actually the first place

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Speaker 1: that I encountered these was in an article in Wired magazine,

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Speaker 1: which I went back and revisited UM for for this,

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Speaker 1: and they were categorizing this Russian station UVB seventy six,

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Speaker 1: which had been broadcasting essentially the same thing for many,

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Speaker 1: many years until one day it stopped and then started again,

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Speaker 1: and then stopped again, and then you could hear so

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Speaker 1: it sounded like somebody in the room with the microphone, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, just you know, too creepy stuffling stuff and

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Speaker 1: banging around. And then it started broadcasting something else, and

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Speaker 1: and they changed the call numbers at the station to

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Speaker 1: something entirely different. It makes me wonder if the guy

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Speaker 1: was just asking for toilet paper and it finally arrived,

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Speaker 1: he's like, now blue jeans, blue ge Well you can

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Speaker 1: you can still listen to this at UVB dash seven

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Speaker 1: six dot net and you can go and visit that

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Speaker 1: website and they will tell you. The enthusiasts who keep

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Speaker 1: track of these things will will share information about the

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Speaker 1: station and what it changed too, but very very weird stuff. Well,

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Speaker 1: I think is funny is that a lot of the

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Speaker 1: people who are following numbers stations, who really have a

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Speaker 1: passion for listening to them and finding them on on

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Speaker 1: shortwave radio, they don't want to have the mystery solved

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Speaker 1: because it would mean their hobby would be over. Well,

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Speaker 1: I mean it even um and formation about this. This

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Speaker 1: is kind of something that is operated for so many years. Uh,

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Speaker 1: if you will pardon the radio punt under the radar.

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00:22:08,280 --> 00:22:10,479
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's not something that the general public

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Speaker 1: knew anything about up until the last handful of years,

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00:22:14,960 --> 00:22:16,800
Speaker 1: which is kind of ironic considering it was going on

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Speaker 1: through the Cold War and before that, and and and

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Speaker 1: now after most of it has stopped anyhow. Uh. It

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Speaker 1: even made an appearance in an episode of Lost. I understand.

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Speaker 1: I never was really much of a fan of the show,

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Speaker 1: but I think it's cool that they put that into

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00:22:32,520 --> 00:22:36,840
Speaker 1: the show's UM storyline, that there was a number station

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Speaker 1: involved with uh, with the plot line UM, and of

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Speaker 1: course that was about codes and code breaking and creepiness

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00:22:44,400 --> 00:22:49,040
Speaker 1: and all sorts of stuff, so it fit right in. UM.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean it's it's fascinating. But the people

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Speaker 1: who watched Lost, you know, wanted the mystery to unravel

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Speaker 1: over time. They didn't want it solved immediately. And I

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Speaker 1: think for for the people who followed they these number stations,

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Speaker 1: it's the same kind of thing. They don't and you

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Speaker 1: kind of want to know. But then I don't know,

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Speaker 1: if you've ever read a book where you didn't want

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Speaker 1: the story to end, and you just stopped reading because

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00:23:15,480 --> 00:23:17,520
Speaker 1: you just enjoyed the fact that it was still going on,

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00:23:17,560 --> 00:23:19,320
Speaker 1: and you didn't really want to know quite what was

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00:23:19,359 --> 00:23:21,359
Speaker 1: going on, although you knew it had an end and

380
00:23:21,480 --> 00:23:24,960
Speaker 1: somebody was behind it. I don't want to know, So

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00:23:25,320 --> 00:23:29,000
Speaker 1: I've done that many times, or slowed very very slow

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00:23:30,200 --> 00:23:33,439
Speaker 1: way down, you know, um, because you don't want to

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Speaker 1: find out, because then you know your fun ends. So

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Speaker 1: I don't know very interesting stuff. Jonathan has been researching

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Speaker 1: something as we're talking, and he's got this mysterious look

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Speaker 1: on his face. Yeah. Yeah, no, creepy, I'm saying it

387
00:23:52,200 --> 00:23:58,080
Speaker 1: is creepy. Uh yeah, I mean these are These are

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Speaker 1: definitely one of those things that I hope stick around

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00:24:02,720 --> 00:24:06,400
Speaker 1: just for the sake of perpetuating this kind of air

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00:24:06,440 --> 00:24:09,000
Speaker 1: of mystery, because you think about it, you're like, Okay,

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00:24:09,040 --> 00:24:11,240
Speaker 1: first of all, let me get this clear. Our world

392
00:24:11,320 --> 00:24:15,040
Speaker 1: is amazing and the universe is astounding. But even so,

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00:24:15,160 --> 00:24:17,240
Speaker 1: there are days where you feel like you're living in

394
00:24:17,280 --> 00:24:20,640
Speaker 1: a pretty mundane kind of existence, and then you find

395
00:24:20,680 --> 00:24:23,720
Speaker 1: out about number stations and you're like, there's a whole

396
00:24:23,800 --> 00:24:27,760
Speaker 1: level operating just under the surface that I've always suspected

397
00:24:27,840 --> 00:24:31,000
Speaker 1: but never really proven, and now I know there's something

398
00:24:31,080 --> 00:24:34,000
Speaker 1: to it. Then you're like, hey, our world is amazing again.

399
00:24:34,400 --> 00:24:36,440
Speaker 1: By the way, our world is amazing, whether there's number

400
00:24:36,480 --> 00:24:38,439
Speaker 1: stations or not. It's just that occasionally we have to

401
00:24:38,440 --> 00:24:43,880
Speaker 1: be reminded of it. Puppies boom. Alright, so shout out

402
00:24:43,880 --> 00:24:47,639
Speaker 1: to the parent company. Uh, guys, that kind of wraps

403
00:24:47,720 --> 00:24:49,640
Speaker 1: up our discussion on number stations. I wish we could

404
00:24:49,640 --> 00:24:52,600
Speaker 1: tell you more, but frankly, there's just nothing official. We

405
00:24:52,720 --> 00:24:55,080
Speaker 1: can't you know, we we can speculate all we like,

406
00:24:55,680 --> 00:24:58,719
Speaker 1: but we can't really, uh say for sure. Now, I

407
00:24:58,720 --> 00:25:01,560
Speaker 1: think I think it's fair, really safe to say that

408
00:25:01,680 --> 00:25:05,840
Speaker 1: if these are encoded messages, which I can't imagine them

409
00:25:05,880 --> 00:25:09,120
Speaker 1: being anything else, I think it's improbable that they're not. Yeah,

410
00:25:09,600 --> 00:25:11,760
Speaker 1: it's hard to it's hard to come up with a

411
00:25:11,760 --> 00:25:14,280
Speaker 1: set of circumstances where sus a string of numbers isn't

412
00:25:14,320 --> 00:25:17,840
Speaker 1: meaningful in any other way that if they are encoded messages,

413
00:25:17,920 --> 00:25:23,159
Speaker 1: that this is some form of espionage. I mean, at

414
00:25:23,200 --> 00:25:27,240
Speaker 1: least some form of secret communication. And it's one way.

415
00:25:27,320 --> 00:25:29,520
Speaker 1: I mean, these are broadcasts that are going out. It's

416
00:25:29,560 --> 00:25:32,760
Speaker 1: not that we're receiving answers from from another one. It's

417
00:25:32,760 --> 00:25:36,000
Speaker 1: also I mean, they're they're regular, they're they're broadcast usually

418
00:25:36,000 --> 00:25:38,640
Speaker 1: at regular intervals, like on the hour or on every

419
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Speaker 1: quarter hour or whatever. So you know, I think it's

420
00:25:42,280 --> 00:25:45,320
Speaker 1: pretty safe to say these are some form of of

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00:25:45,560 --> 00:25:52,200
Speaker 1: espionage communication. And that wraps up our episode about number stations. Boy,

422
00:25:52,359 --> 00:25:57,879
Speaker 1: those things are super interesting and creepy. And if you

423
00:25:58,440 --> 00:26:01,600
Speaker 1: ever really want to go down rabbit hole, do a

424
00:26:01,760 --> 00:26:04,920
Speaker 1: search for number stations. There are lots of recordings out there,

425
00:26:05,320 --> 00:26:08,199
Speaker 1: and they all are pretty unsettling. It's kind of like

426
00:26:08,280 --> 00:26:12,119
Speaker 1: the stuff you would hear in a Blumhouse horror movie,

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00:26:12,640 --> 00:26:14,800
Speaker 1: So make sure you go and check those out if

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Speaker 1: you haven't before. Meanwhile, if you have any suggestions for

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Speaker 1: future episodes of tech Stuff, send me a message. The

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Speaker 1: to our website that's tech Stuff podcast dot com. That's

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Speaker 1: gonna have links to our social media as well as

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Speaker 1: our archived episodes, and of course to our online store,

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Speaker 1: and every purchase you make there goes to help the show.

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Speaker 1: We greatly appreciate it, and I'll talk to you again.

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Speaker 1: Release it for more on this and thousands of other

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Speaker 1: topics because it how stuff works. Dot Com three