crackerwax

I recently stumbled upon an article in the Wikipedia about number stations and it reminded just how freaky they were.

Have a listen to this, it’s one of the most famous. It’s called Lincolnshire Poacher because that’s what the tune at the start is. Stick with it, it takes a couple of minutes for the numbers to start.

How mad is that?

The numbers are broadcast on shortwave frequencies, meaning they can travel all around the world. What’s more some people claim that they were being broadcast as early as World War I. Making them pretty old.

There are a few rumours floating around about what they are used for, some of which are more than a little bizarre, but the best reason and the one that feels right is that they are used as means of communicating with secret agents out in the field. This theory seems even more believable considering that the recording above has allegedly been traced to RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus.

Of course Occam’s razor holds no sway on the interwebs as others claim that they are secret messages from UFOs. Nutters.

The more sane suggest they’re encoded messages used by drug dealers to alert each other of impending shipments which, I suppose, is possible. It’s certainly more likely than fucking UFOs.

The messages themselves are most likely decoded by use of a one-time pad, which is just a fancy version of the thing you used to do as a kid where you shifted al the letters of the alphabet around and assigend them numbers. This technique is pretty simple and efficient, what’s more if done right it is totally unbreakable.

Just makes you wonder what sort of messages are being transmitted though, who lives and dies because of these messages? What Governments fall because a posh bird spouts out a load of digits?