Spies or UFOs? You Decide.

One day, Dinosaur Comics reminded us that Numbers Stations exist, and and I realized we needed some. So I sought out The Conet Project, a free source of mp3 recordings of shortwave numbers station transmissions, downloaded about a hundred or so, ripped 'em to CD, and now here we are, listening to them all and cackling with nerdish delight.

If you don't know what numbers stations are, or want a more detailed history than the Wikipedia article gives you, you might want to check out this NPR article, or, to get the gist:

Numbers stations are shortwave radio stations of uncertain origin. They generally broadcast people reading streams of numbers, words, or letters (sometimes using a phonetic alphabet). The voices that can be heard on these stations are often mysterious: mechanically generated; spoken in a wide variety of languages; usually female, but sometimes male or those of children.

Evidence supports popular assumptions that the broadcasts are channels of communication used to send messages to spies. This has not been publicly acknowledged by any government that may operate a numbers station, but in one case, numbers station espionage has been publicly prosecuted by a foreign court.

This track here is a good introduction to what it's all about. Another favorite we have is one titled 'High Pitch Polytone', but which we here like to refer to as Oh My God This is Fucking Awesome. Another one I really like is something I call Frantic Computer Beeping Followed by Vaguely Desperate-Sounding Woman.

The Conet Project
Disc 1
Disc 2
Disc 3
Disc 4