The spooky world of the ‘numbers stations’

Short form for you young ‘uns out there: during the Cold War, there were these shortwave radio stations around the globe that featured people rattling off long strings of numbers. Anyone with a proper radio could pick up these broadcasts and jot down the numbers, but the codes that the numbers were apparently “written” in were unbreakable. They were probably “book codes,” where the numbers refer to, say, the page of a book and the number of a word on that page… for instance “fourteen seven” might mean page fourteen, seventh word on the page. Without knowing the book, you’ll almost certainly never crack the code. It’s a good way to transmit information to agents in the field… slow compared to email and the like. but more than adequate for messages like “Kill target XYZ tomorrow afternoon” or “drink more Ovaltine.”

It seems that these sort of stations are still running. Woo. The Cold War continues…

If you want to hear some good ol’ numbers stations, this site will set you up:

The Conet Project – Recordings of Shortwave Numbers Stations

Damned if they ain’t creepy.