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From time to time this subject will crop up on UFO sites and forums and, while not related to UFOs, it’s still mainly an enigma. It’s also another of those strange things that fascinates me, so I thought I’d write about it.
I first became aware of these stations when I lived in Andorra and was tuning my radio to try and pick up the BBC World Service. And, I feel I should mention here I am not the lady mentioned in some of the Google reports that you may come across.
It has been suggested that some of these Numbers Stations have been in operation since World War I, although in the 1950s Time Magazine stated that they began just after World War II. They added that the transmissions were in a format used for sending weather data during WWII.
So what are they? The answer is that they are shortwave radio stations whose origin is indeterminate. Their broadcasts usually contain artificially produced voices, mostly female, reading streams of numbers. Occasionally there are words, letters, tunes, and Morse code, and they come in a diversity of languages. The supposition is that these broadcasts are used to convey communications to spies, embassies, and the military. However, no government has ever admitted to being behind them. But, a story in 1998, from The Daily Telegraph newspaper cited a representative from the Department of Trade and Industry, (who regulated radio broadcasting at that time), as saying: “These [numbers stations] are what you suppose they are. People shouldn't be mystified by them. They are not for, shall we say, public consumption.” Another official, the Federal Communications Commission's assistant chief of the enforcement bureau in the USA stated, during a radio show, back in 2000 that: “We don't intend to discuss these stations, if any exist at all. And I'm not saying there are, [even] if your scientists say there are [stations] that are transmitting in this country. We know of innumerable ones outside of this country...”
Also, two QSL receipts were obtained by people who had been in touch with one such station to say that they’d heard their broadcast on shortwave radio. Such an acknowledgment response is not what would be expected from a secret station. (For those of you who, like me, don’t know what a QSL is then here’s a short explanation: QSL - to acknowledge receipt. Commonly used to indicate "I understand", "I copied your transmission (or report) all OK". Also used as a term for sending cards by mail to confirm a two way contact with a station, such as QSL via the bureau.)
It is widely believed that these Numbers Stations are secret government broadcasters due to the fact that it costs a great deal to set up and run such a station; as well as very high amounts of electricity, possibly up to 500,000 watts. And with shortwave radio’s almost global reach it is a very good way to send messages. Most of these are sent in the frequency range between 2 and 25 MHz, although shortwave radio itself occupies between 3 and 30 MHz.
It is more than likely that some Numbers Stations originate within Consulates and Embassies. International Law gives them the right to maintain radio capabilities in order to keep in contact with their home country, and so it is possible that some of these frequencies are used as Numbers Stations. Apart from this possibility it has also been proposed by some people that these stations, especially those located in Central and South America, might be transmitting delivery directives to drug traffickers.
The broadcast format of Numbers Stations are basically the same. They normally begin transmission on either the hour or the half-hour, and the introduction includes an identifier that is either for the station or the person for whom the message is intended. This identifier is where so many of the stations get their nicknames from. The identifier might, for example, be a numeric code name, a piece of music. It can also indicate the type or importance of the message to come, and how many number groups the message will contain. More often than not, the identifier is repeated several times before the communication starts.
The number groups themselves are either four or five digits long and may be repeated either by restating the whole message, or by restating each group twice. Some stations deliver more than one message during a broadcast, in which case the above description is repeated but with different content.
Some stations send messages using groups of five letters from the International Phonetic Alphabet, which is not to be confused with the NATO Phonetic Alphabet, normally used for messages such as those sent by the emergency services. They can regularly be heard sending the same group of letters for hours on end before they send a message itself. A great many people believe that such stations come from Israel’s Mossad, and that the stations operate from Israeli Embassies.
At the end of the transmission the station will sign-off in specific way. Typically this will just be the word End, or maybe some music, although some stations, especially those in the former USSR will use a series of zeros.
Due to their secrecy it is presumed that the recipients of the messages sent from most Numbers Stations use a one-time pad. This would make the number groups impossible to tell separately from arbitrarily produced numbers or digits.
The way in which a one-time-pad works is that it has columns of numbers that appear to be random. The numbers that are heard in a message are then added or subtracted from the numbers in those columns, and the outcome is compared to a master code key. Then, every block of numbers can be read as a complete word or phrase. The pads can be as small as postage stamps, or they might be contained on microfilm.
Another decoding system is where three/two groups of numbers are used in conjunction with a given book. Here, the first three numbers give the page number, and the last two digits show the position of the word on that page.
Because these Numbers Stations are not licenced it’s very hard to tell where they’re broadcasting from. And this type of shortwave transmission is frequently the safest way of sending messages to spies. Such a broadcast can be sent across many thousands of miles. Whereas, if you used a computer it would leave a trace as it’s far harder to totally erase a computer memory than many people believe. Simply deleting and emptying the recycle bin won’t do the job. Also, telephone, Internet, and satellite transmissions can be watched – I’m sure that many of you reading this have heard of ECHELON. With the shortwave radio transmission all you need is a pen and paper to decode it. Spy radio broadcasts use a system of transmission that is in an unbreakable encryption, i.e. the one-time-pad. The encryption key is random; it changes each time, so it’s impossible to get any handle on how to decode it if you use that one-time-pad method.
Some Numbers Stations have come to be known by the identification used before the number groups are broadcast. The ENIGMA Group, which monitors Numbers Stations, gave a letter code to each station to indicate what language is being broadcast. So here is a list of some of the languages:
E = English
G = German
M = Morse Code
S = Slavic
T = an unknown language
V = all other languages
X = other types of broadcast, plus some transmissions that are unsolved and may not be Numbers Stations. Where they are proved not to be Numbers Stations they have their designation removed.
While there are, of course, many other stations, here are some of the most well-known:
The now defunct Lincolnshire Poacher began its transmissions by playing the first two bars of the old English folk song called The Lincolnshire Poacher before each number group. It was a station that is believed to have belonged to the UK Secret Intelligence Service, and was tracked to RAF Akrotiri on the island of Cyprus. The actual message was sent in an electronic female voice, with an English accent, stating number groups of five figures. The station went off the air in 2008, but its sister station, Cherry Ripe, is still transmitting.
The Cherry Ripe station takes its nickname from another old English folk song called, of course, Cherry Ripe, and it may be broadcasting from the Northern Territory in Australia, especially as it seems to be aimed at Asian countries. It is believed that it formerly broadcast from Guam, and is probably sending messages to agents who, as was the case with the Lincolnshire Poacher, use one-time pads to decode them.
Atención is a Numbers Station broadcasting in a female Spanish voice. It’s nickname comes from the fact that the word Atención, followed by the numbers 11111 22222 33333, repeat for three minutes before the message. After sending a five digit group of numbers, in what is often a long message, the station ends with the word Finale, again repeated three times. It is believed to come from Cuba, but it is renowned for its incompetence. At one time music from radio Havana could be heard in the background, and broadcast tapes are frequently broken, or suddenly rewound. It has also been known to have voices speaking in the background, and for telephones to be heard being replaced after a call.
The Spanish Lady is another station that probably comes from the Cuban Intelligence agency. Both it, and Atención, have been heard for forty years. It doesn’t usually broadcast for more than fifteen minutes at a time, and the messages normally have only thirty to fifty five-figure digit groups.
Yosemite Sam only started transmitting in 2004, and has been traced to somewhere near Albuquerque, New Mexico. This location is near many military installations, including the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the White Sands Missile Range, so it could well be a government station. It gained its nickname due to its playing of a line from the 1949 Looney Tunes character. It broadcasts a data burst that lasts for 0.8 seconds, followed by the Yosemite Sam voice line, then 10 seconds later it is repeated on the next highest frequency. This always starts at 7 seconds past the hour and lasts for exactly two minutes.
Other station nicknames include: Bulgarian Betty, Czech Drums And Trumpets, Magnetic Fields, Papa November, Swedish Rhapsody, The Skylark, The Russian Man and The Russian Woman.
Many stations have now disappeared, and here are three of them:
E10 Mossad which, after forty-five years of being a well-known Israeli Mossad Numbers Station, stopped broadcasting. It has not been heard since March 2011.
The G3 Stasi Gong Station, named because of its use of clock chimes, disappeared in May 1990.
One of the most infamous Numbers Stations was the Russian Woodpecker, which broadcast between 1976 and 1989. Its nickname came from the fact that it sounded like a woodpecker with its sharp, repetitive, drumming noise. It interfered with many legitimate broadcasts and gave rise to thousands of complaints worldwide. After the end of the old Soviet Union it was verified that what had long been thought was true: it was an over-the-horizon radar, part of the Russian early-warning system.
However, the Numbers Station that has been causing the most stir recently is UVB-76, nicknamed The Buzzer. This station emits a continuous buzz all day every day, and is broadcast from Moscow. Many theories have arisen as to its purpose, including: it keeps the frequency alive so that someone else doesn’t get hold of it; the frequency might be necessary for use in times of national emergency; it belongs to a private company that may need to use it; perhaps it’s used to help monitor radioisotope thermoelectric powered lighthouses; it’s related to the Dead Hand system that would automatically retaliate in the case of a nuclear attack. As might be expected, this last idea seems to be the one that has gained the most traction, especially amongst conspiracy theorists.
Whatever its use, it has been transmitting since 1982, and has only been disrupted three times. The first was Christmas Eve 1997, when it suddenly stopped and was replaced with a short series of beeps, followed by a male voice repeating a message. Secondly, in September 2002, when a voice was heard. And thirdly in February 2006, when another voice message was sent.
But recently its output suddenly changed, and increased radically. In August 2010 a Russian voice was heard, followed some days later by a more distinct voice reading out a message twice. It then went back to its usual output. However, since that time other, unclear, voices have been heard over the buzzing. Also heard have been beeps and pulses and even Morse code, and sounds as though things were being moved around within the room. Belief has it that the site has an open mike that probably hears sounds made by the technicians who work there.
Voice messages from The Buzzer are extremely rare, or at least they were until August 2010. As with so many of the other Numbers Stations their use has never been confirmed by governments, but a previous Minister of Communications and Informatics of the Republic of Lithuania has stated that the function of voice messages is to check that the technicians are alert!
In view of what the Russian Woodpecker station was used for, it has also been theorized that The Buzzer is used to test a high-frequency Doppler method for ionosphere research. In this system radio waves are bounced back to earth and the method involves comparing the continuous radio transmission reflected by the ionosphere with a stable basic generator. This continuous carrier frequency matches that of The Buzzer.
The evidence from court cases shows some of the truth about these stations, and that evidence seems to put Numbers Stations firmly in the realm of the spy area. It would seem to disprove other theories, some of which I’ve already mentioned in this article.
Numerous people have been apprehended with shortwave radios and one-time-pads in their possession. Thus, many countries have charged people with spying, and here are some of the cases in which shortwave radio and Numbers Stations have been cited in relation to those who have been accused:
1962 – USSR: A Soviet Colonel was detained and charged with spying after some one-time-pads were found at his home, together with a shortwave radio and instructions on how to use these items.
1988 – UK: Special Branch arrested a Czech spy, an officer in the old State Security Police of Czechoslovakia, who was operating under a false name. He was detained at his home while in the process of listening to a numbers message. One-time-pads were also discovered, and these enabled Special Branch to decode them for use in court. The man was given ten years in prison.
1998 - USA: The Atención Numbers Station in Cuba was the first of its kind to be officially accused of broadcasting to spies. It was cited in a US federal court during the trial of the Wasp Network of Cuban spies.
2001 - USA: The Cuban Five were put on trial. They were a group accused of receiving and decoding messages from a Cuban Numbers Station.
2001 - USA: A high-ranking US Defence Intelligence Agency analyst was accused of using encrypted messages to get instructions from Cuba.
2006 - USA: A couple were charged with spying in Florida. They were accused of using a shortwave radio to pass information to Cuba.
2009 - USA: A person was charged with spying for Cuba by using a Cuban Numbers Station.
One unanswered question about the Numbers Stations is why they have proved so hard to jam. One reason may be that there only a limited number of jamming transmitters available at any one time, and so it is probably preferable to block a broadcast that can be heard by many listeners than to block one single message. Plus, as these stations have no permanent frequency or broadcasting timetable they might go unnoticed. Nevertheless there are examples of jamming have been achieved:
The Lincolnshire Poacher was targeted in the early 1990s, although the attempt wasn’t very successful. Also, North Korea’s foreign language station, Voice of Korea, started to transmit on the Lincolnshire Poacher’s previous frequency in an effort to disrupt it. However, it would appear they had the wrong station as the Lincolnshire Poacher’s signal came from Cyprus, in the Middle East, and the Far East was covered by the Cherry Ripe station.
E5, a CIA station nicknamed Cynthia, was also targeted, and again not successfully.
E10 Mossad station, EZI, was jammed on one of its frequencies, whilst the other frequency remained clear.
E10 YHF has been jammed by a Chinese Music Station that became known as the Chinese Fire Dragon Jammer. It was allegedly located as coming from Hainan Island in the Gulf of Tonkin, China.
The West German Federal Intelligence Service, whose call-sign was Hotel Kilo, at one time broadcast on the same frequency as Radio Moscow.
WYFR, a religious station in Florida, is repeatedly disturbed by a Cuban Spanish Numbers Station.
Of course, there were far more Numbers Stations during the Cold War period than there are today. Many of them were situated in the old Eastern Bloc countries, such as China and Cuba, as well as Russia; but there were also some to be found in the Western World. Following the fall of the Berlin Wall the amount of stations in Bulgaria, East and West Germany, Hungary, and Yugoslavia dwindled exponentially. The majority of those stations transmitted in German or Russian.
Even today there are active stations in Europe, North and South America, and the prior USSR. In fact new stations continue to emerge right around the world. Of those that remain some will transmit every day for a short while and then vanish after a limited number of days or weeks. Others will only transmit irregularly and then vanish over time.
There is also another type of radio broadcast that is unknown. It comes in the form of a single repeating Morse code letter. These are known as Letter Beacons and are frequently given the following designations:
Cluster Beacons
MX: a term coined by The ENIGMA Group
SLB: Single Letter Beacons
SLHFB: Single Letter High Frequency Beacons
SLHFM: Single Letter High Frequency Markers
Although these Letter Beacon stations were first thought to have been discovered in the 1960s it wasn’t until 1978 that amateur radio enthusiasts came across them. Then, in 1986 it is believed that the Federal Communications Commission announced a list of Single Letter Beacons that placed them within the USSR. The list was as follows:
C: Moscow (Russia)
D: Odessa (Ukraine)
O: Moscow (Russia)
P: Kaliningrad (Russia)
S: Archangel (Russia)
U: Somewhere between Murmansk and Amderma (Russia)
Z: Mukachevo (Ukraine)
Since that time other Letter Beacons have been added:
A: Astrakhan (Russia)
D: Sevastopol (Ukraine)
F: Vladivostok (Russia)
K: Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky (Russia)
L: Tirana (Albania)
M: Magadan (Russia)
R: Izhevsk (Russia)
S: Severomorsk (Russia)
V: Khiva (Uzbekistan)
Letter Beacons tend to only transmit as either Cluster Beacons or Channel Markers. And, as with the Numbers Stations, their purpose remains unidentified. However, some ideas have been suggested, amongst which are: Radio broadcast beacons used to track satellites, or for civil defence use. Some have been connected to deliberate radio blocking. The ENIGMA Group believe that the Cluster Beacons are in use by the Russian Navy, with particular reference to submarines. They might also be used to carry Russian Naval flash priority Morse code communications.
If you’ve never had the opportunity to hear any of these mysterious transmissions then The Conet Project is a set of four CDs containing recordings of Shortwave Numbers Stations. The set was released in 1997 and you can read more about them here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Conet_Project
By sheer coincidence, there was an article about the Numbers Stations in the wired.com magazine. It was entitled Inside the Russian Short Wave Radio Enigma, and was published on 27th September, 2011. If it’s still on-line you can read it here:
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/09/ff_uvb76/all/1
You may think that this is what gave me the idea to also address the subject, but my research into it for this article was begun over six months ago.
And, to return to the lady from Andorra who complained to the BBC World Service, (that I mentioned at the beginning of this article), she was told that her complaint had been taken to the experts at the World Service HQ. Their reply was that the voice who had interrupted her listening had been reading out the snowfall figures for the ski-slopes near her home. This excuse is very much in doubt as it would have been illegal to broadcast on an already used frequency. So it seems that what she heard was, in fact, a Numbers Station.
Finally, if you’d like to delve deeper into this subject, there is a website that contains more than you’ll ever want to know, and definitely more than you’ll ever have time to read, watch, or listen to - fascinating.
http://www.simonmason.karoo.net/page30.html
The site belongs to Simon Mason, a British Chemist and radio enthusiast, who also made many of his original recordings available to the The Conet Project.
Obviously, I’m not a lawyer, but in the UK it may be illegal to listen to such stations. This government site gives details of the law as it currently stands:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/36/section/48
“Wireless Telegraphy Act 2006
Misuse of wireless telegraphy Section 48
Interception and disclosure of messages”
So, before you go tuning into a mysterious numbers station I suggest you check it out, and see what you think this law is saying. However, many people in the UK agree that listening is illegal, but not because what you’re listening to is a numbers station. The reason is that it’s illegal to listen to any station that you’re not authorized to hear. Although, it’s very unlikely that an ordinary listener who isn’t involved in misusing the airwaves would ever be arrested.
This is a subject that, I’m sure, will continue to intrigue people, but it remains one that is little known outside the amateur radio community.