Okay, remember what I said yesterday? Disclaimer time: This is a REALLY esoteric topic, I think. I shall present it without fear and without remorse, but I feel it is only fair to warn you in advance. Enough said.

I first heard about numbers stations from reading Big Secrets by William Poundstone, lo these many years ago, and they creeped the hell out of me.

I go back to Poundstone's three "secrets" books now and again, because they are good books. If they were sensationalist, I might not; I have a limited taste for that. But Poundstone is a true debunker, and therefore his mission is anti-sensationalist. He wants to teach you how to see through these things for yourself; he wants to get you to think. (Further evidence: He has also written a book on logical paradoxes, called Labyrinths of Reason. It's good too.)

The numbers stations, though, are the closest Poundstone ever comes to sensationalism. They are one of the few UNSOLVED mysteries in his books. Perhaps that's why even years later, reading that particular chapter alone in a room after midnight, I generally needed to look around frantically to reassure myself that no one was lurking in the shadows of the room or watching through the window.

This week, Francis unexpectedly sent me some URLs having to do with numbers stations, and I finally gave the subject a closer look.

But before I cover that, a word or two about Francis. Though he's many things, the germane part here is that he is one of the two people with the weirdest musical tastes I know. And, given that my CD player in the office currently contains a disc of jazz timpani and a disc of 1940's novelty tunes, I suppose that's saying something. The only other person I've ever met who comes anywhere near Francis in outer-space musical tastes is our old pal Bill Coderre, the man who introduced me to surfpunk as a genre.

These are the two people - and the only two people - I think of when I look at Other Music's site and wonder, "Who in heaven's name actually buys this stuff?" Other Music is a store in NYC (that recently tried, and failed, to open a branch in Boston. No surprise. I really can't see it existing anywhere but NYC and SF). They are the most aptly named store in existence. This is music that so thoroughly defies genre that I have no idea how you browse their web site. In fact, often it is so far off the beaten path that the "music" part of the name becomes less apropos than the "other."

Numbers stations have fascinated several recording artists over the years (the kind who like to work random sounds and such into their music) - Wilco has an unreleased CD, partially inspired by numbers stations, which is becoming sort-of notorious for its unreleasedness. (You can read about it somewhere in the middle of this page from the Onion AV Club. By the by, this is the only 2001 record list I've seen that contains things I own (Vespertine), or would consider owning (Mass Romantic, White Blood Cells, The Convincer - I won't buy Amnesiac, because Kid A was no OK Computer), so use that as a gauge of MY off-beat-ness.

(Whoops! In checking to make sure that the Other Music URL above was OK, I find that Yankee Hotel Foxtrot has actually been released. All right, strike the Wilco comment. Now where did I put that credit card ...?)

Anyhow, I assume that it was music - either the Wilco CD, or the CONET discs (about which more in a moment), or something like that - which led Francis to send me down this path. (That, and probably some conversations with Rose, who remembers my being creeped out by numbers stations because she was too.)

Now, what the hell are numbers stations?

Numbers stations are shortwave radio broadcasts. They are not really "stations" in any normal sense; they have no genuine call signs, they do not broadcast on set frequencies, and generally not at set times. They only stay "on the air" long enough to do their thing and then they vanish. They are generally thought to be coded messages for the various fine intelligence operatives currently circulating all over the globe in the interests of their various nations. Ahem.

Of course, it's all speculation because no government has ever admitted having anything to do with them, and shortwave, unlike other kinds of radio, has the ability to bounce around the upper atmosphere - making the locations of transmitters difficult to pinpoint. Nonetheless, a lot of people have been collecting a lot of these signals over the years, and evidence does accumulate. Slowly. At least one transmission station has definitely been identified, and others are pretty sure bets. (And, yes, some of these signals do originate from the United States.)

The reason they're called numbers stations is that the basic format consists of a voice (generally computerized, like a time announcement on your telephone) reading groups of numbers aloud, in set intervals and in specific ways - for example, in groups of five. Sometimes radio phonetics are used (ie Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, hence the Wilco title). The languages used to read the numbers vary - Russian, German, English, and Spanish are clearly in the lead, but there have been any number of others as well. Sometimes Morse code is used. Sometimes other noises are used. It isn't uncommon for a station to use a snippet of distinctive music as its "call sign" (announcing that numbers are about to be read).

Some of the stations are demonstrably transmitting dummy data or no data, but some of them are definitely sending information of some kind or another. Of course, with no knowledge of methodology and possible use of the "one-time pad" (a disposable code or cipher that is used once and once only; effectively unbreakable), there is no hope of even a trained observer figuring out exactly what's being sent - which is, in its way, exactly the point.

Many of these stations were Cold War-era items; that was their heyday. But they haven't stopped. In fact, depending on who you ask, they haven't even dwindled.

I don't have a shortwave radio. I'm not even sure where I'd GET one. I'm not in the ham radio universe. But I find the topic fascinating, and apparently so do a lot of other people.

A year or two back, some indie-record and hacker types in the UK released a mammoth 4-CD set of recordings from these stations, collected over the years. This recording was called The CONET Project and it may or may not still be available. Personally, I think 4 CDs of this stuff would be a little excessive, although the samples and MP3s I've listened to so far are fascinating. If I get anything from CONET it will be a printout of the eighty-page booklet that came with the CDs. This, along with Simon Mason's Secret Signals (which is downloadable as a Word document from the author), is a wonderful place to begin finding out more if you are interested.

Simon Mason's page is really the place to start. It links virtually every vital page on the subject, including many pages with samples. At the bottom of the page, you'll find plenty of samples on his site as well. Some of the broadcasts are tedious, some creepy, some both.

Some of them have become famous in ham-radio circles and have been given distinctive names, which I like better than the letter-and-number code the ENIGMA people used. (ENIGMA refers not to the legendary crypto project - heh, geekiness within geekiness - but to a now mostly defunct organization which existed to classify such stations, and pass information and news among enthusiasts.) Many of these names derive from their "call signs" or lead-in signals.

For example, the "Lincolnshire Poacher" begins its transmissions with a few bars of the British folk song of the same name - which, thanks to today's audio tour, I now have running in my head. The "Three-Note Oddity" begins with three tones that sound like the ones you hear on American telephones when you get the "Sorry, that number has been disconnected" message. It's an oddity because ... well, for a lot of reasons. The "Romanian Skylark," now defunct, played a famous Gypsy-style piece (for quite a while - about six minutes of it!) at the beginnings of its broadcasts. "Papa November" is what the woman said at the beginning of those broadcasts - famous among enthusiasts for various reasons, and even immortalized in verse. "The Buzzer" is obviously named. The "Strich" stations are named for the word "strich" (German for "stroke" i.e. "slash") that is used in between numbers. There are many, many more. (Mason's site has pages for all these, but watch out for the fairly heavy shortwave jargon.)

Sometimes these stations intrude upon the public consciousness to some small degree, mostly when they happen to interfere with other transmissions. Since most of them happen in a radio band that is off-limits for normal uses (as I understand it), only shortwave enthusiasts tend to notice them. But sometimes things happen.

The most notorious example of this was something that wasn't actually a numbers station at all. It was an interference phenomenon called the "Russian Woodpecker." I can't find a sample of it yet, but it was apparently an insistent and loud tap-tap-tap noise. Brian Rogers writes:

"This signal, probably the most powerful signal ever to be heard on the shortwave bands, consisted of complex pulsing signals which continued for hours on end.

"... Although the frequency use varied, no part of the shortwave spectrum was free from this incredibly strong signal, much of which was rendered unusable for long periods of time. The use of Direction Finding equipment traced the signals to the area of Gomel, Russia.

"Severe interference was caused to both professional and amateur users of the bands, and official complaints were lodged by many countries [mostly due to interference with aircraft communications, apparently -c].

"Speculation about the purpose of the signals ranged from submarine communication to weather control, even mind control and mood changing! However, the general consensus finally arrived at a form of Over-The Horizon radar system - something the West was experimenting with too!

"Having caused havoc for so long, the signals finally ceased."

This is a signal that was jammed insistently, often by shortwave users who were annoyed with it. Apparently jamming shortwave is fairly easy, in theory at least - get on the same frequency and send a properly timed pulse or signal back. The problem is the timing. With specialized equipment for jamming, it becomes much easier. The Lincolnshire Poacher, still broadcasting and possibly the best-analyzed of the numbers stations, is almost always jammed these days - but there it is done by someone professional who doesn't want the message to arrive, as opposed to amateurs who are annoyed because they can't hear anything else.

I may order the Numbers Racket CD-ROM, which contains not only samples but information - that seems more my speed than the CONET discs - and if I do, I will hear the Russian Woodpecker there. It is now officially a historical artifact.

So is there a point to all this? Not really, no. Does there need to be?

I suppose my fascination is because, as opposed to all manner of secret signals and other espionage activity which is merely a shadowy rumor, this stuff is out where it can be heard and documented by the layman. A peek into a universe that we don't normally get to see.

But one interesting side effect has occurred: Contemplating these transmissions no longer gives me the creeps. For some reason, knowing the extent to which these have been heard and documented - knowing some of the theories and speculations - helps demystify it for me in a way that Poundstone did not.

Oh, sure, it's still an unknown quantity. But now it's a known unknown quantity, if you will.

And now you know about it too.