Imagine you are a ham radio enthusiast, alone at night, idly working your way through the radio spectrum when you come across a broadcast on a disused shortwave transmitter, where there is normally only static electricity.
The broadcast is a tune, or a buzz, or sometimes cartoon character Yosemite Sam saying, “Varmint, I’m going bbb-bloooow ya ta’smithereenies” (yes, really), followed by a series of numbers read out by a human or synthesized voice, on a bed of static electricity for extra “I may never sleep again” vibes.
If you want to experience the broadcast live, you can do so with ham radios that are close enough to the source, or a YouTube livestream like the one below.
They are generally believed (and sometimes confirmed) to be a way to send coded instructions from states to agents in the field. Sometimes they broadcast on a fixed schedule, sometimes seemingly at random, and they have scared people all over the world without limiting themselves to one language.
A particularly alarming theory about one number station – “MDZhB”, also known as “UVB-76” and “The Buzzer” – is that it is being used as a “Dead Hand” signal. The station broadcasts a constant monotone tone, interrupted every few seconds by a foghorn-like sound, and occasionally by a Russian voice issuing messages such as “Ya UVB-76, Ya UVB-76. 180 08 BROMAL 74 27 99 14. Boris, Roman, Olga, Mikhail, Anna, Larisa 7 4 2 7 9 9 1 4”.
The ‘Dead Hand’ theory suggests that you really need to worry about when the signal stops. If true, the monotone is present as a kind of “everything’s fine” alarm, à la The Simpsons. Should the signal cease for a period of time due to a nuclear attack – according to this unverified theory – an automatic nuclear response would be triggered.
But the station did stop broadcasting for a day in 2010, before resuming normal broadcasting the following day. It stopped several more times that same year, with people reporting hearing people moving around the room in the background of the broadcast. During this time the station played classic bangers Swan Lake, and the number station appears to have moved locations.
You will notice that during this period not a single Dead Hand system has launched a nuclear attack. Instead, it continues to broadcast intermittently, suggesting that this is not the channel’s goal (or that they switched to a more reliable broadcast system, for die-hard fans of the “it’s to kill everyone” hypothesis).
One plausible idea is that the Russian government is simply confiscating the frequency for emergency use.
“If they don’t actually use it, someone will poach it,” David Stupples, an expert on surveillance and space exploration, told Popular Mechanics. “The band is so busy that people are looking for a little opportunity for their own channel… They keep the channel available by broadcasting and saying, ‘This is ours.'”
Other stations have been confirmed to be used to broadcast messages to spies in the field, with one in Cuba being a notable example. The advantage of sending the messages this way is that while you may be able to figure out where the signal is coming from, it is virtually impossible to discover who they are intended for and who is receiving them. The downside, as Cuba would discover, is that once someone – say, the FBI – intercepts the cipher, they can continue unraveling your messages from there.
Some of the messages would be revealed in an FBI lawsuit reported by the Miami New Times, which says they “prioritize and continue to strengthen the friendship with Joe and Dennis” and “under no circumstances should [agents] Neither German nor Castor are flying with BTTR or any other organization on days 24, 25, 26 and 27”. Classic spy stuff, but also: “Congratulations to all female comrades on International Women’s Day”, which is just basic manners.