SpyNumbers.com

“59372 98324 19043 78903 95320…”. The mechanized female voice drones on and on… What have you stumbled on to? Instructions to spies? Messages exchanged between drug dealers? Deliberate attempts at deception and mis-information?

Chances are, all of the above! What you’ve tuned in to is called a “Spy Numbers Station”. They’ve been on the air for several decades, and only recently have the mysteries started to unfold. But there’s still much we don’t know about these mysterious stations. With the information on these pages, you’ll discover the little that we do know about these stations, what we’re still trying to learn, and how you too can tune in to the spies.

Wikipedia has this to say about Number Stations: “In the mid-twentieth century, the HF radio bands held numerous stations sending seemingly random Morse code, usually in five-letter groups. As more advanced communications methods, such as teletype and satellite, took over, the number of such stations diminished, but another type appeared that transmitted spoken and also seemingly random number and letter groups, the later usually using words from a phonetic alphabet such as ICAO/NATO alphabet.

Though there has been no official confirmation (beyond one comment from a British official saying “they are what you think they are”) there is little doubt that most of these number stations are primarily used to send messages to spies and other clandestine agents (additional possible uses include communication with embassies when a crisis might dictate destruction of cryptographic equipment and as a backup to normal command systems in wartime). Other intended recipients of secret broadcasts have faster and easier-to-use equipment at their disposal. But number stations are ideal for spies in that they require no special equipment, beyond a short-wave receiver. Morse code skills, once a staple of spy training, are no longer required.”

Check out SpyNumbers.com for more information on these strange Shortwave radio transmissions.