This is an odd one and, if you listen to the samples, just a little bit spooky too.
http://www.damninteresting.com/number-stations/
Number Stations
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Magpie Jane
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Weird they are. Very.
I remember these mysterious messages on the shortwave, during the 1950es (early Cold War years).
Matt Merritt has a wonderful poem about the phenomenon: "Request Hour at the Numbers Station".
You can see it here: http://www.ninearchespress.com/Hydrodak ... xtract.pdf . . . on page 30.
Jane
Everything looks better by candlelight, everything sounds more plausible on the shortwave.
I remember these mysterious messages on the shortwave, during the 1950es (early Cold War years).
Matt Merritt has a wonderful poem about the phenomenon: "Request Hour at the Numbers Station".
You can see it here: http://www.ninearchespress.com/Hydrodak ... xtract.pdf . . . on page 30.
Jane
Everything looks better by candlelight, everything sounds more plausible on the shortwave.
Everything looks better by candlelight.
Everything sounds more plausible on the shortwave.
Everything sounds more plausible on the shortwave.
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Antcliff
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Jane,
that poem by Merritt was just the thing.
they must have been even odder as a child...but fun.
seth
that poem by Merritt was just the thing.
they must have been even odder as a child...but fun.
seth
We fray into the future, rarely wrought
Save in the tapestries of afterthought.
Richard Wilbur
Save in the tapestries of afterthought.
Richard Wilbur
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Magpie Jane
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Seth,
Odd, yes. For an imaginative eight-year-old the Number Stations were a powerful fertiliser of fantasies. At one point I seriously considered the possibility they might be secret messages from God. I even discussed the matter (briefly) with my grand-aunt who was a Major in the Salvation Army.
Ach, ye saints and prophets of Motala, Hilversum, and all the other esoteric stations . . . where are you now?
Perhaps I'll write about them some day.
Jane
Odd, yes. For an imaginative eight-year-old the Number Stations were a powerful fertiliser of fantasies. At one point I seriously considered the possibility they might be secret messages from God. I even discussed the matter (briefly) with my grand-aunt who was a Major in the Salvation Army.
Ach, ye saints and prophets of Motala, Hilversum, and all the other esoteric stations . . . where are you now?
Perhaps I'll write about them some day.
Jane
Everything looks better by candlelight.
Everything sounds more plausible on the shortwave.
Everything sounds more plausible on the shortwave.
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bodkin
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Wow, I remember these.
I think that soviet-era spy activities is the best explanation, if you tuned-in to the Moscow overseas broadcasts they had something of the same nature, attention-grabbing snatches of music, or sequences of xylophone notes, followed by messages of encouragement for possibly imaginary "comrades" in various places. But <ComputerScience>the bandwidth must have been minute</ComputerScience> just enough to say "carry on" or "come home".
I'll go read that poem now... and probably wish I had thought of it first.
Ian
I think that soviet-era spy activities is the best explanation, if you tuned-in to the Moscow overseas broadcasts they had something of the same nature, attention-grabbing snatches of music, or sequences of xylophone notes, followed by messages of encouragement for possibly imaginary "comrades" in various places. But <ComputerScience>the bandwidth must have been minute</ComputerScience> just enough to say "carry on" or "come home".
I'll go read that poem now... and probably wish I had thought of it first.
Ian
http://www.ianbadcoe.uk/