All Night Geeks Episode 8: Numbers Stations OR Le Freq So Chic

Night of the Living Geeks

Imagine yourself in a dark room in the middle of the night. Your only source of light is the glow of the shortwave radio before you. Your headphones are filled with static as you slowly creep along the dial. Amongst the background hiss are chirps, warbles, the occasional faint staccato rhythm of morse code. And then you stumble across a female voice calmly, almost robotically, calling off a series of numbers and letters from the phonetic alphabet. Just as quickly as you catch it, the transmission ends and is replaced by an eerie piece of music or channel marker. Aside from the creep factor for the casual listener, Numbers Stations have for decades provided a nearly uncrackable code for both military and espionage purposes. Join us this month as we dial in the weird and discuss some of our favorite numbers stations. And a quick word of warning. If you’re listening to this episode on headphones, maybe turn us down a couple notches because some of the samples we’re going to play tonight have sudden loud bursts of noise. Consider yourselves warned.